Phillip Curley walked into a Fredericton Tim Hortons last week bearing a big smile and a handful of blue plastic chips that he had just received in the mail.

The chips, each about the size of a loonie, were Bluetooth low energy devices. Curley says they are key components in his plan to convert his company, HotSpot Parking, into a customer relationship management, or CRM, provider.

As a student at University of New Brunswick, Curley developed HotSpot Parking as the provider of a cellphone app that allows people to pay their parking meter charges electronically. The idea was that consumers/merchants could feed the meter remotely, meaning that local shops wouldn’t lose the customers who frequently had to rush out because their parking time was expiring.

But as the company has progressed in the past few months, Curley and his six team members have learned that their system produces invaluable data for downtown businesses. It can help businesses monitor and communicate with their clientele.

 “We’re going to be able to present to businesses downtown with analytics on everyone who comes downtown and where they’re going,” said Curley. “We’re basically going to be Google Analytics for the downtown.”

HotSpot Parking plans to install the Bluetooth chips in the business outlets that sign up for the service. It will be able to tell merchants a lot of information on the HotSpot subscribers who call on them, such as their age, occupation and what other businesses they’ve visited. It can help them advertise directly to their most profitable customers, and assess whether the advertising resulted in sales. It can even tell them what groups of businesses their clients visit frequently, which can help companies when locating new outlets.

HotSpot began a trial program in Fredericton in September, signing up 1,200 consumers and about 10 businesses. However, the young company did not yet have its product fully developed. So it reduced the business clients to three or four, and has extended the pilot project until the end of March.

It also has approval for a 12-week trial in Saint John. It is planning to expand internationally by establishing a program in Portsmouth, N.H., where a former New Brunswick resident is interested in heading the project.

The company, which is a tenant at the Planet Hatch incubator, is now in the process of raising a round of funding. It is aiming for $300,000 in equity financing and $200,000 in debt. Once it raises the money, the seven people who have been working for free will be able to draw a salary.

When the product is fully released, HotSpot Parking will allow businesses and consumers to sign up free for the basic parking service. If a merchant pays a customer’s parking, half the payment goes to HotSpot. On top of this, businesses can pay for premium products, such as the analytics and advertising features.

 “One thing I know for sure,” said Curley, “no downtown business again should waste their money on advertising that they can’t measure.”