Paige Lucas

I recently sat down with my fellow product manager, Joel Udwin, to talk about where our worlds collide: integrating mobile at the point of sale. We like to think that a mobile strategy is placed in the pocket of the consumer, but it doesn’t stay there – mobile engagement must integrate with in-store operations to be successful. Joel, who manages our mobile products, explains why:

Q: Why is a POS integration important when it comes to mobile engagement?

A: Wow, Paige. I thought that since we worked together, you would give me easy questions, but you just knocked it out of the park. [Chuckles] I don’t like bucketing mobile into this separate silo of mobile engagement. When we talk about mobile engagement, we are really just talking about guest engagement. At restaurants and convenience stores, a large portion of customer engagement occurs at the point of sale, where most transactions take place today. Implementing an engagement strategy without considering your point of sale is like driving a small car on an icy road – you’ll move around, but you won’t necessarily be able to control where you are going. Basically, if your engagement program doesn’t translate at the POS, your employees will be too frustrated by it to evangelize it, and your guests won’t want to use it. Successful mobile engagement programs need to work in harmony with point-of-sale technology and operations.

Q: How can mobile speed up service? […]

Think back to your last marketing meeting. What kinds of conversations did you have? Did you discuss with your team how to sell more fountain drinks, how to get more chips out of the store, or how to launch that new coffee program? Maybe you talked about how to get more people to buy gas AND go into the store.

These are important conversations to have about how you’re ultimately going to sell more products, but this way of thinking is “category centric.” You’re concerned about how to get certain items off the shelves instead of how to get certain customers into your stores.

The Promotion

Imagine you decide to run a “Buy 2 Cans of Coca-Cola and Get 1 Free” promotion. Coca-Cola cares about one thing – getting their product into the hands of more people. And if you’re category centric, as most convenience store marketers have been for years, that’s probably all you’re focusing on too. Let’s say you decide to blast this Coke promotion to all of your customers, because you know that the more people you send this to, the more people will come into the store to take advantage of the deal.

The Results…at First Glance

There’s a reason why sending a mass email blast is so appealing. Here’s an example of a target and control […]

The second annual Paytronix User Experience (PXUX) is something that Paytronix clients do not want to miss! It will be filled with inspiring customer stories, insider details on how to fully take advantage of the newest features, and plenty of networking to share marketing tips and swap campaign stories.

Now, you can get the details on the event: the 2016 agenda has been released! Each of the two days are laid out hour-by-hour so you can plan your travel accordingly and get amped about the must-see sessions. If there’s anything you can take away from the agenda at this stage, it’s: […]

The Paytronix team was on site in Chicago earlier this week at the National Restaurant Association (NRA) Show. Similar to last year’s event, the show was chock-full of restaurant brands, vendors, and of course: food.  The bustling energy on the floor inspired us during the four-day event as we shared our customer engagement expertise and swapped stories with other attendees. We were especially grateful to have the opportunity to lead a speaking session with one of our clients, Lettuce Entertain You Enterprises (LEYE).

Lee Barnes, Head of Customer Insights at Paytronix, led the session ‘Lessons from Loyalty Program Experts’ alongside Michael Lynch, Director of Loyalty Marketing at LEYE. Barnes is a self-professed data geek who can optimize any loyalty program. Lynch has over 20 years of experience building and managing loyalty programs. With their combined experience, expertise, and wit, this dynamic duo made quite an impression on the 200+ session attendees. In case you missed out, here are the top 5 takeaways from their presentation: […]