Venture Infotek, Welcome Real-time To Launch Loyalty Solns In India

Venture Infotek and Welcome Real-time (Welcome) have announced a partnership to launch the next-generation of loyalty offerings in India. These solutions will allow cards payment businesses and retailers to deliver personalised offers and redemption alternatives at the point of sale. This real-time targeted marketing capability provided by Welcome Real-time is expected to increase cards and retailer brand loyalty and billings, while significantly lowering the cost of customer acquisition and retention.

Piyush Khaitan, managing director, Venture Infotek said, “We are very impressed with Welcome Real-time’s technology and solutions and we feel that their core value proposition, which is changing the customer’s payment experience, is very exciting. We can foresee the delight for the card holder and the merchant. Together, we will focus on expanding our go-to-market strategy, by incorporating a whole lot of features and benefits in our loyalty programmes.”

“Loyalty programmes help organisations increase and retain their customer base and are best suited for highly competitive business environments, often where the service levels and products are not highly differentiated like airlines, retail, banking or telecommunications to name a few. A strong partnership with Welcome will help us retain the edge in the market,” added Khaitan.

The Venture Infotek and Welcome Real-time solution now offers banks, retailers and payment networks the following advantages:

• Targeted rewards that customers prefer: Card issuers and retailers will be able to track and analyse customer buying behaviours and other information to deliver more intelligent, targeted rewards in real time at point of sale. Intelligent rewards eliminate promotional waste by delivering the right offer to the right customer at the right time, ultimately driving higher levels of customer satisfaction and increased purchases.

• Lowered marketing costs: Delivering targeted, personalised promotions at the point of sale via merchants reduces operational costs and achieves greater results as compared to more traditional methods of marketing promotions to a broad audience via direct mail or other mass advertising.

• Simplicity in participation: Customers can now select any payment card to automatically enroll in and participate in a promotion or loyalty programme. Customers may also opt to use a particular issuer’s card that is offering additional differentiated benefits. Retailer’s perception of the value brought by card issuers and acquirers to such payment transactions is increased.

• Enhanced loyalty: Customers can now use the point of sale as a channel for real-time earning of points and other stored value, as well as real-time redemption. This capability complements and enhances traditional bank and retailer loyalty programmes.

Philippe Bontemps, VP-Business Development, Welcome Real-time, said, “This partnership aims at providing new solutions for stimulating card activation and usage in India’s increasingly consumption-driven economy. Welcome’s solution has delivered measurable value for banks and retailers in numerous emerging economies. No doubt, it will be the same for India.”

“Welcome’s technology-independent solution allows for any type of payment card to receive rewards at any point of acceptance,” added Bontemps. “This flexibility will easily meet fast-evolving retailers’ needs such as those related to mobile- and PC-based payment platforms.”