Is Secure QR the new black in CRM ?

Rajesh Soundararajan
Oct 20, 2020
3 min read

Start-ups are pushing the envelope with Quick Response Management

QR Codes have evolved and evolved big-time. They are no more only the marketing coupons and posters carried in the newspapers. They have also gone beyond the ubiquitous codes displayed for payments. Here is another exciting way QR can be used and is gaining traction.

Imagine this scenario. A small entrepreneur that starts their white-goods-retail business wants to develop memberships for clients. The member-clients would receive a range of benefits, including hire-purchase instalments. The member-client buys an appliance and chooses to repay a fixed sum each month. During the ongoing payment schedule, the client can also purchase additional newer items and again either on monthly-instalments or cash-down.

To maintain such a system and achieve this functionality would require a CRM with access to all its stores. However, that would also mean exposing their internal database to all their partner networks and stores, which is undesirable. At the same time, the start-up would need an efficient way of integrating the customer data onto the customer card with simple scanning mechanisms.

With secure-updatable QR code, the retailers would only have to scan a QR code embedded on the customer’s membership card which was issued to him the first time he became a customer. On scanning the QR code, the store executive would get a clear intimation on the customer relationship history and pending amounts if any. This functionality can be achieved because the QR Code information gets updated each time on the backend system with every transaction with the customer. Such a system would help the sales team to understand the client behaviour and upsell or service the member-client.

How do such systems work?

This is a simple alternative to implementing elaborate CRM systems.
All customer membership cards are printed with secure QR code that has the ability to change its information magically in the back-end, remotely and in a secure fashion.
This entails a high level of security while at the same time providing flexibility for their IT systems.
Everytime the code is scanned, there is no need to access the company database to retrieve the information.
Since a secure QR code can be easily scanned and verified by a simple mobile phone app or a web validation mechanism, the implementation is simple and yet powerful. This is an elegant way to ensure system privacy and thus is protected from ransomware attacks and hackers.

Here below is a simple sketch of how the secure QR code works

secure QR code based membership card use by customers for purchase of goods/services

The advantages are as below.

Such a solution system works well for start-ups to start-simple and scale fast making for an early-stage CRM system.
The customer’s membership card would have embedded a QR Code, at the time of issuance which would capture necessary information that is generated directly from the system.
The cloud-based solution requires no physical server hardware installation from the retailer. Secure QR led Marketing Systems solutions help in protecting the back end system from attacks and yet provide extreme functionality.
This solution helps projects that are lean on resources and yet looking at a robust solution that would offer tamper-proof membership cards in a cost-effective manner.
Provide for easy verification by third parties and assure the genuineness of the membership card.

The start-up ecosystem is pushing the envelope on what could be achieved with simple secure QR codes. Is Secure QR led Marketing System the new black in CRM ? Only time will tell.

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