ACT launches smart rewards system for hospitality and retail?
Smart card and electronic solutions company Applied Card Technologies (ACT) has launched Gel Rewards, a loyalty and rewards solutions suite aimed at the hospitality and retail sectors.
The system is a one stop solution that aims to provide all the elements required by any organisation to quickly scope and launch a dynamic reward-based loyalty programme, integrated fully into their EPOS environment.
The solutions are supported via a managed ASP model. ACT hosts the back office and provides links to deliver all the requirements for a loyalty scheme, customer enrollment, card fulfillment, award and redemption as well as full scheme management. GEL loyalty systems can support all card media, magnetic, smart contact and contactless as well as vouchers and other smart media such as key fobs and also NFC devices.
ACT says a key feature of the system is that loyalty scheme-based awards and redemptions can be dynamically delivered at the EPOS system without any manual intervention by the EPOS operator. Individual customer preferences and hence award criteria are verified and delivered from the back office system at the start of any sales cycle.
If the customer has reached an award level based, for example on a specific frequency metric, the loyalty card or token is automatically appended to the purchase transaction in the EPOS software when it is presented to the EPOS. An unlimited number of individual awards and offers can be set up in the back office and delivered dynamically in this fashion linked to the individual profile of the consumer.
Every transaction can deliver a tailored message (email or text) to the card holder confirming the last transaction with either a call to action or new award or offer to drive further repeat business and deliver a solid retention model.
After every transaction a full history based on actual items purchased or consumed is stored along within the customer historical database of the dynamic reward allocations. This allows the organisation to run and closely measure the success or failure of a specific campaign using the loyalty system.
Nigel Cullum, commercial director at ACT, commented: “Gel Rewards lends itself perfectly towards the hospitality sector where we have already received a lot of interest and we already have our first client for this release.”