Postcards from Perkistan

While we quietly work away on our iPhone app here in Perkler HQ (yes it’s coming and yes it will be relevant to making your loyalty shopping easier), we thought we would take a look at a couple of loyalty apps that are on the market already and take them for a spin.

To be frank, the tie in between retailers and loyalty on the phone is pretty lean. While there are plenty of loyalty services companies developing technology, Australian retailers still seem reluctant to link perks to purchasing in the mobile space.

Let’s hope loyalty gets its act together and starts getting out there with the Lasoo and Get Prices of the world!

And if you’ve come across a loyalty app let us know all about it, we’ll happily take a look.

For the moment, here are a couple we’ve been impressed with.

Flybuys - iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad

In all honesty we’ve been really impressed with the work the Flybuys team have been doing over recent months. The launch of Everyday Rewards has really kicked the market along and the result is a revitalisation of competing programs.

The app itself has everything you would expect from a coalition points program. The basic menu covers stores, rewards and points balances.

Set up can take a little while as you need to establish a password to keep authentication secure - but that seems a small price to pay for an updated points balance. And that’s one of the great pieces of information - not just current points but importantly when they expire - critical if you want to make sure you use them effectively.

The wishlist section is clear and allows you to set up goals so that you know what you are ‘earning’ towards, and the store locator is a neat feature with so many brands available under the one program.

All in all a nice little package.

Choice Hotels - iPhone and PDA / “standard” mobile phone platforms

Hotel Chains are perfectly placed to take advantage of the app market. With multiple brands, multiple locations and last minute booking all the ingredients are there for a great app. Choice Australia utilises its international connections to bring you a comprehensive app across multiple platforms.

You can search hotels from 10 brands - that’s an enormous range to choose from - and then make reservations. Importantly from a loyalty point of view you can access your account (it throws you to a secure but clunky webpage) so that you can see point balance and redeem straight from that balance.

With the range of hotels these guys have this is GPS heaven - and the loyalty account tie in ticks all the right boxes for us. A bit more design work on the web pages and it would be the total package!

So that’s two…

I guess the development required for an app and tying in loyalty is a reasonable investment, but surely linking earn and particularly burn  to the point of purchase is a critical part of the modern retailer’s armoury.

I can only assume Everyday Rewards, Qantas and lots of others are working on their mobile malls now…Would be interesting to know what their thoughts on this channel and how it links to loyalty are.

As far as we go, we are putting the final touches to our app - which in true Perkler style will seek to bring your whole wallet to life, more on ‘Perky Shopper’ soon.

Our Twitter account @perkler and my personal one @justinbarrie follows @mediapost a tweet of all of the news coming from MediaPost Publications.

An article recently caught my eye from Online Media Daily. Gavin O’Malley was writing about the ‘line between media channels becoming increasingly blurred’. He quotes a range of statistics released in a report by Ketchum Public Relations that showed 44% of online shoppers read reviews from other consumers as part of their decision making process when purchasing.

As a result lots of small (and some huge) social communities have sprung up around specific consumer interest points. Interestingly a larger number of these people are now also broadening their reading to related blogs rather than just the comments and recommendations on a specific page.

None of this sounds entirely new - and frankly I don’t really see how this is different to how people shop offline either. I do tend to get recommendations from friends before I buy something big.

It’s more the dramatic increase in numbers and realisation that it is happening online that are interesting. In fact I remember reading something from the NRF around Christmas time about sites that have recommendations and reviews maintaining or improving their Christmas sales while others fell away.

And it’s exactly what we’ve been aware of and building on here at Perkler. When we say we are an online loyalty COMMUNITY, I can see some people reel and sigh “another 2.0″. But in the mission of simplifying loyalty programs, giving consumers power to manage and learn about everything they are entitled to - there seems little other option!

Our community features include rating and commenting. We’ve also built in functions where you can see other people’s virtual wallets (if they allow it) and we think that facilitates a really nice informal recommendation process.

But another exciting development is to start bringing content about brands from blogs and twitter directly into our space. We are working hard on this and think the blurring of media that Gavin O’Malley talks about will be there for all to see in our community.

