Tentative thesis proposal

I’ve been thinking a lot about thesis ideas lately. Chances are, my thesis is going to be related to the devleopment of BeeMe (www.beeme.biz), a mobile-based customer loyalty card and referral program for small businesses. Recently, I’ve been trying to come up with a reasonably stand-alone part of the development that I am interested in researching/implementing over the course of the semester. The following is a description of the problem I’m currently looking into addressing. (Note: There is still a chance that I won’t do anything related to this at all. It also depends on what the rest of the BeeMe team is doing for their thesis. We’re meeting to discuss that, hopefully for the final time, tonight. If I don’t do this, I will develop something related to urban gardening…more details to come if that happens).

_____BACKGROUND INFO__________________

BeeMe:
Small businesses need help. They drive the economy, bring diversity, and encourage innovation, but they’re vulnerable and can’t compete with the big guys. Their number one need is new customers, but traditional marketing and advertising are too expensive. Ads, flyers, and coupons? Ineffective and costly. Online ads? They lack content and credibility.

BeeMe is a next generation loyalty punchcard for the mobile platform that gives small businesses a louder voice in the marketplace.

For businesses:
Loyalty. Keep customers coming back with tailored incentives and rewards. Business owners have specifically asked us for a way to reach and reward their most loyal customers. BeeMe’s Star Program, does just turns the most valuable clients into “insiders”, offering them access to exclusive sales, discounts and promotions.
Word of Mouth. Let your customers do the taling. Amp up word of mouth marketing by encouraging customers to share your store. BeeMe generates word of mouth by giving customers a persistent record of stores that they can share with their friends.
Analytics. Get the advantage of big company rewards programs at a fraction of the price, and observe customer behaviors and trends through detailed analytics. BeeMe’s clients can be confident that their marketing dollars aren’t going to waste.

For Customers:
Shop. Find new stores, keep track of favorites, and browse your punch cards by name, location, and type of business. No more clutter in your wallet!
Share. Share your favorite stores with your friends and get punches when they become customers.
Save. Get “punches” for purchases and referrals, then fill up your card to qualify for special discounts and promotions. Become a Star Member at your favorite stores and get inside info on secret sales.

_____THESIS PROPOSAL____________________

I think that the motivation to use BeeMe’s punchcard is obvious (save $$), but the part that needs work relates to how to motivate users to share a store’s information with their friends.
I’m not sure that the “sharing” element of BeeMe is structured correctly. In its current iteration, shoppers are able to send (“beem”) a punchcard of a store to a friend’s BeeMe account. (see http://beeme.biz/video.html for a sample interaction) I think this looks like it works well in the video, but I have a feeling that in practice it will work less smoothly than that. There are 6 problems I have with the current structure:

1. Customers are only able to issue a card to any given friend once.
2. Any person can only be “beamed” a card by one person. After that, they already have the card.
3. A customer is rewarded for having been sent to a store by a friend, but not for going to a store by his/her own initiative.
5. There is financial incentive for referring a friend to the store. This may or may not make referrals less meaningful. Does it feel like you are cheapening your referral? Does it feel like you are earning money off your friends?
6. There are other social store-going behaviors that can (and maybe should) be rewarded. Some examples are:
-going with a group of friends
-weekly trips to the same store

I intend to improve, test, and design the interaction for, and potentially implement the BeeMe’s referral system.

I want to explore different options and evaluate them using user testing.
First step: Brainstorming and research (2 weeks, done 1/15)
Brainstorming questions:
1. How can I get people to use something like this without financial incentive? Experiment: Design a friend-based recommendation system with no financial rewards. Focus instead on social capital, game-like systems, etc.
Research:
overt recommendations: yelp, friendtofriend.com, twitter (sometimes)
ambient recommendations: delicious, friendtofriend.com, twitter (sometimes)
implicit recommendations: foursquare, twitter (sometimes)
• Is there a way to make the actual implantation more enjoyable to use?
Research:
bump
handshake
• Should it be possible to “beem” cards to people who you are not talking to in person?
• Is there another understandable rewards system that enables other social behaviors to be rewarded?
Research
- current rewards systems
- friends sales for employees of a store
Next steps:
- user feedback
- refinement
- interim prototype test
- refinement
- final prototype
–>if there is time: final prototype test

Final deliverable:
A social rewards system implemented on a mobile platform that encourages users to share loyalty punchcards with their friends.