For officials at Buffalo Wild Wings, they always try and stay on the cutting edge of technology innovation and customer loyalty. As a result, the company launched a pilot loyalty program called Blazin’ Rewards last fall. The early results appear promising.
“The pilot of Blazin’ Rewards, the Buffalo Wild Wings loyalty program, launched in the fall,” Buffalo Wild Wings CEO Sally J. Smith said during last month’s fiscal fourth-quarter conference call, according to Seeking Alpha. “We want to offer a meaningful rewards experience to increase guest affinity and loyalty. The five-market pilot is progressing well, and we’re learning how our guests utilize the program. As we learn more about guest behavior and financial impact and make appropriate adjustments, we’ll review our timeline for implementation on future calls.”
For 2015, same-store sales increased 4.2% at company-owned restaurants and 2.5% at franchised locations.
“Our brand home scores remained high, including scores for overall satisfaction, value, and likelihood to recommend Buffalo Wild Wings to a friend,” Smith noted. “In 2015, we opportunistically purchased several franchises that will deliver sales and earnings growth in 2016. In addition, we continued to build new Buffalo Wild Wings restaurant, remodeled existing locations, and invested in our Guest Experience and technology to support future growth and brand strength.”
What’s more, the company continued development in the United States, opening 51 company-owned Buffalo Wild Wings restaurants, and remodeling 50 existing company-owned locations to its stadia restaurant design.
“We believe remodels are important to keep our brand vibrant and relevant to our guests,” Smith said. “And our guests like the new design, creating a financial benefit with same-store sales at remodeled units outpacing the company-owned average.”
During 2015, the company completed the implementation of a new point-of-sale system, bringing all company-owned and franchised locations on a common platform.
“This enabled us to deliver many of the technology initiatives we've been working on, such as online ordering and menu order on tablet,” Smith added. “With this POS implementation complete, we now have online ordering at 94% of system-wide locations, allowing guests to order takeout online or through our mobile app. We’ve seen great adoption of online ordering with 15% of takeout orders coming through online or mobile and the average ticket for online takeout orders coming in 10% higher than call-in orders. Online order adoption was supported by limited digital media in the fourth quarter and we intend to put more marketing behind this initiative this year.”