Using NFC for customer acquisition: a short case study

I recently had the misfortune of losing my bank card and had to order a new one. I was quite surprised upon receiving my replacement card to find that it was NFC enabled. I hadn’t realized that FirstDirect had deployed this technology yet and was rather excited for my first foray into mobile payments outside of my oyster card.

But what really got my attention was an offer at the bottom of the page. EAT is running a promotion whereby if I spent £4 and paid for it with my new NFC enabled bank card they would throw in a free coffee. Well, I can’t function in the morning without my coffee so I was interested. I am not a customer of EAT – out of some odd brand loyalty I’ve always just gone to Pret or the more recent Pod – but for a free coffee I figured I would check it out.

Now, this is not EAT’s first foray into mobile payments – they launched loyalty based NFC programmes back in 2011 but this was the first time I had come across something that was timely and relevant to me.

On my way to work this morning I detoured to an EAT and redeemed my coupon. It was quick and it was easy - and it shaved about 20 seconds off of my paying time.

So what are the key takeaways:

• A brand I had never used got me to try them with a relevant mobile payments offer

• The offer itself – a free coffee – is a fairly nominal sum and perhaps not even worth the effort… but the intrinsic value of the coffee to me is much greater so EAT understands that you have to pick the right reward

• Now I will look for other retailers that have NFC especially if I’m in a hurry and need to pay fast.

So did EAT gain a new customer from deploying a loyalty based mobile payments campaign? Ask me when I’ve finished my bacon buttie…