Krispy Kreme CEO Tony Thompson is excited about the company’s new test shop that will magnify the customer experience. What’s more, Krispy Kreme’s new loyalty program is about 90% rolled out across the country.
“During the quarter, we took a huge step with the opening of a newly designed test shop that is allowing us to experiment with the new in-store guest experience with the intent of driving higher beverage attachment,” Thompson said during the company’s Dec. 8 third-quarter earnings conference call, according to Seeking Alpha. “The guest experience in this new store includes a new ordering process and customer flow. The shop has a more contemporary, warmer, and inviting 
dining area with Wi-Fi and much more pronounced coffee presentation as well as exterior improvements. This is still a test, but we are pleased with what we are seeing. Our next step will be to retrofit a few existing shops with a similar ordering and customer flow design. This will occur in the beginning of the calendar year. We are optimistic that some versions of these changes will help improve guest experience drive incremental beverage sales and thus deliver greater returns.”
On the technology front, Krispy Kreme’s loyalty program rolled out to the majority of the country with the full nationwide rollout set for completion by the end of January.
“Last week, we conducted a media event in Atlanta celebrating the rollout and demonstrating the loyalty app and its unique features,” Thompson said. “During fiscal 2017, we will begin to gather and analyze guest information and use that information as an additional tool to drive sales performance. Right now, now we are about 90% complete on that rollout and, as I mentioned, we’ll have it completely rolled out by the end of January. And we are pleased with the results we are seeing.”
Marketing the loyalty program has already started, Thompson noted.
“And that's going to help us really leverage that as an asset going forward,” he explained. “So it is not going to be indicative of results we’ve seen on the test because we had very limited marketing related to that as opposed to how we are going to use it in fiscal 2017. So stay tuned on some detail down the road as far as we are seeing results. We will share certainly what’s appropriate, but I would say it has some of the basics that you would expect in a loyalty program. We are feeling very positive about the results we are getting so far.”