3g-g
22nd April 2005, 03:40 PM
Just an interesting article that I found, with the networks pushing loyalty on their GSM offerings I wonder if it's too early to ask this question for the first UMTS subscribers.
Read the original article here. (http://www.netimperative.com/2005/04/22/loyalty-and-3g/view)
Loyalty means "showing firm or constant support or allegiance to a person or institution" - but can 3G rescue retailers from our disloyalty?
Loyalty. The dictionary tells me it means "showing firm or constant support or allegiance to a person or institution". On that basis, there's not a lot of it about - even though you can hardly move these days for loyalty cards.
The trouble is, we aren't loyal. According to some research conducted for the applications developer Impaq, more than half of us are "fed up" with "loyalty card clutter", a third of us leave the cards at home (by default in my case; I can't find them), one-fifth never redeem their points, and more than half don't keep track of their loyalty points.
Yet about three-quarters of us are never without our mobile phone, the research says.
The conclusion that Impaq reached: we should put loyalty systems onto our mobile phones. And that that would give 3G a leg up by changing peoples' attitudes to applications on that platform.
Now, the logic is compelling, but I think there might be a flaw in it. The problem being that loyalty cards can't give us the rewards we really want: things like better service, preferential treatment, and a sunny disposition in the morning.
Instead they offer us discounts on "rewards" we might only marginally want. The Guardian last week calculated that you have to spend £1,000 to get a £10 bottle of suntan lotion as your "reward" from one of the major supermarkets.
It's reminiscent of the school sports equipment scheme run by a big chocolate maker, which you'd have to guzzle so many chocolate bars and crisps that you'd barely be able to run after the ball.
And don't get me started on Tesco's Computers For Schools scheme. Those have to be the most gold-plated computers outside a defence ministry. Every £10 spent gets you a token; collect a few thousand tokens, get your school or nursery a "free" PC. Free? You do the maths.
Matt Studholme, managing director of Impaq UK, argues that the problem with loyalty schemes in the past is that they don't have any mechanism for feedback. Green Shield Stamps? You just collected and redeemed them. They died out, with an unsuccessful resurrection. Now supermarket loyalty cards risk going the same way.
Mobile loyalty could be a different beast, argues Studholme, because it would give you the chance to tell the supermarket what you'd prefer - better service, such as a faster checkout queue, or insider access to what's coming up in the fashion department, or just plain discounts. And maybe there'd be an option to say what you like and don't like about your supermarket.
Is your mind fizzing with excitement about the possibilities? Then stop, and consider how you'd implement it.
Let's say I'd prefer better service rather than a discount: I'd like to get through the checkout faster. Do you, the shop manager, have a dedicated till for such people? How do you police it? Look at how many people go through the "ten items of less" lane with more than ten items. Try to restrict a till to people who have a particular mobile phone with a specific voucher code, and you'll have a near-riot on Saturday morning in Colindale.
Well, perhaps you could give those "better service" people access to particular parking slots. Again, isn't going to work. Or if you grit your teeth and make it work - by putting in barriers operated by, say, Bluetooth, that let "service loyalists" into the magic service corral of the car park - the cost will far exceed any loyalty that you breed.
The reality is that we're a nation of loyalty tarts. The survey for Impaq found that two-thirds of us have loyalty cards without any real affinity with the supplier that provides them.
After all, look at how we behave in other contexts. People switch products at the drop of a hat. Credit card companies are just catching up with the "rate tarts" who would swap from one zero-percent credit card to another. If you've got a mortgage and haven't changed it in the past five years, you're unusual. People are moving to virtual network operators like easyMobile and Virgin with vigour.
Impaq's study also asked a group of 659 people what their "top ten wishlist" of 3G applications would be. Unprompted, they suggested that 3G phones could be used for mobile coupon redemption; paying for parking meters; loyalty cards; storing season tickets; use as credit and debit cards; flight check-ins (as FinnAir already does); paying for vending machines; retail checkout payment; "marketing communications" (which wasn't explained further); and unlocking your house or car.
There are just two flies in this apparently soothing ointment for the network operators eager to pay off their £22 billion 3G investment. First, you can do almost all of those things already using GPRS or even GSM.
And second is the item that was excluded, even though nearly 40 per cent chose it. That was "nothing at all". People honestly couldn't think why they'd want to use 3G.
