Tasti D-Lite was recognized for its TastiRewards customer loyalty program.

The Retail Solutions Providers Association (RSPA) RetailNow Innovative Solutions Awards selected Tasti D-Lite as the winner in the credit/gift/loyalty category and gave it the best-of-the-best award among all category winners. Tasti D-Lite also received the QSR Applied Technology Award in the consumer convenience category, which was published in the July issue of QSR.

In addition to rewarding members for their purchases, the TastiRewards program, which began rolling out nationwide in the fall of 2009, allows members to earn points toward free Tasti for spreading the word on social networks such as Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare. It is the first “social-friendly” point-of-sale (POS) integrated customer loyalty application. Tasti D-Lite locations use pcAmerica’s Restaurant Pro Express software with loyalty processing handled by Mercury Payment Systems.

“The TastiRewards program allows us to acknowledge and reward our customers for their brand loyalty and for spreading the word about Tasti D-Lite with their friends and followers within the most popular social networking communities,” says BJ Emerson, social technology officer for Tasti D-Lite.

“One interesting insight we’ve learned is that TastiRewards members are spending considerably more per transaction than customers not belonging to our loyalty program. We believe this reinforces the power and value of our loyalty program in helping us engage and strengthen our relationship with our customers.”

Emerson adds that one out of five customers registered on the loyalty website are enabling social connections to share their Tasti experience with an average of close to 100 friends and followers.

POS vendor pcAmerica, accepted the awards for the TastiRewards program at the Innovative Solutions Awards July 25 in Las Vegas. TastiRewards received QSR’s consumer convenience award for programs intended to increase customer convenience or service, both in-store and in the public domain.