Creating the Ideal Customer Experience in Your Store

Creating the Ideal Customer Experience in Your Store:



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Have you heard of “total retail clienting?” I hadn’t either until I read the PWC whitepaper, “Taking the Total Retail Customer Experience to the Next Level.” 

Total retail clienting is technology that uses a mix of CRM, social media and data analytics to deliver real-time information about each customer to retail salespeople before the sale. PWC offers total retail clienting tools to help big retailers deliver a great experience to their customers, no matter how many locations they have.

You may be asking, “What does this have to do with my retail store?” While PWC’s retail clienting solution is clearly more than small business owners need or can afford, what I found fascinating about it is the product is meant to help big retailers recreate:

“…a time when local shopkeepers knew each and every customer who visited their stores. They knew their likes and dislikes. They knew what they needed, when they needed it.”

In other words, big retailers are turning to technology to help them act more like small retailers.

PWC says the rise of online retailing, social media and mobile technologies are driving the need for total retail clienting by enabling retail shoppers to shop 24/7 wherever they are, get more information than ever before about products they’re considering, and share their retail experiences with their networks instantly.

What It Boils Down To Is This

To create the ideal customer experience and make the sale in-store, retail salespeople are more important than ever before. PWC says:

“Friendly, helpful sales and service associates are vital to creating … moments of truth [that] keep [customers] coming back for more.”

How can you help your frontline salespeople create a total retail clienting experience?

Hire Right

Successful retailing today starts with hiring salespeople who truly like engaging with and helping people—not hiding out in the stockroom or texting all day.

Make Sure Your Employees Have the Information They Need

Hold regular meetings to keep employees up-to-date on trends in your industry, what products are in stock and when new shipments of out-of-stock items will come in.

Investigate Loyalty Management and Rewards Tools

Loyalty apps like LoyalBlocks, Belly and Perka do more than reward customers—they also collect detailed information about customer purchasing history, enable mobile marketing and make it easy to send your customers alerts and emails about products they’d be interested in. Some can even alert you when a loyal customer walks in the door and tell you the person’s name so you can greet them!

Provide the Equipment Needed to Create a Satisfying Sales Experience

Who doesn’t hate waiting in line? Enable salespeople to check out customers anywhere by providing tablets or smartphones they can use to take mobile payments. Put tablets in-store for customers to use to look up detailed info about products they’re debating between.

Create Add-On Services Employees Can Sell

This could include extended warranties or service contracts—or you can even offer to provide small repairs for free or very low cost. This can provide a sense of security and confidence the customer won’t get from buying the product online (and knowing that if something goes wrong, they’ll have to ship it somewhere to be repaired and deal with lots of hassle).

Offer Information and Extras

A friend of mine recently visited a local camera store that’s been in business for decades. After comparing products in-store, she knew she could get the camera she wanted cheaper online—but after finding out the store offered customers free photography classes with a camera purchase, she decided to buy from the retailer. You can offer freebies (like in-store poetry readings at a bookstore), freebies with purchase (like the example above) or even charge extra if what you provide is valuable enough (such as makeup lessons at a beauty supply store or cooking classes at a gourmet food store.)

How Rewards Are Running Loyalty Programs Into the Ground

How Rewards Are Running Loyalty Programs Into the Ground



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Somewhere in the hinterlands of Papua New Guinea there’s a coffee cart that doesn’t have a rewards and loyalty program. Imagine the day Anthony Bourdain eventually stumbles upon it; he will celebrate the unfettered purity of the culinary experience.

But if current trends are any indicator, the celebration will be short-lived when our intrepid explorer discovers that the owner isn’t really an icon of simpler times: He’s just waiting for his solar-powered UPC scanner to clear customs so he can launch GuineaPointz.

Reward and loyalty programs are everywhere. It’s no surprise that when you consider the commercial impact. Boosting customer retention by 5 percent can increase profits by as much as 80 percent. This is a major reason that CEOs from New York to New Guinea are creating loyalty programs in an attempt to forge stronger connections with customers.

Related: Trouble in Paradise? How to Reignite Customers' Interest in Loyalty Programs.

The fatal flaw of loyalty programs. The average American belongs to 18 different loyalty programs, and yet 77 percent of loyalty programs that focus on awards alone are failing within the first two years. The root of this problem is that there’s a big difference between human loyalty and corporate loyalty. 

Our research has shown that most companies have structured their loyalty programs in a manner that’s delivering the exact opposite of the mutually beneficial relationship consumers are seeking.

