Enables consumer use of convenience retailers’ loyalty programs without card
ARLINGTON, Texas—The Pinnacle Corp. has announced the launch of a new feature for their suite of loyalty products, a Pinnacle Loyalty iPhone App that allows consumers to use their iPhone as their loyalty card.
The Pinnacle Loyalty iPhone App enables convenience store retailers with Pinnacle Loyalty Solutions to offer a branded iPhone app to their loyalty consumers, complete with their customized program’s logo and branding. Consumers will download the retailer’s customized app from the Apple iTunes App Store and configure their loyalty account number, then when they checkout at the register they simply launch the App and scan the barcode on their phone to earn and receive their loyalty rewards.
Pinnacle’s new app is expected to reduce the need for retailers to distribute physical loyalty cards to some consumer segments, saving a considerable expense component of their loyalty program. The app is expected to increase program adoption and reduce account breakage within a group of potential consumers, namely the youth and teen demographic, as those groups don’t have a need for the typical magstripe encoded cards used at the dispenser.
“We are excited to offer this turn-key technology to the industry and our clients, driving more value to the loyalty solutions we offer to convenience petroleum retailers,” said Drew Mize, vice president of product management and marketing at Pinnacle. “We’re seeing an increasing number of retailers in our space taking individual responsibility to build smart phone apps for their consumers, we believe providing this end-to-end solution will help our loyalty solutions clients save money and increase the adoption rates of their loyalty programs.”
Pinnacle plans to refine the Pinnacle Loyalty iPhone App over time, as it opens the door for more ties to the consumer via text messaging or social networking services. Pinnacle is also considering versions of the app to support other popular smart phone devices.
Pinnacle’s Loyalty is a complete suite of consumer-focused tools. With a common database at the home office and complete real-time integration with the POS, customers can take advantage of a loyalty program’s benefits regardless of which store they shop. With patent protected technology only available from Pinnacle, combine any and all loyalty programs onto the same loyalty card.
Benefits include:
- Instant Rewards - Improve customer visit frequency and spend amounts by evaluating spending habits and building new programs based on those habits.
- Pump Authorization - There’s nothing less convenient than requiring cash-paying customers to come into the store twice to purchase fuel, but rising fuel prices and in many cases, local laws require pre-pay only dispensers. It enables customers with a card to arm a dispenser, then post-pay.
- Self-Hosted Pre-Paid - Sell and support proprietary branded prepaid service.
- Patent Protected Technology - Patent protected technology enables retailers to offer one, two, three, or even all four Pinnacle Loyalty features on the same card.
- ACH Payments - Eliminates the credit-card fee portion of the transaction by arming customers with a card that is tied to their bank account, and the fee to process the transaction drops to as low as 17 cents per transaction.
In other company news, Pinnacle has launched its latest addition to its EPM business intelligence solution, now supporting the VeriFone Sapphire Point-of-Sale system. The introduction of this new POS interface into EPM gives VeriFone Sapphire retailers access to a business intelligence solution that accesses data at a transaction level, providing the enterprise with up-to-the-minute information.
“We are excited to add this interface in response to an increasing number of requests from our clients and prospects wanting to employ our EPM solution within their businesses that use the Sapphire POS. We are thrilled to add VeriFone’s Sapphire system to our list of supported POS systems and plan to continue in this vein,” said Jane Sinn Gabriel, Pinnacle retail solutions manager.
Pinnacle’s Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) is business intelligence at its best. Offering a browser-based platform that supports an array of reporting options including email, text, html, flash and mobile reporting; this modular set of tools collects and analyzes store data showing trends and exceptions to make decisions fast. Critical data can be accessed in near real-time on web-enabled devices in the home office or while the user travels.
Features:
- Fast, Flexible, Scalable. Symphony.epm is a customizable business intelligence solution that can be used from any location, by all departments and levels of personnel in your business.
- Easy Access. Symphony.epm provides the infrastructure to deliver critical business metrics to the right people. It includes a database of consolidated transaction data along with a data movement tool that seamlessly transports your stores’ scan data into a fully accessible centralized database in real-time.
- Customizable. Offering a modular set of tools, Symphony.epm is designed to help you better manage your business from a strategic, tactical, and operational perspective. The analytics are geared to identify outlying data and help you proactively reduce loss and increase profit. The modules include essential and advanced versions of retail merchandising, loss prevention, operations, executive fuel solutions, and customer relationship management. Adapt the solution to answer your key requirements.
Arlington, Texas-based Pinnacle is a leader in the automation technology industry focusing on the rapidly evolving convenience store and petroleum industries. Pinnacle delivers products that automate the broad spectrum of convenience store operations and supply-chain management of fuel operations. Nationwide, Pinnacle’s products and services are used daily in thousands of convenience outlets to automate and improve their store operations and by fuel marketers to increase their efficiency in the complex management of fuel delivery.