Customers are gravitating more and more toward mobile wallets for shopping, payment and financial management, according to Doug Brown, senior vice president and head of mobile for FIS Global. “Small- and medium-sized businesses need to fit this change into a customer’s lifestyle,” says Brown.
While the move toward mobile wallet innovation presents challenges, it also comes with enormous opportunities, especially for small- and medium-sized businesses. Sure, you know that a mobile wallet can be used to pay for goods and services; but they can also be used to drive and generate business.
“When customers register with a mobile wallet you can incentivize their loyalty,” says Brown, “and give them a compelling reason to come back to your business.” Once you have such a loyalty program set up, mobile wallet systems make it easy to track customer loyalty. Best of all, unlike the plastic loyalty cards hidden in the bottom of junk drawers all over America, mobile wallet rewards programs can be unrolled at little or no cost.
A mobile wallet strategy provides technology that allows you to cut out the middle man by offering coupons directly to your customers and winning their loyalty. “A lot of times you can even bypass printing the coupons, which is often confusing both for the customer and for the cashier at point of sale,” says Brown. “Mobile wallets can take a lot of friction out of this system.”
What’s more, mobile wallets can keep your customers looped in even when they aren’t in the store. “Customers are made aware of relevant information even if they don’t come in,” says Brown, “It keeps your customers engaged. When someone has you on their phone, they basically have you with them all the time.”
What it really boils down to for the majority of small business owners: you’re going to see measurable changes in terms of the number of customer visits, money spent, and social referral across the Web after making the switch to a mobile wallet. Particularly for a small business that is heavily client-facing, there are few reasons to not have a mobile wallet strategy. So how do you set one up?
First, decide what kinds of incentives you want to offer through a loyalty program associated with your mobile wallet strategy. Then peruse the various services available such as Isis, Square, Coinbase and PayPal’s mobile wallet app. What are the fee schedules? Which makes it easiest for you to incentivize customer loyalty? Once you’ve chosen one you can start publicizing the existence of the program through your website and social media, and watch the sales come rolling in.