The problem stems from the fact that the corporate interpretation of loyalty bears almost no resemblance to the well understood -- and highly aspirational -- feeling that people everywhere have for their friends, family, God, country, football team and dog.  Only by reintroducing elements of human loyalty into the corporate loyalty model can companies expect to see their customers truly develop a genuine affinity for their brand and see tangible results.

Related: How to Go 'Cha-Ching' With an Affiliate Program

1. Respect your customers from Day 1. JetBlue recently announced an innovative take onrespecting new customers through its TrueBlue Mosaic Status Match program. The airline essentially invited frequent-fliers with established elite status on other airlines to switch and enjoy JetBlue’s frequent-flier perks immediately.

By placing the unique needs and experiences of these potential fliers above the rules of its established loyalty program, JetBlue has opened itself up to acquiring a whole new set of loyal customers.

2. Recognize customers' individual needs and preferences. A one-size-fits-all rewards program is much more prone to being commoditized than a personalized approach. If a customer must buy 10 ice cream cones to get a free sundae and only eight at a competitor’s, chances are a company's going to see a steady stream of customers heading across the street.

But introduce an element of personalization to the way the company runs a loyalty program and this will not only generate increased customer retention, the most loyal customers will share their positive experiences with other potential patrons.

Related: Hotel Loyalty Programs: Loyalty Not Required

3. Create a relationship that’s reciprocal. The Starwood Preferred Guest program, which my company worked on, offers an example of this principle in action. For years, SPG followed the traditional loyalty program script, resetting members' points to zero every 12 months if there wasn't any activity.

In 2012, SPG introduced the innovative concept of lifetime loyalty through its SPG Lifetime program. The lifetime loyalty concept suddenly made the entire SPG loyalty program less about what customers could accomplish in 12 months and more about their building a lifelong relationship with them.

4. Deliver frequent rewarding experiences. This would replace the concept of rewarding customers only when they reach the summit. Dangling status, perks and exciting experiences as the prize to force consumers to climb up the steep slope to earn loyalty points -- only to be knocked back down if they waver in their dedication by failing to drink the requisite number of lattes, travel enough miles or swipe their club card a sufficient number of times in a 12 month period -- is not the foundation for a sustainable program.

Instead structure a program to deliver ongoing incremental value to customers. This way, a business can maintain their loyalty and benefit from their patronage for years.

Introducing human loyalty into acorporate loyalty program means a big change. But by breaking with the belief that loyal behavior is a means to an end, a company can shift the paradigm from a transactional battle of monetary-value extraction to a relationship that delivers real bonus for the consumer and the company over the long haul. 

Hardcore Coddling: How Eleven Madison Park Modernized Elite, Old-School Service -- Grub Street New York

Hardcore Coddling: How Eleven Madison Park Modernized Elite, Old-School Service -- Grub Street New York:



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Readying the tables.Photo: Konstantin Sergeyev

At 3:30 p.m., in the back office of Eleven Madison Park, maître d' Justin Roller is Googling the names of every guest who will come in that night. It's a well-known tactic of the restaurant, an effort to be as familiar as possible with the diners. Anyone can Google some names and faces, but Roller is going deeper. "I'm looking for chef's whites and wine glasses,"  he says. A shot of a guest wearing whites means a chef is probably coming to dinner. Wine glasses signify a potential sommelier (or at least a wine geek). This is just the beginning. If, for example, Roller discovers it's a couple's anniversary, he'll then try to figure out which anniversary. If it's a birthday, he'll welcome a guest, as they walk in the door, with a "Happy Birthday." (Or, if it seems to Roller that a guest prefers to keep a low profile, "I'll let them introduce themselves to me," he says.) Even small details are useful: "If I find out a guest is from Montana, and I know we have a server from there, we'll put them together." Same goes for guests who own jazz clubs, who can be paired with a sommelier that happens to be into jazz. In other words, before customers even step through the door, the restaurant's staff has a pretty good idea of the things it can do to specifically blow their minds.

Even as chefs have become the undisputed stars of restaurants, the minor uproar over Charles Masson's recent departure from La Grenouille is a reminder that this wasn't always the case. For a long time, dinner at a nice restaurant meant crisp linens and unabashed pampering. Maîtres d'hotel and managers — stars in their own right — patrolled the room, their mere presence an assurance to diners that the evening would unfold in a most civilized fashion.

