Introduction to Loyalty Programs or What’s New in Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R3 for Retail?

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Customer loyalty is often considered as an extensive discipline within CRM (Customer Relationship Management) aimed at keeping existing customers and increasing their satisfaction and revenues to the business. In this article, we will look at what specific mainstream activities are covered under the concept of loyalty program based on the latest R3 release of Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system for retail. This will help to better understand the specific scope of loyalty program management in enterprise, introduce the latest ERP standard solution in loyalty and address key requirements of a typical loyalty program manager.

What is a Loyalty Program?

Loyalty program stands for structured marketing efforts that reward and encourage loyal buying behaviour and results in benefits to the company pursuing such program. Loyalty programs are often associated with physical loyalty cards under various names like point card, membership card, mileage card etc. By presenting such a card at the outlet, customer can qualify for various benefits like discounts, points, and status benefits. Recent new trend is to develop on-line and mobile loyalty programs which require minimal use or even elimination for a need to carry physical card.

Microsoft Dynamics AX package can enable initiatives from simple to complex loyalty programs involving tiers, across multiple legal entities and retail channels (such as, brick & mortar, online, call center). Loyalty managers shall be able to create loyalty schemes and customers to accumulate loyalty points. They also shall be able to enable multiple tier qualification criteria over flexible periods for loyalty status achievement by customers. Multiple programs can be associated to a loyalty card in Dynamics AX and different rewards enabled based on shopper status via tiered loyalty programs. Channel specific loyalty program is an option as well.

Loyalty Points

Loyalty points in Dynamics AX can be based on quantity (such as number of transactions) or amount - sales to customer in set currency. Points in loyalty program can be redeemable in new purchases or in some cases accounted for status change in the loyalty levels (e.g., bronze, silver gold or similar).

Furthermore, redeeming sequence can be controlled in case points are used along with other loyalty rewards in a program.

As many airline passengers already have noticed with their airline miles, points in a program are usually set to expire. In Dynamics AX, expiration time control can be set in days,  months or years.

When it comes to basic reporting, loyalty program administrators or operators shall be able to access summary on points. This includes summary of available points as of today, already issued points, consumed and expired points.

Loyalty Schemes

Loyalty schemes in Dynamics AX specify the rules with details of how points will be administrated and calculated. It serves as connection point between loyalty program and retail channels. It will also determine how customer can earn new points taking into consideration tiers (membership levels) if applicable. Points and status can be earned by activities. Types of these activities as classified by loyalty program are:

1)    Purchasing product by amount

2)    Purchasing product by quantity

3)    Sales transaction count

Furthermore, loyalty manager can choose to set up loyalty schemes by retail product category or limit to particular product for points earning. Loyalty manager is to set how many points are to be earned and when for each rule and for which reward points and to which stores.

Loyalty Cards

Loyal (and also not so loyal) customers can be associated to one or even multiple loyalty cards at the same retailer. Loyalty card can also be applicable to multiple accounts within an organization or family members.

Dynamics AX support loyalty cards for so called omni-channel business scenarios where loyalty program can be executed over various means of communication and sales channels. For example, client can earn points not only when making purchases in a store but also on Web store etc.

More advanced requirement of some interest for couple of companies is support for card tender process – the system can let you to administer if card can be used to earn, only redeem points or both. Example of redemption card could be Disney Rewards Redemption Card which is combined with Visa credit card and allows customer to use Disney Dream Reward Dollars as payment.

Card can be linked to respective loyalty programs and quick summary of points can be obtained.

Controlling of Loyalty Point Transactions

Administering loyalty point transactions could be a challenging area in loyalty program in a large enterprise. The high level requirements include.

 Earning points

Business solution shall be able to control point earning against criteria of loyalty programs. Points shall not be given away if the criteria is not met. To earn points, it is also necessary for the loyalty card to be associated with the point of sale transaction. If the customer is associated to loyalty card then this customer would be added to the transaction.

Redeeming Points
Business solutions shall be able to control that redemption happens only when customer has enough points and is qualified by the loyalty program.

Adjusting points

Sales and customer service issues and exceptions are not seldom happenings. Most of loyalty program managers will likely require ability to directly add points for customer satisfaction or in case of transaction related matters. In Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R3, adjustments can be done directly on the card form.

Configuring Dynamics AX 2012 Application

Now that we know loyalty program basics, someone also has to set it up in a business system. On Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R3 application side, to create and administer loyalty program, the following are key prerequisite setups.

*  Loyalty date intervals (necessary if tiered loyalty is required)

*  Channels – to link channel to loyalty schemes

*  Retail price groups – to enable loyalty specific pricing

*  Loyalty parameters – default parameter settings

Key setup areas for loyalty functionality itself are:

* Loyalty programs and tiers

* Loyalty points

* Loyalty schemes

* Loyalty cards
Further to basic application side configuration there will be more technical considerations and setups such as smart-card readers, POS support, integration to customer facing membership Web sites etc. We are not covering these scenarios in this article.

