San Francisco Soup Company (SF Soup), operator of 17 soup, salad, and sandwich restaurants around the Bay Area, selected Punchh to create a customized mobile-based guest rewards program. Using Punchh’s Mobile CRM platform, which includes the restaurant industry’s first iBeacon-enabled solution, the chain’s customers can earn loyalty points, redeem rewards, find locations, and receive news and offers through their mobile devices. In turn, SF Soup will gather highly actionable customer data to help it understand its fans better and precision-market to them directly.
“Part of what makes our concept so popular is the convenience and portability of fresh soups, custom tossed salads, and sandwiches,” says Steve Sarver, cofounder of SF Soup. He and wife, Jennifer, launched the company in 1999. “Punchh’s Mobile CRM technology stood out for us because it will really help us serve our customers better without impacting line speed and reward them for their patronage, while driving same-store sales.”
What the Punchh platform will enable SF Soup to engage customers on mobile devices when customers are near or in the stores; reward customers for loyalty, word of mouth, and referrals; deliver daily soup notifications when customers’ favorite soups are being served; and tailor offers to each customer based on spend, visits, and order preferences
The platform employs the restaurant industry’s first use of iBeacon, to automatically identify loyalty program members with Bluetooth-enabled smartphones as they come near to or enter a SF Soup restaurant. Knowing such customers are near the location allows SF Soup to send a personalized offer to that patron immediately. Once inside, the staff can offer even more personalized touches.
“Punchh’s support for iBeacon technology within the Punchh Mobile CRM platform is the industry’s first such solution. Using our platform, we want to help SF Soup transform their guests’ experience, based on their proximity to the stores. SF Soup will be able to better understand each of their customers, and grow same-store sales and profitability via one-to-one offers,” Gupta says.