There aren't many restaurants where this level of care and attention still exists, and even fewer if you eliminate fussy French places where the service can feel like a parody of itself. But Eleven Madison Park does it as well as anyone — old-school, no-holds-barred customer pampering without overt stuffiness — so I emailed the co-owner, Will Guidara. What I wanted was to actually see how he put together a staff where every person working the dining room can seem as charming as Sirio Maccioni in his prime. Guidara invited me to come in for a few hours before service one day last week.

Sommelier Caleb Ganzer quizzes the wine staff during family meal.Photo: Konstantin Sergeyev

As you'd probably guess, management of the front of the house is as detail-oriented as anything that happens in the kitchen. It's not surprising, but it is thorough: The training manual is 97 pages long. It covers both the correct way to serve coffee and where wine glasses get set depending on whether a customer orders a bottle or pairings. FOH staffers' socks have to be a certain length. Nail polish must be in approved shades ("Bridal colors" are generally allowed). The dining-room pillows must be fluffed and creased in a very, very specific manner. And as with kitchen hiring, everyone who works in EMP's dining room starts at the very bottom, as a kitchen server, tasked with running plates and polishing silverware for hours at a time (seriously — seven people per night alternate three-hour polishing shifts). One kitchen server I met has been on the job for three weeks. She used to be a captain at Grant Achatz's restaurant Next — not exactly entry-level. Her job the afternoon I'm there is scooping granola into Mason jars to be handed out as gifts after dinner. (That night, she's assigned the dreaded prime-time 7:30 to 10:30 polishing shift.) It will likely take at least a year before she can work her way up to captain at EMP.

But that's the whole point: This weeds out anyone who won't cut it. The restaurant needs someone who has the necessary aptitude, who can be both humble and confident. Then, as general manager Kirk Kelewae tells me, the training is "about giving precision to their instincts." (Kelewae started as a kitchen server six years ago. It was his first full-time job out of college.) That means every person on the floor at any given time has devoted countless hours to learning the exact way EMP's staff does everything. Kelewae gives the example of a great sushi restaurant, where it might take an apprentice ten months to learn how to properly make the rice. "Here," he says, "it takes ten months to learn how to pour water."

The result of all this training, though, is that the restaurant has a 60-strong army of people prepared to disarm customers with their graciousness and care. As the service staff sees it, the dining room consists of four stations, broken into groups of seven or eight tables. (The entire dining room is 29 tables.) Each station gets its own dedicated four-person staff: A captain, a sommelier, a server, and an assistant server. Four people are assigned to the bar, and five get stationed at the front door. The door staff, as anyone who's been to the restaurant can tell you, is particularly effective. All that Googling pays off when the maître d' greets total strangers by name and wishes them a happy tenth anniversary before they've even taken off their coats. ("We want to evoke a sense of being welcomed home," Kelewae says.) An additional staffer is referred to as the "Dreamweaver" — like the song — tasked with handling special projects and requests from guests.

Readying the bar before service.Photo: Konstantin Sergeyev

Of course, Eleven Madison Park holds itself to the same standard as the very best restaurants in the world (and, it's worth noting, charges accordingly). Even a restaurant like La Grenouille probably doesn't have the resources, or the inclination, to hire five separate people to basically open the door and say hello or good-bye to customers.

All told, Eleven Madison Park has about 40 people working in the dining room on any given night (including an upstairs private dining room). Yet even with all these moving parts, what's truly impressive is that, as a diner, it doesn't just feel like three dozen people offering good, or even professional, service. It feels like they're working to make a connection, to really let you know there is a person looking out for you all night long. Even that connection is systemized, though, through what the restaurant calls "captain non-negotiables," a set number of dishes — at least four, but often more — spaced throughout the meal for captains to return to their designated tables and check in. The effect: Even as a small swarm of servers replace silverware, ferry nearly 20 courses, replenish water or wine, and wheel over cocktail carts, diners have a single face to associate with the meal — not unlike the customers at other restaurants who devote their loyalty to someone like Masson. (And, as Kelewae tells me, even if a captain doesn't very quickly jell with a table, the somm can take over as the lead.)