Approach as Framework

Real life loyalty program requirements and Dynamics AX capabilities are not limited to the ones described here. Dynamics AX for Retail is to be thought of as a platform. Microsoft Dynamics AX development tools allow extending your loyalty program business solution with new functionality. Furthermore, as retailers try to differentiate their programs from competition - segmentation, profiling, mobile loyalty and many other industry buzz-words and capabilities will have to be supported in near future. Having integrated ERP package as backbone enabling basic framework of loyalty program administration and other retail functionality could an approach to take at retail organizations.

Introduction to Indoor Positioning Solution - Beacons

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Beacons as a new technology has emerged relatively recently in the mobile and retail industries. It has attracted attention among innovative entrepreneurs, developers and retailers due to its very precise location based capabilities to engage with mobile device users such as customers at retail stores or other places. While bringing with it potentially disruptive nature, it is a bit surprising to note that general awareness of this impactful technology is still relatively low. In this article we will introduce at high level what it is and how it works.

Basic Idea

Indoor positioning with beacons is about the right message at the right time and place to mobile device user. While GPS is well known mainstream geo-positioning technology used in mobile devices, it is actually not fully accurate when it comes to exact location in buildings, floors and layouts. When you are in a city, tall buildings distort the satellite signal. Wi-Fi also can be used for Wi-Fi enabled devices but has not been particularly successful in precise indoor positioning either. To address the challenges, beacon technology have been introduced. Apple’s iBeacon is part of iOS7 (and later versions) and also available on Android devices (not all). This new technology uses Bluetooth Low Energy and allows to place beacons (devices) in various indoor locations to transmit data for location based advertising and notifications. iBeacon can be iOS device or purposefully made beacon devices by various vendors.

From consumer or user perspective there are various use cases and applications. For example, customer downloads retailer’s app and walks into store, then notification (voucher etc.) can be sent when customer is standing on exact location (e.g. aisle) and/or hits a specific profile. Of course, for this to work user has to enable Blue Low Tooth connection on the device. Retailer also shall take into account customer profile and unique needs into consideration to be successful in such campaigns.

Application Scenarios

Applications for beacons can be many and diverse within or outside of retail industry which currently seems to be leading the technology adaptation. Retailer can combine location in the store with demographic and behavioral data of its app user to push well targeted messages or vouchers to the customers. Real-time external data like weather can be taken into account into this communication. Use beacons in retail Omni-channel strategy integrating them with other CRM communication channels.

According to iMore.com, McDonald's trial with beacons in Columbus, GA to guide customers to its stores using Bluetooth LE and an app developed by beacons supplier Piper, has led to increase in sales of McNuggets by roughly 8% in the store. According to Kajsa Dahlberg, Head of Media & Digital at McDonald's Sweden (see presentation at http://www.vmob.co/resources/events/retail-insight-breakfast-ny/recordings/) McDonalds needs to go from mass to personal – called 1-1 communication. By engaging in real-time segmentation, McDonalds can ‘Push’ visitor an offer selected meal offering based on his or her intent, likes lifestyle and location.

There could be plenty of use cases outside of retail – for example, finding your friend in a large, crowded building visiting first time (shopping mall, hospital etc.) or attaching a beacon device to a pet to control (notify you via an app) that it does not go too far from your home.

In museum, when in front of piece of art, beacon technology could trigger information about the exhibit when user stands in from of it. Beacon technology could well fit into so called IoT (Internet of Things) architecture.

Vendors

Apple has been on the forefront with its iBeacon technology. Beacons can be enabled for transmission function in iOS7 (and higher) devices or special beacon devices can be purchased from Apple’s partners, placed in store or other locations and take different form from iPhone or iPad devices. As the industry is picking up, more players are coming into play. PayPal and Qualcomm have announced plans for hardware. Multiple retail focused vendors have included or are planning to include beacons into their retail solution architecture. In the future posts, we will have a closer look into beacon integration with CRM and other mainstream enterprise platforms to enhance consumer experience.

Stack Overflow for Swift is Speedy - 4 Solutions in Less than 50 Min

Apple's Swift is a new programming language and as new development platform or tool it takes time for the community and knowledge base to pick up while the official manuals might not give the necessary depth of insight.
While playing around and actually trying to build a new native mobile app for iPhone, one come across an issue (even seemingly simple task in other programming languages) which does not allow you to move forward and takes unpredictably long time to resolve.
As you cannot find the answer on the Internet or official manuals for Swift, I found posting a question on Stock Overflow to be quite valuable. For an issue i spent long hours of my weekend i received 4 answers in less than 50 minutes while combining  it with other already posted question and answer I was able to resolve the issue and move forward with my first native app for iPhone.