Loyalty with a little less effort
We joined Talon.One's Partner Day at Town Hall, London, ahead of the INCENTIVIZE Summit. There was plenty to take in, but what stood out for me was how its acquisition by Adyen is opening up new possibilities for loyalty through payments.
Recognising customers is still one of the biggest challenges in delivering a joined-up experience, particularly between online and in-store shopping. Bringing payments and loyalty together creates an opportunity to make that recognition much easier — and do something useful with it at checkout.
The team brought this to life by playing ‘shop’ in a live demo. Customers could be recognised and shown available incentives and rewards, then choose which to apply or dismiss, including combining rewards where the rules allowed. Those choices are a useful learning opportunity in themselves.
It was impressively straightforward. And as both a customer champion and a customer, anything that saves me finding an app, scanning a card or entering more details gets my vote.
The experience didn’t stop at checkout. The demo also showed loyalty being activated after purchase, alongside e-receipts with savings, points balances, tier updates and the next incentive clearly communicated.
There are still dependencies around integration with point-of-sale systems, although the team shared work towards a remote solution intended to reduce that reliance. One to watch.
For me, the appeal is practical: making it easier for customers to get value from loyalty, with less effort along the way. It was good to see that brought to life.
