Every loyalty solution has to solve an identification problem: recognising the customer who comes back. Historically, there were only bad answers: the card (which gets forgotten), the phone number (dictated out loud in front of the queue), the email (which ends up spammed), the app (which nobody downloads), the account with a password (abandoned at the form).
Lecy uses a more recent and more elegant answer: the passkey.
What is a passkey?
It is the authentication standard backed by Apple and Google, built natively into phones. Instead of a password, the phone creates a unique cryptographic key, protected by what the customer already uses to unlock their screen: Face ID or fingerprint.
Why it matters for the customer
- Nothing to create: no account, no password, no form.
- Nothing to give: the passkey sends no name, no email, no number. The customer can be rewarded for their loyalty while staying anonymous.
- Nothing to remember: the key lives in their phone. They can neither lose it nor forget it.
Why it matters for the shopkeeper
The passkey locks down identification, and the NFC tag locks down presence. Together, they mean that a point earned with Lecy means exactly this: this person, with this phone, was in this shop, at this moment. No points shared between friends, no phantom totals, no rewards handed out to customers who never came.
And all of this without the team at the till having anything to check: security is carried by the customer's phone, not by staff vigilance.
It is the idea that sums up the product's philosophy well: take the most solid standards of the moment (NFC, passkey, encryption) and make them invisible, so that the experience stays: tap, point, thank you, see you soon.