The massive international Canadian coffee chain has announced that smartphone transactions are here.
Tim Hortons has now announced that it has added mobile payments app features to its existing TimmyMe smartphone application, in order to allow customers to use their devices in order to pay for their purchases of food, beverages, and other items at many of their locations.
The application was created to enhance the customer experience and boost service speed in restaurants.
The TimmyMe mobile payments app option is now available at restaurants throughout the United States and Canada. According to the Tim Hortons chief operating officer, David Clanachan “We’re always looking to provide our Tim Hortons guests with the best overall customer experience, and mobile payment is one area that we feel can help streamline the average time spent at the order counter.”
At the moment, the mobile payments app is available only to consumers with BlackBerry 10 based phones.
Clanachan explained that the company enjoys the opportunity to provide innovations to its customers to make it possible to offer quick, secure, and simple alternative forms of transactions so that guests will be able to spend “more time enjoying their favorite food and beverages.” This latest feature will be available to customers who have BlackBerry 10 smartphones, initially. This includes the BlackBerry Q5, Q10, Z10, and Z30.
Those device users can download the free TimmyMe application and register a Tim Card. This gives them the ability to pay for their purchases by simply tapping their NFC technology enabled devices at the cash register upon checkout. The company explained that this is one of the first integrations of near field communication based stored value card solutions into terminals that are already existing in the store locations.
Although the percentage of customers who can use the technology upon first launch is relatively limited, as only specific BlackBerry devices are compatible, this mobile payments app solution will soon be expanded to devices that will run on Android 4.4 and beyond. There was also a QR code based pilot program for transactions launched in the Canadian Niagara region and in specific Tim Hortons Café & Bake Shop locations in New York, Michigan, Maine, and Ohio.
