LeKart program acts as an authorization server for transactions executed with the use of customer cards. Its most important functions are the following:
- maintenance of customers' personal information taken from customer card issuing forms,
- authorization of online transactions using loyalty cards,
- support for electronic vouchers, including online authorization of voucher payments,
- maintaining current account balance for each card (it can be the number of available points, electronic money, discount level, etc.),
- registration of every transaction using customer cards,
- calculation of a list of cards authorized for specified profiled promotions (customer segmentation),
- providing the opportunity to browse (filter) transactions and generate reports,
- technical operations such as: "adding receipt" to a card, registering / changing customer data, blocking / unblocking cards.
Defining promotions available for customer card holders takes place outside of LeKart, most often in the central system used by retail chains e.g. in Perspectiv, Centrala, or in a different system such as SAP Retail. Promotion definitions are sent to Market, from where they are forwarded to every single cash register. POS application calculates the benefits granted for redeeming each of the promotions, what is more, the POS application can easily handle tens of thousands of concurrent promotions. In case of profiled promotions, the POS application asks LeKart server for a list of promotions active for a given card (in other words: for a list of segments that a customer became a part of), as well as sends information about the benefits added to the card account. On the other hand, in case of a loyalty system based on multi-level discounts on the value of transactions, where the level of a discount depends on transaction history (e.g. the turnover in previous periods and "transitions" between various discount levels), the POS application asks LeKart server for the current discount level for a given card.
LeKart program allows the existence of several different accounts for one card. This means that on a single card there can be both a point-based as well as a cash-based account. Moreover, it also makes it possible to define loyalty accounts for electronic vouchers and gift cards. The aim of such approach is to acquire and keep customers who received vouchers or gift cards of such kind, and were not clients of a given store earlier. Using voucher or gift card resources, allows customers to partake in the bonus buy type of promotion defined for cardholders, as well as to collect points or electronic money on a card’s account.
The information taken from the form filled out by customers willing to get a card, including their agreement to receive messages by mail and SMS, is always held in LeKart. It allows printing letters to customers, containing certain information regarding each client, taken from program’s database, or it may be used for preparation of e-mails which can later be sent by special mailing solutions. Sending SMS can be carried out by our Centrala program, using shared SMS gateway.
LeKart was created to handle a very large number of transactions - up to several million per day.
