Monday, November 28, 2011

PowerCard Mobile Article in Quick Service Restaurant Magazine

PowerCard Goes Mobile

PowerCard, a loyalty card processor that assists restaurants in building business growth through customer-retention technologies, has launched a mobile version of its customer-loyalty program.

PowerCard’s traditional software has helped more than 1,600 merchants throughout the United States and Canada to increase consumer profitability and overall growth since 2002. Now PowerCard customers have the option to add a mobile component to their already successful marketing programs.

For more than nine years, PowerCard has provided merchants with customer solutions through the use of a loyalty card. With the evolution of technology, the public’s craving for instant response, and the world’s desire to become more environmentally friendly, PowerCard has developed a new take on its current program that will satisfy these needs and more.

The launch of PowerCard’s card-free mobile services allows merchants the ability to run, administer and maximize mobile marketing campaigns. The addition of a virtual platform reduces overall costs, improves response time and provides consumers with the enhanced and instant convenience demanded in today’s marketplace.

“The development of PowerCard mobile has been met with great anticipation among our clients,” says Kermit Austin, president of PowerCard. “The added value of real-time registration, enhanced affordability, improved tracking and analysis, and personal communication with the customer that the mobile version will offer has really piqued their interest.”

PowerCard’s mobile program eliminates the need for the customer to carry a plastic card. Instead, a customer can register for the loyalty program using their cellular phone’s texting service; smart phone users can also scan a unique QR code or visit a website to register. The registration process takes place via texting or online, increasing speed of completion and eliminating the hassle and cost of paperwork. Once registered, the customer receives promotions and reward points via SMS text from a local landline.

“There are a lot of loyalty providers out there,” Austin says.

“One of the many differences with PowerCard is the ability to personalize your customer communication and marketing efforts.”

Picazzo’s, an Italian restaurant specializing in Organic, local and Gluten Free Italian food with locations throughout Arizona, is the first PowerCard customer to employ the mobile loyalty program.

“As our restaurant continues to grow, we need a system that will grow with it,” says restaurant owner Rick Freedman.

“And as an organic restaurant, we try to support green initiatives. We have seen outstanding results with PowerCard’s traditional card program over the past five years but now we are looking forward to what the organic, mobile application will enable us to do for our customers. Efficiency is key in the restaurant industry and PowerCard truly understands that. We want to bring our customers back time after time and PowerCard has proven that it does that.”

http://www.qsrmagazine.com/news/powercard-goes-mobile