boloco, a family of fast-casual burrito restaurants, rolled out its new loyalty program−the boloco passport− on May 5. With this innovative new system, burrito lovers will swap their existing boloco cards for the boloco passport for their next trip around the world. Current boloco cards won’t retire until June 30, 2014.
Alexandra Dunk, Marketing Manager, boloco participated in an engaging Q&A with Loyalty360 to discuss the new mobile loyalty program.
What factors prompted boloco to transition to a mobile loyalty program and what makes this offering unique for your customers?
What’s important to boloco is giving our guests choices. Every loyalty program has its pros and cons and we knew that our old loyalty program did have some limitations. For example, our guests could not redeem what we called a “freebie” (a free menu item) if they ordered through the app that existed at the time.
With our new boloco passport program, our guests have the opportunity to pay and earn or redeem rewards in one step, regardless of how they are ordering and paying (in-app, ordering online, or ordering in our restaurants). Mobile payment will also make a big difference on how long it takes to pay for orders in our restaurants. We truly hope that our guests find this to be a big improvement.
What metrics will be used to measure success of the program?
There are a few metrics that stand out to us. We'll be keeping an eye on the number of existing boloco card users who choose to transition to the boloco passport. We will keep tabs on the number of guests who are brand new to any boloco loyalty program and have decided to sign up for the passport. Of course, we are also looking at how much our boloco passport users spend, how often they come to boloco, and the time of their transactions.
Was customer feedback a factor in the launch and, if so, in what way?
We can’t for a minute overlook customer feedback. We say that we want to hear it all, the good, the bad, and the ugly. Many of the changes that we made to the loyalty program, especially the rewards structure and the rate of earning rewards, were inspired by feedback from our guests. Additionally, as we launch, we are listening to our guests. Everything we can do to listen, to respond to our guests’ questions and concerns, and to work on the way we communicate, ultimately keeps us accountable and makes us better.
Will a mobile loyalty program allow boloco to use different types of analytics for measurement?
Measurement will be much, much easier since our loyalty program is now integrated with online, mobile, kiosk, and traditional POS ordering. All of this data will allow us to analyze spending and behaviors from all of our ordering channels without a lot of manual work.
What are your goals for the program?
We can't wait to see how our guests decide to use the boloco passport. We have a number of payment and ordering channels and we are excited to see what works, what doesn’t, and what options excite our guests.
Additionally, we look forward to the fall and to the return of college students. Sometimes, loyalty programs miss the mark when it comes to that demographic. We want to see if our passport engages that age group.
How do you hope this program impacts customer engagement?
Our only hope is that the new boloco passport resonates with our guests and makes a meaningful difference for them. If it isn’t an improvement in the ways that count, namely in the ease of paying, earning, and redeeming rewards, then we haven’t done our job right.