(You’ll find a lot of the same information on the official site of the project at our partner’s page, who is responsible for its current development)
Overview
Anywhere Points is a patent-pending project currently being developed in Denver, Colorado in partnership with Synderesis Technologies, Inc. Anywhere Points is a secure customer relations management (CRM) platform that uses a unified customer identifier to enhance and simplify the interactions between customers and businesses. It seeks to strike the perfect balance between convenience of use for customers, and user-friendly yet powerful CRM and data analysis tools for merchants.
With Anywhere Points, the inconvenient days of multiple cards for loyalty programs and payment are numbered.
Core Concept
We have identified that all reward/membership cards essentially provide the same functionality: they identify and differentiate their customers from one-another. By creating a system that provides universal identification and data capture at the point of sale (POS), we can leverage this identification functionality to deliver a myriad of features to both consumers and businesses within our platform.
Identification Method
Offline
We intend on initially identifying customers offline by using NFC chips. NFC chips can be embedded into cards, and stickers can be applied to smartphones that don’t have NFC capability. These NFC chips and readers can be obtained and implemented very inexpensively. The readers and chip implementations can both be obtained inexpensively, and are showing up in phones beyond just Japan (the Nexus S, for example).
The reader devices, in addition to software, are installed to point of sale machines, from which the data is sent securely to our servers, and any processing is done, before being sent back to appropriate devices for interaction.
Online
There will still be a login required to access our service, but we would also like to allow for interoperability through technologies like OAuth.
Features
Rewards
Rewards are the incentives that businesses give to their customers to identify themselves. These incentives very often include sales/discounts, coupons, and points. The added benefit is that these rewards are also a way for businesses to encourage more purchases and to communicate with their customers. The Anywhere Points system gives businesses an easy way to implement these rewards in any combination, and these rewards are tracked and implemented separately per-merchant. This means, for example, that a customer’s point balances and promotions accumulated for one merchant are kept separate from those accumulated with other merchants.
Memberships
Memberships are used to incentivize customers, and can also be tracked on the platform. From gym memberships to airline frequent flyer clubs, a customer can use a their single identifier to check in to the multiple memberships they belong to, and merchants have the power of tracking their members.
Payment
Anywhere Points will be utilized also as a payment method to allow consumers and merchants to both enjoy savings on the cost to do electronic money transactions, as well as to enjoy the speed and ease with which people will be able to complete transactions.
Data Capture
Anywhere Points can capture information in real-time at the point-of-sale, including the purchase description, quantity, price, and the transaction time. This is possible through Synderesis Technologies, Inc.‘s “Synderesis Capture” technology. It can then link all of this information to the individual customer by coupling it with the their identifying information given at the time of transaction.
It is important to note that a transaction is defined here as an exchange of information, and thus does not have to involve money. Swiping a membership card to enter a gym, for example, is also considered a transaction, and can be tracked and coupled with user data as well.
Privacy is certainly a concern we share and are incredibly mindful of. The data collected is only displayed to others (other than to the individual) as meta data. Individuals’ buying habits are for the individuals themselves, and we respect individuals’ privacy. However, we believe meta data helps merchants to better understand their customers and serve them better.
Reports
Anywhere Points provides merchants tools to analyze their captured data. It can also display reports so that they can easily identify their customers’ demographics, when they are buying, what they are buying, at what price they are buying goods/services, and any effects of promotions on these metrics. This is possible using the data collected at the point of sale.
Further Use
The “identification as a platform” concept can further be used for a variety of other applications, including ones we haven’t thought of yet. These include hotel and flight check-in, client records, and and a reservation system.