Will Guidara runs the nightly line-up.Photo: Konstantin Sergeyev

At 5 p.m., a half-hour before service, Guidara gathers the FOH staff for their daily meeting, line-up. They quickly touch on notes for the night, such as menu tweaks and what beers are on tap (the printed notes handed out to servers even detail the types of flowers that are in the dining room that night). But the meeting is less about service changes and more about rallying the troops. On the night I'm there, Guidara mentions my presence and uses it as a jumping off point to discuss Masson. Today, when all the talk of new restaurants is about the food, why, Guidara asks his staff, would customers return to a restaurant specifically for the service, the same way they might return to eat an amazing steak? What's so special about someone like Charles Masson? The answer is obvious: He makes his customers feel good. Really good. So good that they wanted to experience the exact same kind of care again and again. After making the point, Guidara looks around at his own staff: "There's nothing wrong with us being the star of the show."

Customer service is secret of The Popinjay’s success

Customer service is secret of The Popinjay’s success



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Take note, business beginners. This is how it’s done.

The gift store Popinjay, which has had a store in downtown Olympia for 27 years, has survived the ups and downs of downtown, weathered the recession, and when many businesses were adjusting to the realities of the slower economy, Popinjay produced its best year in 2010 and then had its best fourth quarter ever last year.

How did the business do it?

“If you’re going to work for me, you have to look after the customers, look after the merchandise and look after the store,” said longtime owner Janis Dean, 65. “Then I’m totally taken care of.”

But that first one — customer service — is key, said Dean, reminding business owners that it’s one of the few ways that a small, independent business can compete with a bigger business.

And she’s constantly thinking about it, even after all these years, saying she’s planning to make a change to the front counter to improve customer wait times, Dean said.

Popinjay got its start on Yelm Highway and eventually grew to as many as three stores, including about 10 years spent at Capital Mall.

The downtown store has been a fixture since 1987, she said.

Dean also has been active in downtown causes. She is a past president of the Olympia Downtown Association, serves on the Parking & Business Improvement Area board and has been involved in marketing downtown, including bringing flower baskets to downtown around Memorial Day.

“There’s something so welcoming about flowers,” she said.

Downtown, too, has had its challenges, and Dean called the current state of downtown “pretty fragile.”

Like many, she was stunned by the closure of Wind Up Here, a longtime toy store.

Still, she likes doing business downtown because she is surrounded by other independent businesses, rents are manageable and downtown store hours are good for employees who can’t work such a long day.

Downtown, she said, has a core group of supporters, but it needs more.

“We need to grow the number of supporters because normal is not quite enough for a vibrant downtown,” Dean said. “We need more support from the community at large.”

“Use it or lose it,” she added, or downtown is going to lose it’s vibrancy.

Popinjay is known for selling women’s accessories, such as jewelry, but also for the deep selection of chocolates that it sells at the front counter.

“Surprise your wife and make her melt,” said longtime customer Dennis Adams of Olympia about the chocolate. “That’s the way to do it.”

Adams has been shopping at Popinjay since the store first opened on Yelm Highway. In addition to the chocolates, he also praised the unique selection of cards, recalling that whenever he sends a card to someone, he’s inevitably asked about where he got it.

“If you want a store to remind you about why to shop in downtown Olympia, then Popinjay would be the store,” Adams said. “Dean knows you and welcomes you as part of the family. It feels good to spend money there.”

Rolf Boone: 360-754-5403
rboone@theolympian.com

Read more here: http://www.theolympian.com/2014/04/13/3084611/customer-service-is-secret-of.html#storylink=cpy

80% of Local Searches on Mobile Phones Convert [Study]

80% of Local Searches on Mobile Phones Convert [Study] 



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We’re operating in a multi-screen world, where users turn to multiple devices to find what they need. This is especially true in the world of local search, where, according to recent survey findings, 63 percent now using multiple devices to find a local business. And, 79 percent of them are mobile phone users, while 81 percent are tablet owners, according to the research.

But what are they searching for, and what do they expect to find? More importantly, do they convert? These are the questions sought to be answered by research commissioned by Neustar and 15miles, and conducted by comScore. Let’s look at a few highlights of the findings.

What People are Searching for Locally

The survey results show categories of businesses that are the most popular in local search, and no surprise, restaurants are among the top: 

According to the survey:

• Restaurants are searched for 23 percent of the time. 
• Auto service establishments and dealerships at a rate of 10 percent.
• Arts and entertainment at 9 percent.

What Results Mobile Searchers Expect

Many businesses today are looking past the initial hurdle of having a mobile-optimized site, and asking, “What content do we serve our mobile users?” Well, 65 percent of smartphone users said their searches were “driven by a need for information on the go.” 

