Using a loyalty card should be as effortless as tapping to pay with Apple Pay or Google Pay. This familiar interaction has transformed payments – so why hasn’t loyalty caught up?
Some pioneers, like Woolworths in Australia, Nando’s, and Texaco in the UK, have embraced NFC-enabled digital loyalty cards in Apple Wallet and Google Wallet. However, these examples remain the exception rather than the rule.
By delivering a fast, secure, and frictionless experience, NFC loyalty interactions eliminate the barriers that often cause customers to skip using their loyalty cards altogether – avoiding lost opportunities for capturing valuable customer data.
Why are most loyalty interactions still so cumbersome?
For most brands, the ‘state of the art’ loyalty interaction involves mobile apps and QR codes. This typically requires consumers to:
- Find & open the brand’s mobile app (which relies on decent internet connectivity)
- Retrieve the right QR code by selecting the right link
- Present it to a scanner and wave the phone until the terminal goes beep
It’s clunky, time-consuming, and falls short of the ‘just tap’ experience that customers expect in today’s mobile-first world. It’s far from ideal, but this approach leverages retailers’ investment in QR / barcode scanners.
Why haven’t more brands switched to NFC for loyalty?
Back when the original NFC loyalty specifications were written, it was thought that the best place to put this ‘software update’ was in the contactless payment terminal that retailers were already using. But times were different—smartphone payments were barely a thing
Fast forward 11-12 years – it’s easy for any brand to distribute NFC-enabled digital loyalty cards for consumers to add to Apple Wallet and Google Wallet. However, the retail industry still views NFC loyalty as something that requires updating payment terminal software. Unfortunately, that’s not so simple. Payment terminals are highly complex and subject to stringent certifications from EMVCo and other understandably risk adverse organisations. So, updating payment terminals is a major stumbling block to deployment.
What’s the solution?
At Dot Origin, we’ve developed VTAP NFC wallet readers, a simple plug-in solution for loyalty programs. VTAP connects directly to point-of-sale (PoS) terminals, functioning like a QR/barcode scanner but with the ability to process NFC loyalty cards in Apple Wallet and Google Wallet built in to it’s firmware. By bypassing the need for complex payment terminal updates, VTAP makes it straightforward for retailers to deliver the simple, swift, and secure loyalty interactions that will encourage increased loyalty interaction and data capture.
VTAP also supports migrations from existing QR codes – barcode scanners can be connected to VTAP readers, allowing optical code data to be passed through to the PoS.
Additionally, VTAP readers offer features like iBeacon functionality – which can send friendly in-store notifications to iPhone users, and standalone WiFi connectivity options – to enable loyalty interactions beyond the PoS.
If you’d like to learn more about VTAP and how it can transform your loyalty program, please get in touch or buy a reader and have a play!