What is our primary use case?
We're primarily a middleware solution and we integrate loyalty customer management systems with points of purchase, and those points of purchase can include point of sale, gas pumps, kiosks, mobility, et cetera. We provide several suites of services, however, there are two or three primary services. One is we expose existing marketing loyalty-type benefits and allow customers to dynamically inquire, redeem, and see these from multiple sources at a single point of purchase. For example, as a casino customer, I can see all my benefits, see what's going on, I can make a choice at the time of purchase based on my basket of goods. Another service is allowing gas stations operated by Tribal and casino operators to expose coupons, points, marketing offers, et cetera, at the actual gas pump and use us for the purchase of fuel.
We also have a category of private card op management, including private gift cards, fleet cards, the ability to do employee cards, again using the same type of very sophisticated programming where you can manage any of our offers or anything you're doing in the marketing offer, and you have the ability to set time of day, day, basket, types of products, category of consumer, blackout dates, and more. All of it is in real-time and can be all divined in real-time and so I can dynamically kick you out stuff, based on a customer's behavior at the moment. The system is all designed to do a dynamic real-time interpretation of what they're buying, how much, how frequently, et cetera, and make decisions on what the customer is entitled to.
What is most valuable?
The real-time aspect of the solution is very important to us, as is the ability to uniquely construct the behaviors and the conditions under which customers are allowed to consume things. In real-time, being able to look at what a consumer is buying, how much, when, and when they last bought is crucial to targeting correctly. The ability to do it all at these various endpoints, especially as fuel dispensers, makes it an excellent solution.
It is very customizable and it's intelligent. It modifies behavior based on what is available and who the customer is. If you're a customer, you have coupons and points you'll see certain offers that will be different if you're a Tribal member and you have this other discount available. It will know who you are and it'll present you with the correct options.
The solution is stable.
We find the product to be scalable.
The initial setup is straightforward.
What needs improvement?
There aren't any areas of improvement. We have a very long relationship with their R&D group. They're fairly dynamic there, however, it's not the relationships I manage. The only big hurdle for us is that most customers aren't familiar with it, so it's scary. If you're in commercial environments, everybody knows SQL, everybody knows Oracle, or whatever. It doesn't really matter due to the fact that it's embedded, however, they're paying those licenses. The only drawback is you can't just say, "Hey, provide us three Enterprise SQL licenses," and they just go reach into their Microsoft licensing deal and plug them in and go. Instead, it's plugging a new product into the mix that they otherwise would take care of on their own. The apparent cost is higher, however, in the end, it's really not.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using the solution for 28 years or so. I've used it for a very long time.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The solution is pretty stable. Customers simply provide us network configuration information, provide our interfaces to the systems that we talk to and it's plug and play.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The solution is very stable and has multi-tenant capabilities.
How are customer service and support?
Technical support is great. It's 24/7, 365 days a year.
How was the initial setup?
I do not handle the initial implementation. I go out and I'll train and I'll do things. I'm doing projects, running projects and I'll do business development, core work and I know all our solutions. I do not get involved in the nitty-gritty. I just stay out of it.
That said, the initial setup is pretty turnkey. It's actually very simple. We drop a turnkey solution in and go.
What other advice do I have?
We've been partners for 28 years.
The solution can be an on-premises deployment. It can be hosted, however, due to the nature of the solution, it typically isn't. We have several we operate, and they're high-speed, real-time transactional interfaces that interface with the point of sale, gas pumps, all types of things. Proximity often is relevant and you can't run a gas pump if you lose your connection to a cloud, so we, generally, 99% of the time, use on-premises.
If you've decided you want these advanced marketing capabilities, you want the ability to pay and consume at the pump, you want the ability to do this robust offer management capability or custom private fleet cards, et cetera, you should look at this solution. There isn't an industry solution in casino hospitality, that does what we do today. It's kind of lateral, bilateral. We don't go at marketing hard, people know of us in the industries we're in and that's it.
I'd rate the solution at a nine out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
*Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Partner