Telstra considers in-store mobile payments
Among other in-store improvements, Telstra is considering ways to let customers check out their own purchases via mobile phone, according to Telstra's digital executive director Gerd Schenkel.
Apple recently launched its in-store payments app EasyPay in Australia, which allows for customers to pay for products that they're buying in-store without ever having to consult a sales assistant. It wasn't going to be long before other retailers followed suit, and it is no surprise that Telstra might be the first to jump on-board. Schenkel told ZDNet Australia that the company is trialling automated payments internally.
"We're looking at in-store automation quite actively. We've got various components that we're trialling in our concept store of the future internally at the moment. The main focus of that in-store automation [trial] is how we service customers."
He said that broadly, the company is looking at how to cut down on the time that customers have to wait to be served by staff.
"Checking out is part of the consideration, but is not the highest priority," he said. "A lot of compliance work has to be done in the store when store staff process the sale, and we're really focusing on making that less burdensome for the customers when they purchase a product in-store."
The company this week officially launched its Facebook 24x7 app, after trialling it since February. The company initially indicated that 1000 customers would trial the service, but this was expanded to 2000 by the time the trial ended, Schenkel said.
Once logged in using their MyAccount details, customers can check their bills, how much they've spent, how much data they have used and what their account and mobile numbers are. Customers also have access to the telco's Live Chat customer service through the app, but financial transactions are not part of the service, and will still need to be completed through Telstra's online portal.
Schenkel said that the company changed the design from the beta to the main release for readability, and also worked to ensure that the app is fast.
"In the beta release, we had a circular donut-shape design, which we really loved, but it wasn't easy enough for customers to read, and the bar-shaped design was easier to deal with, so we changed it. Not quite as innovative, but definitely more useable," he said.
"Load time is [also] very important, so we invested quite a bit in the back end to power this app, but also the other apps that we just launched."
The company has had a 24x7 app for the iPad since April, but this week also launched versions of the app for iPhone and Android.
Schenkel said that the designs of the apps are different between the platforms, using native capabilities rather than being consistent between iOS and Android. He said that this was based on the feedback of Android users.
"There's quite a bit of difference in the design between the two, and that's based on the Android community, who typically dislike being given a sort of crunched-up iPhone application, so we designed that from the ground up, and we're making good use of the Android native capabilities."
Earlier this week, Telstra CEO David Thodey said he sees the operating system war as being between Apple's iOS, Google's Android and Microsoft's Windows Mobile, notably leaving out troubled RIM's BlackBerry OS. Schenkel said that apps for Windows Mobile and BlackBerry OS are on the cards, but did not say when the apps might see the light of day.
"Right on the minute, we're going to focus on the apps we've launched. Facebook in particular is extremely broad in its penetration by Australian consumers and our customers. And with our current line-up, we've got pretty good coverage, but we've also got the mobile site, which would plug the gap of users or handsets that do not currently have the advantage of a native app."
Schenkel said that traffic to Telstra's mobile website accounts for 15 per cent of all traffic that the company receives.