Technology Delivers Wow Factor

Connect Retail is pioneering many of the c-store industry's newest technologies

Fun, demanding and innovative are the words Shon Call uses to describe his job as executive director of Connect Retail, Maverik's store technology department. Fun because Call is a self-proclaimed "gadget freak" who loves new technologies. Demanding because he and his team have more projects underway right now than he can ever recall them having. And innovative because Maverik is a leader within the convenience store industry for using technology to deliver more to customers and give its stores the "wow" factor.

Call, whose relatives founded the convenience store chain, started working for the family business 18 years ago in the merchandising department. He migrated over to technology roughly 10 years ago when he spearheaded the development of the company's first central pricebook.

Today, he oversees a team of 20 employees and has two main focuses in his role. The first is store technology, which encompasses anything technology-driven at the store, whether it's the point-of-sale, pay at the pump, credit cards, digital signage, in-store media, in-store radio, etc. He has a team that develops these programs/products, tests them, takes them through quality assurance, implements them and then passes them along to another group that does the rollout.

His second focus is on the support side, where he has a different team responsible for all store technology support — what you would traditionally call a help desk. This same group does the technology installations for every new store Maverik opens and all remodels.

Call is very involved in the product development process and manages most of the department's third-party vendor relationships. Because there are so many projects underway, he said he spends about 40 percent of his time these days managing the vendor side.

One of the biggest projects on his to-do list is the launch of a new loyalty program. Maverik has selected Radiant Systems' Loyalty Manager (RLM) to be its "Loyalty 2.0," as the project is referred to internally. At the time of CSNews' visit, the new loyalty program was in the test lab phase. Call expects it to be "fully active" at the chain's 250 stores by this fall.

"Our current loyalty program is not real-time. A customer swipes their card and it will do a price rollback at the pump, but it doesn't recognize who they are and what rewards they have available to them," Call explained. "With the new program, when a loyalty card is swiped, it will go to the host and immediately recognize who it is and what they have available."

As part of Loyalty 2.0, Maverik is introducing new loyalty cards. The Chrome Card will offer a 2-cent pump rollback, while the Black Card is an automated clearing house (ACH) payment card and will offer a 5-cent pump rollback. Both cards will access in-store deals as well.

Along with the pump discounts, the program will still be points based, but Call noted that now the points won't expire and customers will have more options in which to use them. They will be able to go online and use their accumulated points to buy Maverik merchandise, purchase Maverik gift cards, get multiple entries into contests or donate to a charity.

The new loyalty program will also be integrated into another store technology — Maverik's proprietary mobile app, which was introduced a year and a half ago and just entered its second phase. Through the app, loyalty card holders will have a variety of information available at their fingertips, including offers targeted to their individual preferences.

"This will make it really user-friendly for the customer," Call added.

Another major initiative for Maverik on the mobile front is the acceptance of mobile payments. Isis, the mobile wallet joint venture between AT&T Mobility, T-Mobile USA and Verizon Wireless, chose Salt Lake City as one of two pilot sites, and Maverik signed on to be a launch partner.

"Being the dominant convenience store player in the market, we saw this as an opportunity. This gets us in the door to accept more mobile payments and other smartphone technology," Call explained, noting that at launch time, Isis will be accepted at 86 Maverik stores.

Call's team is installing VeriFone devices and new point-of-sale software to allow Isis users to tap and pay. When the mobile wallet has its soft launch in Salt Lake at the end of this month, Maverik will be ready to accept Isis in the stores. By the end of this year or early 2013, Call expects Isis users to be able to tap and pay at the pumps, too.

"Because the technology is so new, we have to do this in phases," he said.

The project has also required Call to coordinate with multiple vendors, including Radiant, Wayne and Gilbarco. In fact, on the day of CSNews' visit, he had a 9 a.m. conference call with Radiant to discuss Isis, the new loyalty program and a host of other projects.

"The tricky thing is working with all the different vendors to get everyone's timelines synched and the project off the ground," he said. This issue of timing comes up in many projects, according to Call, which is why Maverik develops a lot of proprietary technology.

Even in-house, though, the development process can still take too long. To help this along, Maverik this year created a product development group whose sole focus is to develop new programs. "Nothing is worse than having a great idea, but the tech side takes so long that by the time it rolls out, you no longer have the competitive advantage," he said.

Technology, particularly store technology, has become a vital part of Maverik's strategy over the last 10 years, and Call is excited for today's projects and what lies ahead.

"Hopefully, all of this gives [customers] an incentive to keep coming back to Maverik."

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