![]() ![]() With feedback, Square is turning receipts into another way to talk.Avoiding Credit Card Fraud And Error Requires Diligence Even Brick & Mortar Stores Using Square Especially for the generations that grow up knowing nothing but smartphones, the idea that you couldn't message with that person at the counter might seem pointlessly irritating. And as many of us know, once messages start flying back and forth, they can be hard to stop. As trite as that may sound, it's a way to communicate between consumers and businesses that's ripe for new tools to be built on top of it. If a paper receipt is trash, a digital receipt is by definition a platform. By adding a messaging capability, Square is setting up the possibility of a new kind of expectation, one that could become a default assumption around how customers interact with businesses. Even without a feedback option, digital receipts are easily stored, searched, and collated. Yet they may be the most-used, least-read medium of information transfer ever, widely seen by most of us as pointless clutter.īy making receipts digital, they become not all that different from any other kind of messaging we all do on our mobile devices. Here is a piece of printed matter every business gives every customer every time something is bought. Here is a piece of printed matter every business gives every customer every time something is bought.įor businesses, paper receipts are a wasted opportunity. >For businesses, paper receipts are a wasted opportunity. It's not pure messaging, at least not yet. It's not seamless: for customers, the full feedback process ends up taking place through the smartphone browser. And Square is smart to see that the receipt can start to be the medium by which those messages are exchanged. In either case, what really has the potential to happen is the same kind of intimate back-and-forth that makes messaging in general so compelling. Unlike those other sites, this receipt-based feedback is a direct, private line between you and the merchant. ![]() But what Square is offering is different in important ways. ![]() Of course, product and store reviews are as old as Amazon and Yelp. Tap on a smiley face or a frowny face-yes, really-and you're taken to a screen with a series of checkboxes where you rate various aspects of the purchase: wait time, customer service, quality, and "other." Finally, and most importantly, there's a text box for leaving a detailed complaint or compliment. Now, along with all the standard information about your purchase, merchants also have something else they can slip right in the receipt: a request for feedback. >Square is unveiling a new feature for its digital receipts that, in and of itself, doesn't radically change how we interact with the places where we shop. In that way, your credit card is like your avatar. Provide one, and every time you use that card, your contact info is right there, no matter where you are. The first time you swipe a card on Register, you're asked for an email address or SMS contact number so the merchant can send a receipt. One of Register's basic features is the ability to send electronic receipts. It's pretty cool, but for the merchants of the world, the meat and potatoes is Square's Register app. Square is best known for its new-age credit-card readers, which plug into the headphone jack on a smartphone or tablet. Today, Square is unveiling a new feature for its digital receipts that, in and of itself, doesn't radically change how we interact with the places where we shop. Revolutionizing the cash register receipt sounds like the worst kind of startup cliché, but indulge me for a moment. ![]()
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