Co-op to survey customers with chip-and-pin

UK retailer the Co-op is to use chip-and-pin technology to get feedback from customer in order to improve its services.

The group has added a small application to the SmartNS software that runs on the store's IBM payment terminals. The application surveys customers on what they think of their local store, waiting times, frequency of visits, along with questions on whether they are managing to eat their recommended five portions of fruit and vegetables a day and how much they snack at work.

The Co-op rolled out the IBM terminals in June 2005 at 8,000 checkouts. Each point of sale terminal runs IBM's StorePay payment application and integrates SmartNS software, from smart card technology firm STS, which links smart card applications to business systems.

The idea of using chip-and-pin terminals to find out more about customers was devised in April 2006 by the Co-op's in-house IT development team. Meetings with IBM and STS revealed that adding a survey application to the software would be relatively straightforward and would not affect the security of the terminal.

"Extending the functionality on our POS payment terminals to gather customer feedback has been an extremely successful and satisfying project," said Lawrence Freeman, the Co-operative Group's development manager. "Low cost and high impact, it's delivered all you could hope for from a project."

Freeman said that the speed with which the organisation can roll out new questions means that it can respond to national events. "We'll be using the system to see which good cause our customers would like to see us support as our charity of the year," he said.

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