The Logic Group Blog

I am always weary of consumer surveys, and this week I have seen countless examples of how the questions can be worded in favour of a desired outcome!  The latest was looking at the security of the mobile as a payment vehicle, and just under half showed that “lack of security” as a concern.

As an example of “leading a witness”, compare the following sets of questions, and decide if they take you to a different answer:

• Are you worried about the personal impact of payment fraud on your life?
• Do you think that more should be done to secure your payment information?
• Would you be concerned about all your payment details being sent over the air, and stored in your phone?
• Have you thought what you would do if you lost your phone containing all this sensitive information?
• Do you think that the lack of security is too big a risk to using your phone to make a payment?

Alternatively:

• Were you aware that payment fraud has decreased over the last year?
• Do you think that this was due to all the improved security measures?
• Would you be keen on maintaining the level of security, yet making payment faster and more convenient?
• Would you like to securely transfer your card details over the air so that you only have to carry your phone with you?
• Would you be in favour of improving the payment experience through use of your mobile phone?

This is a poor imitation on a “Yes Prime Minister” sketch from 1986 (regarding conscription), but looks to highlight how a survey can lead to a differing conclusion on the same question.  I am not suggesting that this was the case with the mobile survey, but it always makes me think twice about the results.

The big news this month is that Apple has chosen not to include NFC support in the new iPhone 4S. So what does this mean to the advancement of NFC customer loyalty interactions at point of sale?

Right now there are a number of NFC loyalty initiatives in the UK and Europe but penetration of these so far is low. There just isn’t a clear business case for an NFC based loyalty solution in a large retail estate, yet. What will tip the balance is the convergence of other interactions around the mobile device; payment, customer loyalty, couponing, marketing alerts etc. We all see this just around the corner with the likes of Google wallet and other operator led initiatives hitting the news every day. So why aren’t these leading to widespread NFC adoption and why didn’t Apple see the need to jump on the band wagon?

I was recently sent a viral video of a baby who's used an iPad to such an extent, that she tried to use the same tablet UI gestures (swiping, clicking and pinch-zooming) when given a real (i.e. dead tree) magazine.

What struck me was how the video appeared to polarize opinion between the people who chastised the parents for 'ruining their child's future' and those who hailed this as a watershed moment in human evolution.

As with many things in life, I try to take the middle ground.

Recently I received an email offer from a retailer, 3 for 2 off reptile food…”wow” I thought, as I have a parrot, rabbit and 2 dogs but definitely no reptile. Did they know something I didn’t about me?

Another simple case of mass marketing and a spray and pray attitude that not only dilutes the campaign but has completely missed a great chance to engage with a customer. It got me thinking…how often does this occur and am I getting the same offer as the person next door? Does this organisation really value my business and me as a customer? On the flip side, what actually does the reptile enthusiast get and buy regularly from this retailer? The answer to the latter is a reduced price off his purchase that they would have likely bought anyway, the consumer is happy but the retailer has diluted their campaign and given away profit due to an indifferent approach to consumer focused marketing and customer loyalty.

Well they have arrived. After more than a year of discussion and debate the new requirements for Point to Point Encryption (P2PE) have finally been released by the PCI SSC.

These requirements, which are contained in the Point to Point Encryption: Encryption, Decryption and Key Management within Secure Cryptographic Devices (Hardware/Hardware) v1.0, were released this month and define how a payment solution provider may validate its P2PE solution thereby allowing merchants to reduce the scope of their PCI DSS assessments when using the solution.

There have been lots of comments in the industry recently regarding changes made to the Tesco Club Card programme. Is this a shift to an EDLP (every day low price) model and will this mean the end of the leading customer loyalty programme as we know it?

Would Tesco really undermine the value of the Club Card database? Of course they wouldn’t. The market leading advantage that Tesco obtains from deep customer understanding seems to be easily forgotten. What Tesco have skilfully done is to reinforce the brands values whilst applying a correction to Club Cards financial model which had probably become a little over invested in recent times. This has protected the customer loyalty programme and will ensure that the data asset can continue to deliver insight that aligns the business with its changing customer needs.