Thanx, the leading loyalty and guest engagement platform, announced today the release of Access Pass, the latest capability in Thanx’s Loyalty 3.0 engine. Access Pass allows brands to grant bespoke rewards and experiences to guests helping them better compete with third-party marketplaces using differentiated loyalty benefits. Restaurants can use the capability to give special access or unique experiences such as VIP events, “skip the line” benefits, exclusive reservations or recipes, limited edition swag, and much more.
Access Pass bolsters Thanx’s fast-growing suite of non-discount rewards options, including the recently launched Hidden Menu functionality, all of which allow restaurants to engage guests in an on-brand way without discounts. Thanx’s innovations in loyalty, coined Loyalty 3.0, is the most comprehensive offering of non-discount rewards and customizable loyalty experiences for restaurants in the category.
“By reducing restaurants’ expensive and brand-eroding dependency on discounts, while also enabling brands to offer loyalty incentives that the third-party delivery companies simply cannot match, Thanx is ushering in a completely new era of customer loyalty — one focused more on driving customer lifetime value, not locking in costly discounts,” says Thanx CEO and Founder Zach Goldstein.
Cassie Cooper, Director of Marketing at Velvet Taco, a Thanx restaurant partner, says, “Velvet Taco is anything but ordinary and we built our program and position our content strategy to be just that. We like to push the envelope with how unique we can make the overall guest experience – something you can’t get anywhere else – and Thanx helped us make that a reality. Being able to create distinctly Velvet Taco rewards experiences with the new Access Pass feature while acquiring key insights into our guest’s dine-in and digital dining behavior will be a game changer to our overall digital strategy.” Cooper notes that “Digitization has given our guests more choice than ever. With our loyalty program, The Velvet Room, we are able to offer our guests a tiered, visit-based program that rewards guests for their loyalty with non-traditional discounts and VIP experiences while giving us first-party guest data and insights into, guest’s behaviors and spending habits to inform overall strategy.”
The launch coincides with a broader trend of restaurants exploring blockchain-based NFTs (non-fungible tokens). With Access Pass from Thanx, restaurants can award digital assets and limited-use exclusive benefits without requiring blockchain technology or a crypto wallet. Access Passes are linked directly to restaurants’ loyalty programs, so marketers can limit access and be highly personalized in targeting specific segments of customers. In addition, the integration of Access Pass into restaurants’ CRM makes measuring direct returns on investment and incremental revenue generated from each customer easy.
Unlike an NFT, Access Passes are not transferable or rentable, and royalties can not be collected. This approach allows restaurants to test the guest engagement of exclusive and experiential perks, without the complexity of blockchain technology. For restaurants more eager to expand their crypto-offerings, Thanx is considering offering NFT loyalty as part of Thanx’s Loyalty 3.0 push, later in the year.
Using Access Pass, restaurants can create highly branded customizable experiences tied to customer behaviors. Access Pass can be used to reward specific actions — such as making a certain number of purchases in a month or buying items in every menu category. Additionally, brands can restrict how long the benefit is available, driving urgency to engage with the brand.
Example use cases include:
- Create a skip the line pass for frequent customers
- Invite VIP customers to a tasting event
- Gift new customers a recipe e-book
- Award exclusive merchandise or swag for visiting twice in a month
- Grant access to exclusive parking spots for big spenders
- Create an monthly pass for unlimited toppings for dessert aficionados
