It’s a hot summer afternoon, and you know your customers are probably parched and looking for a cold drink, but how do you improve customer experience to get them to come to your restaurant? McDonald’s in Turkey thinks the key is using beacon technology to send real-time offers and coupons to customers’ phones. Turkey recently served as a proving ground for the technology, and McDonald’s is using factors, including location and weather to customize its offerings, raise awareness of new products, and increase sales. Beacons provide real-time data that allows companies like McDonald’s to integrate themselves into customers’ lives in ongoing and relevant ways.
The fast food chain tested similar initiatives in the Netherlands, Sweden and Japan, using its app to market products based on customers’ habits, locations and the time of day. In Sweden alone, the approach yielded a 700-percent rise in redemption rate, with app users ordering twice as often and spending nearly 50 percent more than they previously had.
Driving personalization to the drive-thru
After decades of mass-market consumerism, people are now looking for personalized experiences — even when it comes to drive-thru dining. Beacons are helping companies respond to that demand.
San Francisco Soup Company uses beacons and data collection to track customers’ preferences and push relevant offers their way when they’re within range of its stores. It also uses the app to create individualized rewards program experiences, enabling them to become a more frequent part of customers’ regular routines.
Restaurant franchises already tailor their offerings to different communities. McDonald’s doesn’t sell beef burgers in India, and many other chains create menu items that align with local cultures and preferences. Big data allows chains to take that concept one step further by building offers around customers’ individual habits and circumstances. Companies can also use beacon data to select new locations for development based on foot traffic and geographic quirks.
3 benefits of behaviorial data
Beacon and behavioral data can revolutionize how chains do business from the big picture to the day-to-day. Let’s look at some ways behavioral data impacts daily operations for the better.
1. It improves staff scheduling to build a great customer experience. You need great customer service for your business to thrive, especially in the food industry. Attentive servers and quick order-processing times can make or break your franchise, and because staff costs constitute some of the highest expenses restaurants face, tracking foot traffic and peak customer engagement will help you create important, accurate, and cost-effective forecasts for your human resource needs.
Behavioral data can help determine which times are slower and which times require extra hands so you don’t have employees standing around with nothing to do. This enables you to make weekly and monthly staffing decisions and predict how holidays and local events will affect your sales volume.
2. It targets nearby customers with special offers. Traffic data enables you to measure the number of clients coming through your door during different time periods, allowing you to properly allocate resources and distribute fliers and coupons throughout the day. You can then compare activity rates on different offers and even the level of interest customers express to your staff about your initiatives.
If your business has a mobile app, you can use behavioral data to send push notifications to users in your vicinity that entice them to head your way. Ask users to allow the app to pull location, travel, and purchase data to enhance their customer experience, then use that information to tailor offers to their circumstances and preferences.
Outback Steakhouse uses geo-location data to woo potential clients away from competitors. The company has established geo-fences within five miles of its own buildings and 10 miles of its competitors’, placing ads on location-based apps to showcase promotional offers. Outback saw an 11-percent conversion rate increase with these geo-targeted campaigns.
3. It builds effective marketing campaigns. You can harness the power of your big data measurements to map out traffic and purchase patterns on a weekly, monthly, and yearly basis. You can develop more aggressive or creative marketing campaigns for low-traffic periods, and you can design interesting daily promotions to maintain a steady flow of customers. Train your management team to regularly cross-check client flow against your various campaigns, and adjust strategies and staffing decisions accordingly.
Customers demand personalized experiences, and beacon marketing helps restaurants create them. This information allows companies to understand and anticipate their clients’ needs and meet them in seamless and effective ways.
Franchises that want to stay competitive in an increasingly data-driven market need to embrace beacon technologies. With this data in your tool belt, you can let customers know that you’re listening — and they’ll reward you for it.