NFC is ‘here to stay’

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Last week in Barcelona Mobile World Congress held. We’ve seen a lot of NFC (near field communication) initiatives. This year, we did not only see mobile NFC payments but we’ve seen a lot of initiatives with larger parts of the customer journey supported by NFC.

Customer journey

In the figure below you can see the customer journey (customer journey) in retail. NFC is here to stay. For example, for giving the right information during the planning phase. Think of offers, productinformation, transport possibilities, location, maps and social. In providing relevant information, these include updates to service, travel, fast track rows, manuals, geo-fence services and shopping lists. Some of these services can be supported with NFC. During the transaction, of course, NFC can be used for mobile payment at the checkout. In addition, the following services may be relevant; loyalty cards, coupons, loyalty programs, and redeem receipts. After the transaction, we see opportunities for cross-selling and assistance in the return or travel information such as parking information.

 

customer journey

GSMA Mobile World Congress organization uses NFC in its app
Organizer GSMA has developed an app to support the event. In this app, extensive attention has been paid to NFC applications during several phases of the customer journey. Almost all the latest models from Samsung feature NFC and were supported. And also for people with an iPhone there was a solution. There was a special NFC case for iPhone offered by Incipio (in collaboration with DeviceFidelity).The features that could be used in the conference with NFC are the following:* Through NFC and NFC badge you could quickly and easy check-in.
* Special NFC content machines to download a document such as conference programs, event news, and white papers.
* Smart food; after checking via NFC in the catering stores a coupon can be redeemed, also you may then use the fast lane.
Side note with NFC
The operation of the NFC feature in the GSMA app was not always optimal. The iPhone case did not work initially. After downloading the latest app updates, open the app and deleting a cashless NFC sticker the iPhone case finally worked. The radio waves from the NFC sticker and NFC case appeared to interfere with each other. Also, the actual experience differed per smartphone.
Benchmarking
We have seen many working demos with a comprehensive customer journey (for example, offers and loyalty cards) in retail. However, we saw little real implementations. As a result, it seems that Dutch implementations of NFC applications forefront. Briefly below a few examples of notable current NFC implementations in the Netherlands.* Mobile payments in LeidenMobile Payment in-store since september 2013 in Leiden it is possible to pay with a smartphone (direct payment from the bankaccount). During the trial it was possible at more than 150 stores. Rabobank decided to continue the trial in 2014 amd they are going to introduce nationwide later this year. Rabobank also offers additional services such as account balance, purchase receipt, location information and offers in this experiment.* MyOrder Sidekick

In the MyOrder application in Leiden cashback deals are offered. The moment you check in at the store, via NFC check-in, the retailer sees your profile and active coupons on his tablet. At the time the consumer purchases the offer (possibly mobile NFC payments), the cashback is refunded.

* MyOrder Cashless

Using a NFC sticker MyOrder already offers at many restaurants in businesses and sports canteens contactless payments via NFC sticker and a separate terminal.

* Buzzoek

Buzzoek uses existing NFC cards in the Netherlands, such as the OV–chip card. They use this card (or any other card with an NFC chip) then as a loyalty card, so it it easy to save loyalty points with mobile or the card it self.

* Yes.tap

With Yes.tap it is possible to order directly from the menu with a NFC tap. This functionality offers advantage and speed in fast food restaurants and other catering establishments.

Of course there are multiple technologies, but we see so many market players and consumers embrace NFC technology that we are pretty sure that the chance of success is very high.

This article was also published on Emerce.nl