by Nikita Pradhan
Customer engagement has been limited to the maze of Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and all the other social media outlets that companies are attempting to use. But what if there was an easier way to engage with consumers while getting a better understanding of who your audience really is?
Near field communication brings companies (quite literally) closer to their consumers. Have you ever used the S-Beam feature on a Samsung Galaxy? What about a contactless payment system in a parking garage? NFC is a form of radio communication enacted by bringing objects (usually smartphones) within a few inches of each other to transfer data or set up simple connections.
Tasks are assigned to NFC tags, which are read by a consumer’s smartphone or – alternatively – by an NFC reader that captures information from an NFC card containing consumer profile information.
NFC is based off of radio frequency identification but is differentiated by the necessity to be within 7.5 inches or less. This means two things for NFC users:
- Because data is transferred through the electromagnetic field created by the radio waves, only one of the interacting devices needs to be powered.
- Security is a non-issue with NFC communications because a hacker would also need to be within 7.5 inches and come between the two interacting devices for data to be intercepted. Additionally, with a 300% increase in the adoption rate in 2012, the technology is already accessible to consumers.
NFC is an industry-wide standard for low-power, quick data transfer that has been around since 2004. More recently, developments in business cards, rings, mobile payments and ad campaigns have started to thrust NFC into every household.
NFC in action: creating a tap-based campaign
Through NFC-based campaigns, one start-up called TapSpaces allows companies to have an ongoing dialogue with their everyday consumers – boosting company loyalty and consumer satisfaction. By using NFC technology at promotional events, in brick-and-mortar locations and within process improvement contexts, companies can interact with individual consumers and be provided with a myriad of analytics and feedback in return.
TapSpaces helps set up companies to provide information, offer discounts, conduct surveys or “gameify” interactions with consumers to drive engagement and customer satisfaction. From the consumer’s point of view, it is now possible to quickly tap a tag and be provided with all kinds of benefits, including the ability to improve the consumer experience.
Near field communication has been around for some time, but with the introduction of TapSpaces, an increasing adoption rate of 300% in 2012 and a growing interest in utilizing the technology, it won’t be long before it becomes the norm in the marketplace for consumer engagement and analytics.
