The management of PromoXchange Technologies Limited, this past Thursday November 5, 2005, launched the first ever customer loyalty platform at the Southern Sun Hotel, Ikoyi, Lagos. PromoXchange is an app that enables customers to receive rewards for patronizing brands through points allocated for each level of purchase transactions made by such customers of such brands.
Mr. Adeoye Abodunrin, the COO of Cubed Integrated, a Management Consulting outfit, gave a welcome address at the launch. He maintained that the customer is the reason why businesses exist and survive because it is the customers are the ones that patronize the products and services presented by these businesses by paying for them. Unfortunately, however, customers are usually not regarded well by the brands they patronize as they are usually seen as mere numbers or statistics in the whole business of demand and supply. He went further to reiterate that PromoXchange was conceived to reverse this trend and bring the customer to the front burner in the realm of importance by rewarding them for patronage of brands.
In an overview presented at the launch by Mr. Adebiyi Oke, the Co-founder and Executive Director of PromoXchange Technologies Limited, explained that what obtained up until now as a semblance of customer reward is the occasional Raffle Draw promotions that are organized by brands. He maintained that these Raffle Draws usually benefit only an insignificant number of customers of such brands with gifts presented to the customers at grand Raffle Draw shows. He observed that high net-worth customers are usually left out of such promotions; hence, they are not usually rewarded by these brands in any way.
Another point against the Raffle Draw reward system for customers is that one of the principles for participation by customers is “the more entries you make, the more your chances”. What this means is that customers must more on the brands products for them to have the opportunity of winning to materialize. At the end of the day, the vast majority of the customers not winning anything as it is a game of probability.
The idea of PromoXchange, Mr. Adebiyi Oke said, was, therefore, conceived to address all the above issues so that all customers of a brand will be rewarded for loyalty to the brands. PromoXchange , he said, is a customer-centric solution that effectively turns a mobile phone into a virtual account that accumulates points for the customer, based on transactions on consumption of goods and services. The system can also assist brands to gather data about their customers.
The points gained by customers from these purchase transactions, are aggregated on their PromoXchange Account, from all the brands they purchase from, on the PromoXchange platform. These points can be converted to vouchers which the customers can either save towards meeting a target or spend as he or she wishes through the platform through a checkout system.
To effectively allow the PromoXchange loyalty system to really work, the management of PromoXchange Technologies Limited, Adebiyi Oke said, are already recruiting brand partners whose businesses will be engaged in giving out these reward points to customers as well as redeem rewards. Some of these brand partners were in attendance at the launch and were given the opportunity to present their experiences to the guests. Representatives of the brand partners at the launch include Mr. Ade Aderinto, the COO of Car Boss, Mrs. Kika Akpenyi, the Head of Customer Engagement at Heritage Bank, Mr. Irinyemi of Holloway Travels, Damilola Agboola of Tripican as well as Bimpe Subair, the COO of Bubbles. Mr. Tunde Samuel of Phillips Consulting also spoke in favour of the PromoXchange customer reward system.
A demo of the of the PromoXchange was conducted by Mr Adebiyi Oke, where two quests volunteered to register on the platform and go through the process, winning in the end reward points for themselves which were converted to vouchers and used in purchasing recharge cards. The mobile phone numbers of the two volunteers were used during the process. The management of PromoXchange assured the guests at the launch that it takes security very seriously, hence, it has taken very stringent security measures that are difficult to break into, to safeguard the details of everyone using the platform.
The PromoXchange is expected to increase the volume of sales for brands as customers will want to patronize their brand as they will want to gain points which give the customers access to accumulated funds for making more purchases. It is expected that in the coming days, weeks and months, more brand partners are expected to join the loyalty reward platform of PromoXchange, with as many customers as possible registering too to take advantage of the rewards for being loyal to their favourite brands.
