Clairmail, Inc., the leader in mobile banking and payment solutions, today announced it has received the prestigious 2012 Award for Customer Value Enhancement in the Mobile Banking and Payments Services industry from Frost & Sullivan. The award is earned by a company that demonstrates excellence in implementing strategies that proactively create value for Financial Institutions (FIs) with a focus on improving the return on the investment that FIs make in their services or products.

Clairmail has a long history of delivering effective and economical enterprise-grade mobile banking platform solutions that help customers deliver mobile services to their customers across all lines of business, including account management, bill pay, enterprise banking, mortgage management and others, said Brent Iadarola, global research director, Frost & Sullivan. The company's proven ability to drive new levels of customer trust and loyalty, facilitate cross-sell opportunities, reduce fraud and enable measurable cost savings on behalf of FIs earned them this award.

As airlines struggle to balance providing good service with making a profit, JetBlue Airways has ranked top in customer satisfaction for a seventh year in a row, according to a new survey by J.D. Power and Associates.

JetBlue, the No. 3 carrier at Orlando International Airport, scored 776 points out of 1,000 on the survey, which asked more than 13,500 passengers about their airline experiences based on seven performance factors, including costs and in-flight services.

Customers particularly liked New York-based JetBlue's aircraft and its in-flight services.

Coming in a close second was Southwest Airlines, the busiest carrier at OIA. The Dallas-based airline scored 770 points, ranking high for costs and fees; boarding, deplaning and baggage; check-in; and reservations.

Both carriers have reputations for caring about service and solving people's 'pain' points as they travel, said Stuart Greif, vice president and general manager of J.D. Power's global travel and hospitality practice.

LivePerson, Inc. (NASDAQ: LPSN), a provider of real-time chat, voice and content solutions that increase conversions and improve customer experience, today announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire mobile engagement start-up Look.io. Through this acquisition, LivePerson will add plug-and-play mobile engagement capabilities to its platform, making it easier than ever for businesses of all sizes to connect with their customers on mobile devices, wherever they may be.

As more consumers shift towards mobile-based interactions, it's becoming increasingly important for businesses to meaningfully connect with consumers via their mobile device of choice, said Robert LoCascio, CEO and Founder, LivePerson. With the integration of Look.io's innovative mobile technology into the LivePerson platform, we will be able to offer our customers a powerful turnkey mobile solution that will enable them to engage and support their customers through an optimized mobile experience. I'm also very excited to welcome Look.io's strong team of talent to LivePerson, as they will be an asset in driving our mobile strategy.

Merchants and point-of-sale developers are struggling with rapidly evolving consumer payment technologies, rewards and loyalty programs and other value-add offers designed to enhance the merchant-consumer experience. From the number of mobile payment options available to ensuring new transaction types maintain PCI compliance, emerging payment technologies and related programs have been viewed as a source of confusion and disruption. Today, Merchant Warehouse(R), a leader and innovator in payment solutions, ushered in the future of customer engagement and value-add merchant programs with Genius, the first acceptance solution designed to securely handle all current and future payment types.

Genius Features:

The Genius Customer Engagement Platform is able to aggregate and integrate every conceivable transaction technology, payment type and customer program -- both present and future -- into a single countertop device. Genius was created to address three common pain points felt by merchants, POS developers and payment providers: choice, security and access.

Root, the strategy execution consulting company, has successfully helped Petco engage company leaders to build customer loyalty and establish market leadership.

As competition in the pet specialty retail market continues to increase, Petco leaders recognize that its own people are the company's best assets and catalysts for change. Over the last five years, the company has worked diligently to engage more than 1,500 store, field and support center leaders in the company's overall business strategy. Petco believes that engaged, well-trained managers create knowledgeable front-line associates, who in turn drive customer engagement and loyalty in a process Petco calls the Engagement Profit Chain. This loyalty is the key to the company's sustained profitability and growth.

The company also linked its business strategy with expected leadership behaviors and practices of its managers in order to deliver results. To achieve its goals, in 2009, the company engaged Root to implement the Root Compass Manager Development Program and called it Leading at Petco.

Retailers may soon have access to yet another payment and loyalty card option with Apple releasing Passbook Monday at its Worldwide Developer Conference in San Francisco.

Although there was a lot of speculation that Apple might announce its entrance into the mobile payment market, that didn't happen. Instead, Apple's Scott Forstall presented Passbook, a mobile wallet-type app (sans payment capabilities) that will be a part of iOS 6, the newest version of Apple's mobile operating system when it's released this fall, according to Mobile Payments Today.

Passbook, which Forstall demoed using the Starbucks mobile payment card, allows a user to store everything from tickets to boarding passes to loyalty cards all in one place. Anything that uses a barcode can be saved in the Passbook app, making it a convenient place for consumers to hold all the accounts that currently reside in their own mobile apps or on keychains, in wallets or in purses for those consumers who haven't yet gone digital.