Safeway launched a pilot customer loyalty program this week at 300 of its Vons grocery stores in Southern California, combining location based services from Foursquare and special offers from PepsiCo. The results of this trial will have very important implications for the customer loyalty programs of retailers everywhere; if these three companies can prove out this “check-in” loyalty model, then we should expect to see many others like it across all types of retail.
The most glaring omission from this pilot program is the lack of a digital wallet tied to individual customer loyalty accounts, which would allow for the check-in reward to be processed and realized without requiring the shopper to do anything beyond simply checking in via Foursquare. Ultimately it seems that LBS and customer loyalty programs are a natural fit, but this most recent model is still a few steps away from realizing its full potential.
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