A year after testing mobile capabilities with its customers, Wow Bao, an Asian restaurant with three Chicago locations, is planning to launch a mobile gift card program with Mocapay Inc. by the end of April, PaymentsSource has learned.
The system will enable customers to use a website or their phone to load gift card information into any mobile phone, Geoff Alexander, Wow Bao managing partner and a vice president at parent Lettuce Entertain You Enterprises Inc., tells PaymentsSource.
Consumers opt in by sending a text to a dedicated number, and Mocapay sends them a text back with a barcode. To accept the mobile gift card, checkout workers scan the barcode while the customer is in line at the restaurant. Participants also may give the checkout person a one-time-use code from a text message, which the clerk keys in to the terminal to access their prepaid account, he says.
Each restaurant has one to three scanners, Alexander notes.
Wow Bao has been working with Denver-based Mocapay since May to develop mobile “comp” cards, in which the restaurant gives a complimentary amount of funds to spend at the restaurant, and mobile coupons. Wow Bao has begun preparing its marketing plan for the Mocapay mobile gift card system rollout to its customers.
Marketing efforts will include e-mails, announcements on the restaurant’s Website, text messaging, bag inserts, table signage and display boards, says Alexander. Later this year, the company plans to expand the program to Lettuce Entertain You’s more than 65 restaurants in eight states, he says.
Lettuce Entertain already has a 25-year-old frequent-diner program that has nearly 135,000 members, and the company likely will approach them with the mobile gift card offering, Alexander says.
