Online service inCust: personal bonus system. Easily. Fast. Conveniently. Profitable.

Various systems of discounts and bonuses are one of the most effective marketing methods to attract new and retain old customers. The inCust online service is an innovative platform for creating bonus systems at minimal cost. The main idea is to use a mobile device instead of a lot of discount cards.

Price

Data on tariffs was obtained as a result of personal communication between the author and the manager of the inCust company as a potential customer

The loyalty program is strongly associated with discount cards that are in dozens of our pockets and wallets, and as a result, it can be difficult to find the right one in this motley pile at the moment. The inCust company is developing the most progressive way out of this situation and suggests using a mobile phone as a single form of discounts.

Using a mobile phone, or rather, a mobile number, as a single discount card, allows you to bring the return on bonus systems to a new level and get an almost unlimited audience of loyal customers. An informational video about the system can be viewed here:

The target audience

The target audience of the inCust project, as well as any discount project, are companies of any size and field of activity, but such a bonus scheme will be the most attractive for small businesses. For small trade and service enterprises, where there are several orders of magnitude fewer customers than in large retail chains, launching your own discount system can be quite an expensive pleasure. It is necessary to order the cards themselves, the minimum circulation of which starts from 200-300 pieces, the program for accounting for the turnover on the cards, accounting for bonuses for them and other expenses. And if the bonus program has not justified itself, we get direct financial losses.

When using inCust, costs and risks are significantly reduced. There is no need to purchase and configure additional hardware and software. If necessary, you can quickly close any discount system with minimal losses.

Benefits of inCust for the seller:

• Quick launch of the bonus program. No additional equipment is required, just install the trading terminal program on your smartphone or tablet and start working.
• The card is always with the client. The mobile phone is always with the client, unlike plastic discount cards, which can be lost or unavailable at the time of purchase.
• Flexible settings for receiving and spending bonuses. The ability to create an individual loyalty program, taking into account the characteristics of a particular business.
• Obtaining an additional channel of communication with customers. The database of mobile numbers allows you to quickly inform customers about new promotions and discounts.

Service benefits for customers:

• No need to carry a discount card. Even if the phone is lost, if the number is restored, bonuses are saved!
• Convenient receipt of information about accumulated bonuses. You can get information about the number of bonuses through the inCust mobile application and via SMS.
• Transfer of bonuses to other users of the service. The accumulated bonuses can be transferred to another user in the form of a gift certificate or payment for a gift from the catalog on the i website

How it works

The process of paying for goods or services is clearly demonstrated by an example located on the company's website:

As you can see, everything happens in the form of a dialogue without the use of any additional equipment, except for the installed seller's terminal program. This approach has both advantages and disadvantages: on the one hand, such a scheme of work allows the use of bonus systems by companies in any field of activity, and not just trade. But at the same time, merchants with such manual processing of each bonus transaction may experience problems with customer service, especially if there are hundreds of such transactions daily. In such a situation, the solution would be to use contactless NFC technology, support for which smartphones and tablets are constantly developing, but inCust has no specific plans to support this technology yet.

Software

The inCust software consists of a trading terminal program and a client application for mobile devices. Both programs have versions for iOS and Android systems, they do not have any difficulties and problems with installation. The merchant's terminal needs separate access to the wireless Internet. The terminal interface is quite modest, but in this case no special frills are required:

For integration with accounting programs, such as 1C, a software API is provided that allows you to work with the inCust online service from almost any accounting system. The company's technical support provides services for setting up and finalizing the API for individual client requirements. An example of integration with the client's accounting system is shown below.

Service cost

To obtain information about the cost of services, it is necessary to fill out a feedback form and after selecting the menu item "Get Tariffs", the manager contacts the potential client by the specified phone number for clarifying questions and confirming the e-mail address. This procedure is not very convenient, especially if you do not plan to immediately connect, but such a callback scheme during registration has long become the standard of Internet business.

The inCust online service was developed by a Ukrainian company, but the tariff scale was developed separately for different countries. As of March 1, 2016, the following tariffs for using the system are set:

Let us clarify once again that the above tariffs are indicative and may vary depending on the number of terminals used, the number of customers and other contractual factors.

Advantages:

• Using mobile phones as discount cards: allows you to get a large number of customers at minimal cost.
• Quick launch of the loyalty system: the process of providing bonuses is available immediately after registering on the site and launching the terminal.
• Software for iOS and Android systems: allows you to use any type of mobile device as a terminal.
• Possibility of setting individual tariffs for service.

Disadvantages:

No significant shortcomings of the inCust online service project have been identified, there are only minor problems associated with the company's rapid "growth", but the technical and administrative support of the site is working without failures and negative customer reviews on the Internet have not yet been found.

Summing up the review, let's draw the attention of readers to the following important fact: the inCust service provides a fairly convenient and innovative technical platform for the implementation of bonus systems, but whether they are successful or not depends only on the client, his business strategy and the quality of the services provided.