Measuring customer loyalty is not an exact science, but officials at California Pizza Kitchen are committed to teaching that class.
Ashley Ceraolo, Vice President of Marketing, Digital and Social Media at California Pizza Kitchen, shared with Loyalty360 its view on customer loyalty metrics.
“California Pizza Kitchen used to use registered members by restaurant to measure customer loyalty, but we have moved on to loyalty penetration,” Ceraolo explained. “This measures the true loyalty engagement by restaurant based on total checks. In a way, we’re measuring quality of loyalty members, rather than just quantity.”
Ceraolo is very proud of California Pizza Kitchen’s Pizza Dough Rewards loyalty program.
“I’m very proud of developing the Pizza Dough Rewards loyalty program,” she said. “Our in-restaurant team is really excited about the program and does a great job of promoting it within the restaurants. Within the first two years, we were over 1MM registered members, and to see this program grow and continue to develop is the most exciting part of my job.”
The loyalty program contains different tiers of engagement, offering different promotions to mobilize each tier.
“Mobile marketing is the best customer engagement tool for California Pizza Kitchen,” Ceraolo explained. “Our guests are already high mobile users, and they typically search for CPK using their mobile devices. The key to success in customer engagement is to be where the guest is. Our guests constantly have their phones in hand, so we see particularly high engagement with our push/pull efforts, geo-fencing techniques, and mobile ad placement.”
California Pizza Kitchen’s efforts around CX, customer loyalty, and customer engagement have evolved over the past two years with the strategic positioning of its loyalty program.
“Pizza Dough Rewards was developed a little over two years ago to customize our guests’ experiences by understanding their behaviors and serving up relevant marketing messages to increase engagement with our brand,” Ceraolo added. “With Pizza Dough Rewards positioned as an anchor in our Marketing Activation Calendar, it becomes the foundation of all of our national and local promotions to make sure we have consistent and integrated messages for our guests.”