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In this chapter, you learn about a smart card merchant loyalty program using the 3K Multiflex smart card that comes with this book. This chapter begins by describing the program and the requirements its issuers have set for it. After that, the chapter describes and analyzes the data layout and access control architecture of the programs smart card. Finally, the chapter walks through the specific parts of the application program that deals with the smart card.
A loyalty program is a market development technique that generates repeat business by providing customers with rewards based on the total amount of business they do. Frequent buyer programs, such as the American Airlines AAdvantage Miles program, are examples of loyalty programs. Loyalty programs are very effective for merchants and very popular with customers.
As loyalty programs have grown in popularity, they have also grown in complexity and customer expectations. A small- to medium-sized merchant who decides to run a loyalty program may discover that there are many details of running an effective program with which he has neither the time nor the knowledge to deal. Furthermore, he will be interested in sharing the expense of running the program with other merchants who dont compete with him. Thus was born the Smart Shopper loyalty program and the Smart Shopper card.
Smart Commerce Solutions Inc. is the imaginary card issuer for a multiple-merchant smart card loyalty program called Smart Shopper. Heres how Smart Shopper works: Consumers join the program by purchasing a Smart Shopper card from any participating merchant. The Smart Shopper card comes in two sizesa 5-merchant card that costs $15.00 and a 15-merchant card that costs $30.00. Smart Commerce Solutions is using Schlumbergers 3K Multiflex (just like the one included in this book) for the 5-merchant card and Schlumbergers 8K Multiflex card for the 15-merchant card. If the consumer participates in only a few, selected loyalty programs, she would purchase the 5-merchant card. If the consumer is a professional shopper who collects frequent buyer points wherever she goes, then she would purchase the 15-merchant card.
After purchasing a Smart Shopper card, the consumer can ask the merchant from whom she purchased the cardor any other merchant participating in the Smart Shopper programto put his loyalty program onto the card. As soon as this is accomplished, the customer is participating in the merchants loyalty program.
Each merchant loyalty program is allocated 450 bytes of nonvolatile memory on the Smart Shopper card. In this space, the merchant can provide customers with one or more of the prebuilt loyalty schemes provided by Smart Commerce Solutions. The following are examples of the predefined schemes that the merchant can use to define his own loyalty program:
Besides selecting options such as rewards for total purchases versus frequent visits in the various programs provided by each merchant, consumers purchasing the Smart Shopper smart card can, at their option, enter personal profile data that can be used by all merchants. Such data can, for example, include the cardholders name, home address, business address, telephone and fax numbers, email address, and even credit card account numbers and sizes.
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