Kuapay, an intuitive mobile payment solution that incorporates coupons, reward cards and loyalty cards, announced today the availability of its mobile payments application to New York City merchants. The service is currently enjoying considerable success with southern California merchants across multiple different verticals.

The company's flagship client is The Bean, a chain of local coffee and food shops. The Bean lost its lease to a corporate coffee chain last fall and responded by continuing plans for expansion into three East Village locations. Kuapay is also working with the Little Pie Company, a bakery located on 424 West 43rd Street.

"We are excited to enter the New York City market, which has a diverse mix of customers that demand an optimal experience from every merchant," said Kuapay founder and CEO Joaquin Ayuso de Paul. "We're an independent company that is able to move fast to meet the needs of our broad base of clients. We chose The Bean because they are also a dynamic company that is moving to aggressively capture customers and we admire their success."

"Given all the options on the market, I had to go with a solution that offered exceptional value to my customers, and Kuapay does," said Ike Escava, co-owner of The Bean.

CHESTER-BASED customer loyalty company Loyalty Pro has unveiled Slatepoint, the new tablet technology version of their high-tech reward system which they believe makes them the market leader in their field.

Loyalty Pro clients across the UK – who include a wide variety of retailers, pubs, hotels, and sports venues - are currently being fitted with Slatepoint’s new touch-screen tablets which will make the customer reward process faster, more comprehensive and more user friendly.

Technical director Rob Meakin says “Now the Slatepoint tablet takes our technology to the next stage. It processes transactions instantly, with our central database returning information to personalise the customer experience and provide instant rewards. Furthermore the tablet can also be used for everything from visual promotions to interactive remote training of staff.

“Slatepoint’s tablet technology takes us leaps and bounds ahead of our rivals and provides our clients with much more than a customer loyalty package. Its real-time interaction is the future of point-of-sale reward systems, because it personalises the purchase counter experience.

“Our new system also means that customers can register for the scheme on the tablet touch screen and the issued card is immediately active.”

Apple Inc. has developed a reputation over the years for its work in is retail stores, especially in its tech support staff. And that reputation has held up and actually is showing to be a major factor in customer satisfaction and loyalty, according to a survey of Apple customers by NDP Group.

According to the survey, 60 percent of Apple Inc. customers stated they were more likely to return to an Apple Store (more specifically, the “Genius Bar”) after a positive tech service experience. Nearly one-third of those surveyed said they had a more positive perception of Apple Inc. as a company after they had an encounter with tech service. And 40 percent of those surveyed noted they had an experience with the “Genius Bar” inside an Apple Store – and 90 percent of those people said they were extremely or very satisfied with the experience. And comparing Apple users who used general tech support and those who used the Genius Bar, more peole stated they received free service from the latter (88 percent) than from the former (78 percent), and the group conducting the survey noted a “major” correlation between the satisfaction of the service received with the free-ness.

NICE Systems (NASDAQ: NICE) today announced that the retail division of Shell UK Oil Products (Shell), Royal Dutch Shell plc's largest global group of energy and petrochemical companies, is using the NICE Fizzback Voice of the Customer (VoC) solution to help the company take a more customer-centric approach across its retail fuel business. The solution gathers feedback in real time from various channels, with a focus on mobile, from across the entire UK Shell-owned retail operation. This allows the company to gain valuable insights from the voice of the customer - driving operations teams to immediately take action to address the customer experience.

"By adopting NICE Fizzback, we can listen to what customers are saying in real time and react accordingly to their needs to help provide a better level of customer service. We want to put the customer at the center of the business for ourselves and our retailers. The NICE Fizzback Voice of the Customer solution is helping us do that," said Melanie Lane, General Manager at Shell UK Retail.

Following a successful pilot with NICE Fizzback last year, Shell chose to expand its voice of the customer program throughout its company-owned sites in the UK. Customers who are part of Shell's Driver Club loyalty program are prompted to provide feedback via SMS or email immediately after filling up at the gas station, while those not in the program are encouraged to share their thoughts and experiences via other feedback channels such as Web surveys.

For an eighth consecutive year, Canadians ranked credit unions first in overall Customer Service Excellence among all financial institutions in the 2012 Ipsos Best Banking Awards. Credit unions also took sole honours in two other categories: Branch Service Excellence and Values My Business.

"For over a hundred years, Canadian credit unions have met the personal and business financial needs of their members by focussing on what they believe is most important - putting their members' needs first, and treating them as individuals," explains David Phillips, president and CEO, Credit Union Central of Canada (Canadian Central). "While innovative ideas, products and services are an integral component of our co-operative system.