There’s a quick listing of most popular strategies to handle loyalty program enrollment in QSR retail. We coated essentially the most generally seen enrollment strategies right here.
As a loyalty supervisor, its tempting to parse out the numerous parts of the client expertise into particular person duties. You’ve received to consider enrollment, knowledge assortment, profile constructing, knowledge safety, buyer identification, provide supply, reward redemption and suggestions loops as a part of an interrelated ecosystem quite than a guidelines of duties to be accomplished.
Enabling program members to determine themselves on the level of buy and simply account for his or her purchases isn’t solely a essential step in delivering program worth to clients however solves essentially the most elementary subject for any retailer in launching a loyalty program — figuring out simply who’s shopping for their product.
For those who turn out to be enamored with one explicit type of enrollment, cell apps for instance, with out pondering of the way to determine clients every time they present up in your areas, it’s possible you’ll unintentionally create a serious level of friction that destroys the loyalty expertise for program members.
The tacos are good, however the rewards program ain’t
Tijuana Flats is a privately held Tex-Mex restaurant chain with over 135 areas all through Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Virginia, and Indiana. Areas are fast-casual hybrids with recent meals, scorching sauce bars, artwork murals, and an off-beat inside design influenced by surf tradition, punk rock, and concrete vibes.
The rewards program is cell app centric. As a favourite of consumers for Taco Tuesday, Tijuana is a magnetic QSR model, one that may probably construct a powerful loyalty program even with the trail to enrollment restricted to obtain and signup on the cell app.
However right here’s the place this system will get slightly spicy for many members. The one approach to earn credit score for purchases is to ask for a paper receipt and both scan the bar code on the receipt from the app or manually enter a sixteen or so receipt quantity into the app. Identical to most individuals have limits on their tolerance for decent sauce, there are few folks asking for his or her paper receipts in our post-pandemic world and fewer but that need to take time to open the app and scan the barcode or sit down and enter an extended quantity into the app. Who wants extra homework in our busy world?
We inquired to Tijuana Flats and realized that areas wouldn’t have optical scanners that will scan a barcode from inside a member app nor do they provide an choice to enter an “alternate ID” like a cellphone quantity to provide members credit score for his or her buy. These are tech gaps that may be closed, however the course of ought to have been thought out earlier than this system launched.
Scrumptious acai bowls with an unappetizing loyalty program
As their story tells, Playa Bowl began with a pair of blenders, a patio desk, and a fridge. The chain serves wholesome and attractive açai, pitaya, coconut bowls, and smoothies with sustainability and neighborhood in thoughts. “Born on the seashore and constructed for the world,” Playa Bowls has flourished into over 140 shops.
Every part about Playa Bowls is tremendous cool besides perhaps their loyalty program. The shortcomings now we have witnessed are largely linked to the restrictions of the loyalty answer supplied by POS supplier, Clover.
The Clover loyalty system presents a pill system that stands a sidekick to the e-cashier as the purpose of engagement with clients. On the floor, the ID course of is straightforward and intuitive. Program members enter their cellphone quantity into the keypad and might see their program standing, which means their level stability and eligibility for a reward.
The difficult a part of the system is there isn’t any interactive messaging. Clients will not be prompted to enter of their cellphone quantity earlier than or after a purchase order is rung up. If a member is eligible for a reward, it isn’t clear the way to redeem the reward. We now have examined the system a number of occasions and needed to ask the Playa Bowl smoothie-barista if we must always punch a button earlier than inserting a fee technique or after. We now have not been capable of clearly perceive the order of execution right here and most occasions it appeared as if the affiliate hit a button on their facet of the register to redeem our factors for a reward.
As a lot as we advocate for c-level help of buyer centric advertising and marketing and emphasize the relative complexity to execute properly in buyer loyalty, many QSR retailers appear to deal with loyalty packages as a simple add on that doesn’t want a lot consideration or distinctive enrollment strategies.
Cloud based mostly POS suppliers sometimes have a local loyalty answer included with their gear however typically it’s easy and doesn’t enable for personalization. Sadly, the result’s what we witnessed at Playa Bowl, a system that entices clients to speculate extra in an important model, however an in-store expertise that leads shortly to disengagement.
When clients miss out on getting credit score for purchases of their loyalty program, this system itself ceases to ship worth.
Don’t overlook your app together with your espresso!
Delicate points of transaction course of circulation or lack of expertise compatibility open the door to such dangers. Even Tim Horton, the well-known Canadian based mostly espresso model, has room for enchancment.
Tims Rewards is cell app based mostly and delivers worth within the type of factors incomes and presents inside its app. The routine for loyalty members is to open their app and permit a cashier to scan a barcode from inside the app to obtain credit score for buy. All of that’s fairly commonplace process, however do you know that in the event you overlook to scan your code earlier than paying for a purchase order, there isn’t any approach to enter in transaction info after the actual fact to earn credit score?
If in case you have ever navigated the drive through line on a busy Monday at Timmies, you’ll be able to perceive there could also be occasions whenever you don’t get round to scanning your app on the window. That shouldn’t be a fear for the client, however it’s on this case. Once more, this is a matter with a fairly easy answer, and we hope to see Timmies shut this hole quickly.
Taking a holistic strategy to creating the loyalty expertise for program members yields one of the best long-term outcomes for the sponsoring QSR model. We now have many extra examples to share and can go deeper into associated points of program operations and buyer expertise for QSR retailers in future articles.
