Convenience store chain Love’s has entered the mobile space with a cross-platform application with plans to extend into SMS and mobile coupons.

Love’s Travel Shops and Country stores is a chain of more than 265 gas and convenience store locations and 90 tire care centers that focuses on providing services for traveling consumers and commercial drivers. The chain’s move into mobile is designed to help it enhance the customer experience by providing relevant information.

“The app enables our audience, which is by definition a mobile audience, to receive convenient and thorough information about our location,” said Jenny Love Meyer, director of communications at Love’s, Oklahoma City, OK.

“It is also a way to get feedback from them in a way that is easy for them,” she said.

On the road
Love’s is promoting the app via a sweepstakes that will award $12,000 in cash.

Starting June 1, every free Love’s Connect app download from iTunes, Android Market, or BlackBerry AppWorld will automatically enter the user into a weekly drawing for $500. Two $500 winners will be randomly selected each week for 12 weeks.

The Love’s Connect mobile app is available to download for free for iPhone, Android and BlackBerry smartphones.

Having an app for multiple platforms is unusual in the convenience store space, per Ms. Love Meyer.

“The easiest thing to do was do an iPhone app,” Ms. Love Meyer said. “But we have a certain amount of our customer base on Android and BlackBerry and we want to provide a solution for them as well.”

The new Love’s mobile app provides customers real-time access to store locations, fuel prices, store amenities, food offerings and special promotions.

When customers sign up for the app, they see an option to receive deal alerts. Once opted in, deal alerts are regularly sent that highlight money-saving deals or money off a particular product.

The alerts feature a bar code that is entered by a Love’s employee at the time of purchase.

Love’s “I Love Rewards” loyalty program is also integrated into the app, with members able to receive information on current points and credits.

The loyalty program is targeted at commercial drivers, who can redeem points for amenities like free coffee and free showers. Points are earned based on the amount of fuel that they purchase.

The app is just the first step in a broader mobile strategy that the chain is currently working on.

Love’s is actively working on enabling mobile couponing and has plans to launch a SMS text messaging program.

“We are excited about the Love’s app since it is a new way for our customers to access the information and deals that are important to them,” Ms. Love Meyer said.

Final Take
Chantal Tode is associate editor on Mobile Marketer