That seems to be a big problem. You can't get people to be loyal to something they don't even want to use. I think there's still a long haul ahead of the 3G operators.
Read the original article here. (http://www.netimperative.com/2005/04/22/loyalty-and-3g/view)
Loyalty means "showing firm or constant support or allegiance to a person or institution" - but can 3G rescue retailers from our disloyalty?
Loyalty. The dictionary tells me it means "showing firm or constant support or allegiance to a person or institution". On that basis, there's not a lot of it about - even though you can hardly move these days for loyalty cards.
The trouble is, we aren't loyal. According to some research conducted for the applications developer Impaq, more than half of us are "fed up" with "loyalty card clutter", a third of us leave the cards at home (by default in my case; I can't find them), one-fifth never redeem their points, and more than half don't keep track of their loyalty points.
Yet about three-quarters of us are never without our mobile phone, the research says.
The conclusion that Impaq reached: we should put loyalty systems onto our mobile phones. And that that would give 3G a leg up by changing peoples' attitudes to applications on that platform.
Now, the logic is compelling, but I think there might be a flaw in it. The problem being that loyalty cards can't give us the rewards we really want: things like better service, preferential treatment, and a sunny disposition in the morning.
Instead they offer us discounts on "rewards" we might only marginally want. The Guardian last week calculated that you have to spend £1,000 to get a £10 bottle of suntan lotion as your "reward" from one of the major supermarkets.
It's reminiscent of the school sports equipment scheme run by a big chocolate maker, which you'd have to guzzle so many chocolate bars and crisps that you'd barely be able to run after the ball.
And don't get me started on Tesco's Computers For Schools scheme. Those have to be the most gold-plated computers outside a defence ministry. Every £10 spent gets you a token; collect a few thousand tokens, get your school or nursery a "free" PC. Free? You do the maths.
Matt Studholme, managing director of Impaq UK, argues that the problem with loyalty schemes in the past is that they don't have any mechanism for feedback. Green Shield Stamps? You just collected and redeemed them. They died out, with an unsuccessful resurrection. Now supermarket loyalty cards risk going the same way.
Mobile loyalty could be a different beast, argues Studholme, because it would give you the chance to tell the supermarket what you'd prefer - better service, such as a faster checkout queue, or insider access to what's coming up in the fashion department, or just plain discounts. And maybe there'd be an option to say what you like and don't like about your supermarket.
Is your mind fizzing with excitement about the possibilities? Then stop, and consider how you'd implement it.
Let's say I'd prefer better service rather than a discount: I'd like to get through the checkout faster. Do you, the shop manager, have a dedicated till for such people? How do you police it? Look at how many people go through the "ten items of less" lane with more than ten items. Try to restrict a till to people who have a particular mobile phone with a specific voucher code, and you'll have a near-riot on Saturday morning in Colindale.
Well, perhaps you could give those "better service" people access to particular parking slots. Again, isn't going to work. Or if you grit your teeth and make it work - by putting in barriers operated by, say, Bluetooth, that let "service loyalists" into the magic service corral of the car park - the cost will far exceed any loyalty that you breed.
The reality is that we're a nation of loyalty tarts. The survey for Impaq found that two-thirds of us have loyalty cards without any real affinity with the supplier that provides them.
After all, look at how we behave in other contexts. People switch products at the drop of a hat. Credit card companies are just catching up with the "rate tarts" who would swap from one zero-percent credit card to another. If you've got a mortgage and haven't changed it in the past five years, you're unusual. People are moving to virtual network operators like easyMobile and Virgin with vigour.
Impaq's study also asked a group of 659 people what their "top ten wishlist" of 3G applications would be. Unprompted, they suggested that 3G phones could be used for mobile coupon redemption; paying for parking meters; loyalty cards; storing season tickets; use as credit and debit cards; flight check-ins (as FinnAir already does); paying for vending machines; retail checkout payment; "marketing communications" (which wasn't explained further); and unlocking your house or car.
There are just two flies in this apparently soothing ointment for the network operators eager to pay off their £22 billion 3G investment. First, you can do almost all of those things already using GPRS or even GSM.
And second is the item that was excluded, even though nearly 40 per cent chose it. That was "nothing at all". People honestly couldn't think why they'd want to use 3G.
That seems to be a big problem. You can't get people to be loyal to something they don't even want to use. I think there's still a long haul ahead of the 3G operators.