“As a result, mobile phone and tablet searchers don’t want to be overwhelmed with content, but do expect details like addresses (mobile) and basic product/service information (mobile and tablet),” the survey announcement said. 

How Local Searches Convert

Four out of five searches via mobile devices lead to a purchase, often within a few hours, the survey said. Compared with other devices, the mobile phone showed the highest conversion rate, with nearly 80 percent of mobile phone searches ending in a purchase. 

And, nearly three out of four of those mobile phone searches that converted brought the customerinto a brick-and-mortar store. 

“This research may be our clearest indication yet of the ongoing maturation of the mobile market,” said Brian Wool, vice president of content distribution at Neustar. He added that consumers “expect a consistent and navigable search functionality that serves up exactly the depth and quality of information they need.” 

For more on the findings, here is an infographic highlighting the survey results:  

How to Fight Back Against Decreasing Facebook Visibility

How to Fight Back Against Decreasing Facebook Visibility:



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For businesses that have invested significant time and effort into cultivating a Facebook following, the recent news about the declining visibility of business Facebook posts is a major blow.

One study suggests that as recently as two months ago, just 6% of your fan base saw your posts. Experts speculate that organic exposure will drop to just 1 – 2% over time. While the move is dedicated to forcing businesses to increase advertising spend, there’s a real gap emerging in terms of what businesses can and will do.

What should businesses do when they don’t have major advertising budgets, and leaving Facebook entirely isn’t feasible?

How to Fight Decreasing Facebook Visibility

Migrate Away From Text Only Posts

While Facebook hasn’t revealed the overall extent to which algorithmic changes are impacting page visibility, they have been public on one change affecting small businesses. Text only posts have less visibility than other story types.

In a statement, Facebook said:

“This will help us show people more content they want to see. Page admins can expect a decrease in the distribution of their text status updates, but they may see some increases in engagement and distribution for other story types.”

Garner more exposure by focusing on videos, images, and link-based updates.

Follow Facebook Insights

Anecdotally, many small businesses are noting a difference in content type. For example, some have suggested that including a promotional link in a comment to an update – rather than the update itself – has resulted in more visibility and better engagement.

Watch your Facebook Insights for a more granular look at what’s impacting your business, and the kinds of content that are getting the best traction.

Encourage Followers to Visit Your Page

Algorithmic changes are having an effect on what information followers see in their newsfeeds. You still control the real estate on your page, however.

The best Facebook strategies will make use of Timeline tools such as custom tabs and highlighted posts. It’s also important to find ways to encourage fans to regularly visit your page. Competitions and exclusive content are two approaches that can keep fans engaged over time.

Run the Numbers

How valuable are your Facebook followers? Look at your analytics to better understand whether these customers have an impact on your bottom line.

If Facebook as a network sends you customers that tend to make purchases and a decline in this traffic flow will cause your business to take a hit, it’s time to evaluate your advertising options.

Depending on the priority of Facebook as a marketing platform for your business, it may be time to devote some budget to advertising. Start with cost controlled experiments to test the return on investment (ROI).

Diversify to Minimize Your Risk

Another important strategy is finding other social platforms that will help minimize your risk over time. Investing all your energy in any platform that you don’t own creates a potential hazard for your business. The rules can change at any time, and you’re unable to change it.

Consider tools like HootSuite that allow you to centralize your social media management, and target multiple networks with your social media activity. It’s also helpful to invest in cultivating the channels that you own – primarily your blog, website, publishing relationships, and your email list.

For many businesses, Facebook’s power play for advertising is both frustrating and a potential threat to revenue and profit. It’s important to determine how important Facebook remains to your business, decide whether advertising investments are likely to pay out, and take steps to maximize what exposure you do have on the network.

How the 5 biggest QSRs are leveraging mobile payments

How the 5 biggest QSRs are leveraging mobile payments 



By Lauren Johnson

---

April 2, 2014

McDonald’s, Starbucks, Burger King, Subway and Wendy’s have all kicked their mobile payment strategies into gear this year, but their different approaches point to how this space is still evolving.

Over the past six months, mobile payments have become a more competitive, differentiated feature for QSRs in building long-term loyalty and speeding up the checkout experience in-store. While payments are a big push for many of these brands, the need to also integrate incentivizes and rewards into these apps is a growing area, too.

“QSR-led wallets are deployed for a number of reasons, but increasing loyalty and brand engagement are core drivers,” said Jordan McKee, analyst at Yankee Group, Boston.

