Chase's blink Card: Blinking Along in Denver Update

It's now been over six weeks since I first ventured out with my new blink card in Denver. Some time has passed, and I was curious what progress had been made. Several things have improved significantly – from marketing to signage to merchant clerk training.

On the marketing front, an unsolicited offer for a blink card arrived at our household. This was a new offer, not a conversion of an existing card, and the marketing message was much more coherent, from bold messages on the front and back of the envelope to each enclosure. And this time, there was a bit more on how the card works inside, including the note ‘blink .. OR swipe’ and ‘for some purchases, a signature may be required’. The mailing offered the usual interest rate enticements, but those were right alongside this new enticement of ‘blink’ at Denver locations for 7-Eleven, Arby’s and Walgreens.

A few weeks later, I noticed an actual billboard for blink on my way home. The image and message was exactly like what you see on the Chaseblink website. The graphics chosen for this program are clean with lots of white space…this works beautifully on the website, but the billboards don’t scream for attention. I think the good news if that they are beginning to appear around town. I’ve spotted two, both on busy major boulevards in town in the general vicinity of active merchants.

Since blink was clearly working on the marketing, I made another visit to the website. The most annoying aspect of the site, the difficulty in finding merchants who accept the blink card with a wave rather than a swipe, has been changed to allow the user to put in a radius (10 miles, 20 miles, etc) around their home zipcode. Now I could easily assess the merchant base in Denver. The Arby’s rollout was the same with less than a half-dozen restaurants participating, but the 7-Eleven rollout has made a lot of progress, now listing well over 20 locations all over town, not clustered in any one area.

Also new on the website is content in the pressroom for TV ads and print ads. I haven’t seen either in deployment, but the TV add on the website is really eye-catching and slick in bold colors (in contrast to the print and billboard adds).

Well, time to go shopping again !!

First, I decided to visit 7-Elevens in the part of town with the billboards. And, pulling up to the parking lot, I was surprised and pleased to see a decal on the door. I stopped at two 7-Eleven stores. One allowed me to use the card (without having to call for help), but the other said the terminal was down. I still had to click either debit or credit, and sign, and wait for a receipt, but there was no blank look when I asked about using my blink card. OK, overall the 7-Eleven experience is improving. And, Chase didn’t block my card for suspicious activity, also an improvement.

On to Arby’s, which has only a few outlets working with blink. When I asked about using my card, the clerk actually said ‘its so much easier, don’t you think ?’. Wow, now that’s training !

I tried a few sensitivity tests at this site and can report that the card would not work from inside my wallet, even when held flat up against the reader. My blink card was inside the wallet, against my RFID office pass. I removed the office pass, in case it was interfering, and closed the wallet and held it up against the terminal again. The blink card won’t work from inside a fairly standard wallet, even when within an inch of the reader. But it worked just fine when outside the wallet. This also seems like a plus for the security and sensitivity issues cropping up about contactless cards.

Also, Arby’s was pretty clear on the ease-of-use aspects of the card, and did not require any other input from me, either to select account type or a signature. The reader was attached to a printer which issued a receipt, on which I see ‘Entry Method : Waved’. There was no indication of the contactless usage on the 7-Eleven receipt.

Overall, my experience left me wondering about a couple of things. First, since the object of a contactless card is speed and convenience, should the card and system designers think about making this card useful from inside a wallet ? That might require some other compensating systems design, such as encrypted information blinking from the card. This becomes an interesting and complex question in its impacts on rollout.

Secondly, now that we are seeing more announcements of contactless cards, and the terminals are clearly marked for Visa, MasterCard ‘pay pass’, and Amex ‘express pay’ products, perhaps the uptick in usage will depend more on a general market movement than scattered Chase customers observing each other at fast food and fast retail locations.

[End]