Loyalty programs are hugely popular. There are more than 3.5 billion memberships in the U.S. alone, and, for chains, they make compelling fiscal sense. It costs between 9–11 times as much to acquire a new diner as it does to retain an existing one, and a boost of just 7 percent in engagement can translate into an 85 percent increase in the lifetime profits of a customer.
To make it easier for diners, almost every program has migrated to phone-based apps over the last decade, and it makes sense—smartphones are ubiquitous, and people spend up to three hours a day on apps. Yet the promise of apps and all the data they bring has been elusive.
A recent Deloitte study reported that only 15.1 percent of all quick-service customers ever downloaded a restaurant’s app, while 67.2 percent never downloaded one at all. Furthermore, more than 90 percent of users abandon their apps within 90 days, leaving restaurants blind to the behavior of most customers.
“Apps are high friction by nature, because customers have to download them, remember to fill out all the fields, and then use it,” says Tom Byrnes vice president of marketing for LedgerPay. “LedgerPay can solve that problem, because we can instantly give restaurants 100-percent visibility into all their customers whether they are enrolled in a loyalty program or not.”
LedgerPay works by creating individualized customer profiles through the payment system without the need for a loyalty program.
“If I go to a restaurant and order lunch, LedgerPay sees the card I paid with and everything I ordered,” Byrnes says. “Then, the next time I order, the system matches that card to the database of information it’s built about me without needing any other identifiers from an app or loyalty card.
Then, LedgerPay can make personalized promotional offers in real time at the ordering kiosk, on a receipt, or even at the POS terminal. Additionally, rather than offering a standard 10 percent off or buy-one-get-one promotion, LedgerPay’s AI can create customized offers that are more likely to incentivize guest behaviors or it can make offers that align with the brand’s goals.
For example, James Becker, vice president of business development and strategic partnerships at LedgerPay, suggests that while a breakfast chain wouldn’t need to incentivize its loyal breakfast customers to return in the morning, it might want to give them an offer to visit at lunch or dinner, too.
“We’re doing for brick-and-mortar what Amazon did for online commerce,” Becker says. “Not only do we help restaurants target the right customers, but we also give their marketing departments complete granular visibility into their customers’ preferences, which they can use to create new strategies. And we also help them sell their real-time data back to CPGs, which will pay a premium for this type of data.”
And best of all, LedgerPay is entirely platform agnostic, so restaurants can continue using their existing POS, payment processors, and loyalty programs in addition to the software.
“We sit at the nexus of loyalty, payment, and consumer insights,” Byrnes says. “While other companies claim to do those things, we’re the only ones who really can. Our database and analytics are built to help restaurants gather and leverage the information they need to be successful.”
Learn more about how LedgerPay can help you transform your loyalty program, visit ledgerpay.com.