“We are also seeing a number of QSRs implementing closed-loop payments in their wallet solutions to drive down payment processing costs,” he said. “In an industry where speed and throughput is a critical success factor, mobile wallets can also help QSRs improve efficiency and decrease queues.”

Here is a look at each brand’s efforts in alphabetical order.

Burger King
Earlier this month, Burger King announced plans to roll out mobile payments nationwide.

As this becomes a more competitive space for QSRs, each brand is aiming to out-do their competitors with additional features that their competitors do not offer.

Burger is lauching a mobile offers and payments app in April

For Burger King, that means claiming to be the first hamburger chain to integrate digital coupons and offers into mobile payments when a branded app launches later this year.

The app will let consumers pay for meals and also dole out national and personalized deals to app users. The coupons will be able to be redeemed at all of the chain’s 7,000 locations.

Similar to other brands’ efforts in this space, the payment functionality will come from a BK Crown Card virtual card that is linked to a credit card.

The app will also include restaurant locators, store information and nutritional information.

Eventually Burger King plans to enable order-ahead functionality and consumer surveys within the app.

McDonald’s
McDonald’s work with mobile payments in the United States has been fairly limited, but the brand has piloted several international efforts.

Most recently, the brand expanded its McDelivery service, which lets consumers place orders for delivery through a mobile app, to Thailand and Singapore.

McDonald’s Sweden also equipped its mobile app with payments earlier this month, and mobile payments are available nationwide in France (see story).

McDonald’s mobile service

Within the United States, McDonald’s has run a number of tests and pilots to gear up for an eventual broader roll-out of mobile payments.

This includes the launch of a branded loyalty app that lets franchises send out targeted and specific offers. The app is live in several markets, including cities in California, Nevada and New England (see story).

Despite the fact that QSRs appear to be one of the industries pushing the envelope with mobile payment adoption, McDonald’s initiatives underscore the importance in brands getting mobile payments right before making them widely available.

Last fall, McDonald’s began testing the mobile payment and wallet app Isis. However, according to a source that tested the payments out, the experience was not up to par (see story).

Starbucks
It is no surprise that many of the brands just now getting into the space are taking pages from Starbucks’ mobile payment playbook.

The coffee giant was an early adopter of mobile payments with its bar code-based payment app that also tightly integrates rewards and a loyalty program.

Using a virtual card, consumers can pay for drinks with the brand’s app that also ties into the My Starbucks Rewards loyalty program.

Starbucks recently revealed during its Annual Meeting of Shareholders that mobile payments represent 14 percent of total revenue within the United States.

At the same time, the brand continues to streamline the user experience within the app. Most recently, Starbucks added shake-to-pay and digital tipping to its iPhone version and will test order-ahead features this year.

As Starbucks looks to build up its mobile and digital initiatives, the brand is also looking for ways to make its loyalty program bigger by potentially taking it out of the bricks-and-mortar stores (see story).

Subway
Subway is reportedly testing mobile ordering and delivery in California with technology that lets consumers virtually build their own sandwiches.

The sandwich chain is also in the middle of developing a payment app that is being powered by Paydiant.

The brand will build in mobile payment and wallet features into its own branded app, and Paydiant’s technology uses QR codes to trigger payments.

Subway’s mobile site

Compared to other marketing verticals, what is interesting about Subway’s and other QSRs’ approaches to mobile payments is the branded app approach. Although it can likely be difficult to get a consumer to download a mobile app, the opportunities to incorporate loyalty programs and other incentivizes seem to be important to QSRs.

Wendy’s
Wendy’s became the first national QSR to roll out mobile payments nationally earlier this month.

The burger chain began testing mobile payments last year in three markets — Austin, Portland and Albuquerque — with a mobile app that also includes nutritional and store information.

The app leverages a one-time, five-digit code that consumers use to pay for meals. The code automatically expires after five minutes and is entered manually into the point-of-sale by an employee.

Wendy’s mobile app

Wendy’s also plans to incorporate a loyalty program that will be used to send out personalized deals based on what products a consumer has bought in the past.

“QSRs of all sizes and types are quickly warming up to the mobile payment opportunity,” Mr. McKee said.

“Collectively, their vision around how mobile can be leveraged to enhance the customer experience has improved significantly over the past few years,” he said. “Mobile payment solutions allow QSRs to better engage with their customers and foster deeper relationships with their most profitable customers.”

Final TakeLauren Johnson is associate reporter on Mobile Commerce Daily, New York.