Sponsored by Cheetah Digital
Shakes, fries, cheeseburgers, nachos, and, of course, tacos; if you crave it, Del Taco’s got it. The age-old brand started out selling .19¢ tacos and .24¢ cheeseburgers in 1964, but just because it’s been around for several decades doesn’t mean that they’re letting their strategy go stale — especially when it comes to loyalty.
Too many restaurants, especially those in the QSR category, fall into the points-for-purchase loyalty trap, focusing on the transactional part of loyalty instead of growing relationships with customers through loyalty. We recently sat down with Erin Levzow, the VP of Marketing Technology at Del Taco during our Signals Virtual Content Series to talk about their Del Yeah! Rewards program, why she’s not interested in transactional loyalty, where she finds inspiration, and what she looks for in a technology partner.
- How Del Taco’s original loyalty program missed the mark
Originally, Del Taco had a loyalty program that was just focused on offers. “The only reason you would use it is if there was a coupon in the app that was enticing for you to use and may have been someone who was coming anyway, but now we just gave them another coupon or another offer to use,” said Levzow. “It didn't encourage people to continue using. It didn't encourage visits to restaurants. We're looking at driving those transactions or driving those average tickets. And it didn't encourage either one of those."
- Why she’s not interested in a transactional loyalty program
Restaurants tend to gravitate towards transactional loyalty programs, but Levzow was really looking to go beyond that. Reflecting on “loyalty,” she said, “The word by itself, people think loyalty, they think old school punch cards. Come in nine times, get the 10th free. Why would I give you the 10th free? Does it encourage you to come more often? Does it encourage you to come every week? It just says, ‘Whenever you come, you might get another free visit.’ Not that exciting."
- How you should look outside the industry for inspiration
"You never want to just look at it and go, ‘Well, what are my key competitors doing?’ You need to look outside our industry because customers don't compare us to our loyalty app [or] another restaurant's loyalty app. They compare it to everybody's loyalty program. Like, ‘I earn more points doing this,’ or ‘I earn more points doing that,’” said Levzow. For inspiration, their team looked at Southwest and American Airlines, as well as Las Vegas loyalty strategies.
- To go beyond transactional, think about what the consumer wants
Old school loyalty programs don’t take into consideration what the customer wants, and many companies still think that way, but not Del Taco. Levzow thinks differently, "And thinking about it, not just as what's best for us as a company, but what does our consumer want? And I think sometimes when you look at some of these other loyalty programs, it's what's best for the company. And that's good, that's positive. We all want that, but what does the consumer want? What do they want to engage with? They don't want to just be shoveled messaging all the time. They want messaging that's relevant to them when it's relevant to them.”
- How choosing the right technology partner can be your best resource
“The one thing we loved about Cheetah [Loyalty] was that it encompassed a lot. On my end, I care about having all the things with Cheetah because of time and resources. I don’t have to have a team of 12 managing this. We can manage it all under one umbrella with this one partner. And I don’t have to call 12 other partners to do that,” said Levzow.
“And that’s really enticing for us because we’re not 10x our size, we’re a little over 600 restaurants, which is a good size, but doesn’t mean we have unlimited budget either. And so, when you start putting lots of players in the space, that’s when you need more resources to manage. You need more money and you need to be able to make time that doesn’t exist. So, with Cheetah, we’re able to do all these different pieces under one system, which is really, really enticing."
One more bonus insight from Erin, “You have to start somewhere to get somewhere. Don't let those thoughts cloud you. Even if you're starting with, ‘All right, let's just build out a little bit of a plan’ or ‘Let's look at what we have and do an audit.’ Do something, but don't do nothing.”
What can you do right now to start? Watch Erin’s full interview to see what it takes to build a loyalty program that truly engages the customer. Watch these 5 quotes and more in full session here.
