Imagine commuting home and pre-ordering and paying for your Indian take-away via your phone. Walk in, pick up your meal at a set time; no credit cards and certainly no cash. A text simply confirms your order and approved payment credentials. Payment is made via a mobile coupon and the charge appears on your mobile phone bill not your credit card bill.
A huge cultural change is imminent in how restaurants and hotels take orders, payment or do stock control. The way staff track orders, consumers pay for goods and CRM/Loyalty schemes are conducted will shift from paper and plastic to mobile screens.
To see the potential of pre-order/pre-pay by text, look no further than companies like readyping.com or txtandtell, developed by touch-works.com. For the operator, built in loyalty schemes and live data on spend-per-head, voucher redemption and impulse marketing are standard software options.
These are not APPS but a personal non-verbal link to your favourite restaurants/hotels/retailers. Take a good long look at corethree.net and appreciate where independent operators could take this.
If specific programs are being written for mobile phones, then clever, practical and unique programs will evolve. Take a look at ywaiter.com this is already evolving into a fully integrated system.
Franchisepayments.net is a very clear leader and clever mobile phone system allowing franchise brands to attract orders by phone, but with payment processes also. Again viral marketing is built in which even tracks lapsed users and reminds them “they” have not visited in X number of days.
| United Airlines E-Ticket example | A QR (Quick Read) Code | ||
No longer needing paper tickets to identify you, the power of QR Codes (Quick Read Codes) or pixel formats is set to change the way travel and hospitality operates.
Pixel Codes, these new square chequered boxes we’re seeing increasingly in advertisements, on products and in our newspapers can hold millions of pieces of data and incorporate CRM/Loyalty programmes.
The potential challenge for the till providers is that most of these mobile systems are free - no infrastructure costs, no maintenance fees and no hardware to break down. The user pays for the system through their mobile/text charges. In Finland, already advanced in mobile pre-order, the first €20 for goods can be charged to your phone not your credit card, so buying fast food, paying for parking, ordering drinks goes to the mobile phone bill. In France this is now €10. This obviously challenges the credit card companies and the banks hold on this sector. What will they do to combat the threat to their own revenue streams?
Paying for parking, lattes and fast food via your mobile phone and having loyalty built in is now commonplace in Kenya and Thailand. No fixed till points, your payment acknowledged by any employee anywhere with a 3G phone as the new device for taking orders, receiving payment and issuing you loyalty. No doubt there will be more to follow on this interesting subject.
Article written by Stephen Minall stephen@movingfood.co.uk whose company Moving Food Ltd specialises in the development of brands and product solutions for retail and foodservice companies www.movingfood.co.uk