People suggesting, rating and recommending programs to others. Feeds of anything people say about brands and programs on other social networks built in. A great consumer resource, and one that is responsive to how people are actually starting to shop.

Razorfish has an excellent market commentary report focusing on the consumer experience and how technology affects today’s consumer experience.

The big take-out?…”Brands will need to create content that engages and “reaches” consumers across channels, provide valuable services over mere advertising and master an increasingly complicated and expansive content distribution model. And, of course, they will need to rethink the way they create relationships (or conversations) with consumers before it’s too late.”

I’ll list some pretty compelling stats that they use to back this up:

• 40% of survey respondents said they have made a purchase based on advertising they saw on a social media site. And the vast majority welcome advertising in social media experiences—76% of all consumers think a wide range brands like Nike, Virgin and Bank of America should advertise in social media.

• The majority of survey respondents (75%) indicate they spend at least one hour a week on these properties, with a large number (19%) spending more than seven hours a week on social networking sites.

• The large majority of consumers (61%) rely on user reviews for product information and research, with a much smaller group (15%) preferring editorial reviews.

• According to our survey, the same number of consumers (65%) indicate loyalty programs that offer “points,” discount incentives or discounted shipping for multiple purchases (e.g. Amazon’s Prime) highly influence purchase decisions. Loyalty services—such as Best Buy’s Rewards Zone, Amazon Prime, and others—are key if retailers are to thrive in an increasingly competitive digital environment.

• While the vast majority of connected consumers have standard mobile handsets, 26% have smartphones

• Today’s connected consumers are equally distributed across all age ranges, with a slight skew to older segments. No longer are we seeing Internet technology adoption rates limited to only certain segments. Our study found widespread acceptance of these new service offering and finds older consumers much more likely to spend money online.

• All signs point to the continuing disintegration of “one-stop” digital destinations, at least as far as consumers are concerned. We’ve found that they don’t want a one-size-fits-all solution for their needs. Consumers prefer using multiple destinations, and then aggregating media and services, via simple tools like RSS, into a highly personalized view of their digital world.

• We expect to see greater reliance on social media to influence purchasing in the near future and not just from friends, but also from brands. This might even come full circle, shortly, where brands will regain some modicum of control and credibility if they can figure out how to play meaningfully in this space moving forward.

Some really interesting stuff. We here at perkler have backed our product based on the same views which is refreshing…we aren’t the only ones! What is crazy from our experience is the average Joe Blow marketer for ABC Brand who not only thinks he is doing a good job embracing digital media, but when asked on his/her strategy replies with confidence that his “team” is all over email, and are currently looking into SMS!

Wake up and smell the rewards flavoured coffee! Engage with users on their current level and as Jus noted in the previous post…return on customer loyalty will be exponential.

Razorfish’s excellent blog can be found here http://www.digitaldesignblog.com/. highly recommended reading, as is their report.

Dan

Ok so I was out shopping at David Jones last night. Yes yes, my preferred tuesday night activity. Thats what I told my wife Jo as we were walking around doing our Christmas shopping during a special David Jones Cardholder night.

What I loved about it though was the perks on offer. Pretty much 30% of everything in the store. This is what Perkler is about and when we are fully up and running all perklers who love DJ’s would know of these nights and be kept up to date on the details right here at perkler.com.

The bonus plan from last night was the introduction of David Jones’ association with American Express and I have to say, I am a believer…from a perks perspective anyway.

Here’s the skinny on the deal offered last night…Sign up to the new DJ’s Amex and convert over from your standard DJ’s card, spend a little money on the night and a little when you get the new card…and $150 in vouchers are yours. Pretty easy, interest free period is better than the old card, and to boot, if you love DJ’s every $ spent on the new Amex earns you points towards DJ’s gift vouchers…and its a generous earn rate, at least initially.

Suffice to say we indulged in a lot of purchasing, or should I say I followed the seasoned veteran around and helped.

I’ll be updating DJ’s listing here in perkler soon to account for the new card and program, and when we are fully live these are the sort of perk updates that you can expect from perkler…ones that really add value, are timely, and highlight extra perks you can get from the brands you love.