Apple gave customer engagement management a tremendous boost with its release of the iPhone 5S and iOS 7, and most people don’t even realize it. While much of the world is talking about the smartphone’s fingerprint sensor and other obvious features, Apple quietly (very quietly, in fact) introduced much faster, separate processors that make their new smartphone offering extremely location-aware using iBeacons. The potential benefit this brings to right-time marketing is enormous.
There will be those focused on the other features of Apple’s latest releases, like the snazzy new interface, fingerprint sensor, or maybe even the new gold color choice (really, Apple?). But anyone who watches the company’s technology moves closely knows better. The iBeacons feature, combined with the new platform, is a game-changer for brand loyalty.
Location, Location, Very Specific Location
Rather than try to detect location through a device’s GPS—which can be inaccurate, especially indoors—iOS 7’s iBeacons uses a Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) profile that provides micro-location, opening the door to an unlimited number of geofencing ideas.
Brands and customers can carry on a conversation based on information about the customer’s environment, with a very high degree of accuracy.
Any brand that combines this capability with the power of a customer loyalty platform stands to capitalize on the blending of a customer’s history and preferences with a constant stream of the most contextual, real-time information available. When those three components come together, you have the perfect formula for right-time marketing, square at the intersection of Big Data and loyalty.
This is so much bigger than anything brands have been able to do in the past, but also far more rewarding. While data grows exponentially, companies like Apple are helping us get far more specific in how we engage with our customers. To learn more, download this whitepaper.
This post first appeared on the Loyalty Lab Blog and has been lightly edited.
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Honestly, I believe Google is getting better much faster at customer engagement than Apple is.
Apple’s efforts may be more visibile due to the mindshare they’ve created in the blogosphere and they’re marketing those efforts more visibly with names and links to physical devices.
But Google takes a longer shot by making their digital services work together much better on an almost weekly basis. Key to services that are engaging is pervasiveness, and Google is doing this on all relevant fronts.
iBeacons does the same as Moto X’s new motion sensors and Google already has in Android 4.3 fused location algorithms that are already expoited in very interesting ways by apps like Tasker and its plugins.
Great write-up, by the way, sorry for skipping this crucial part of the feedback