Offering mobile payments capabilities enable companies to build relationships with their customers as well as providing them with a convenient payment option, Kevin Vine, interactive manager of Dunkin’ Donuts, told an audience during a panel discussion at the 5th Mobile Contactless Payments Innovations Conference in Chicago on Tuesday.
John Theiss, vice president of merchant sales for ISIS, agreed that one of the major values in providing consumers with a mobile payments app is providing them with choice – they can still choose other payment options, but with mobile they don’t have to fumble for cash or a payment card.
Yet 90 percent of the value of the app is outside of the payments capability, according to Theiss. The apps also help companies build loyalty programs and help companies gather customer data.
“You create value in building relationships,” Vine said. “The value [to the consumer] is in providing payment convenience and we build on that. We want to make payment as easy as possible for our customers. It’s a complicated marketplace. There are new market entrants all of the time.”
Dukin’ Donuts rolled out its own mobile app in mid-August. The app includes payment capabilities with any Dunkin' Donuts card stored in the phone.
“It’s still in development; it will always be in development,” Vine said, pointing out that payments will continue to evolve.
The Merchant Customer Exchange Tuesday announced that Dunkin' Brands, the parent company of Dunkin' Donuts and Baskin-Robbins, has committed to the mobile-commerce solution.
Development of MCX's mobile platform is underway, with initial focus on offering consumers and merchants a mobile-commerce solution that seamlessly integrates payments with a wide range of offers, promotions and services through virtually any smartphone.
Dunkin’ is currently in the process of rolling out a revamped loyalty program, currently in beta testing, that is expected to be launched at the beginning of 2013. The company expects to include social media and other options. Dukin’ has 7.3 million Facebook fans and an active community of Twitter followers.
The company’s previous loyalty program, featuring a traditional plastic card, ended in 2011.
“It’s all about the customer experience,” agreed Donnie Diaz, director of information systems for Jamba Juice. As a small retailer, it was essential that Jamba use a mobile app that offered several payment options. The company does not have the same financial wherewithal as a company like Starbucks that entered a partnership with Square earlier this year.
Diaz added that Jamba will wait to see how the market evolves before it starts favoring one mobile payment technology over another.