Individual Restaurants, a collection of 31 iconic restaurants across the north of England, had an old loyalty scheme that didn’t work. Based on collecting points, it wasn’t exciting, it wasn’t personalised and it didn’t drive any incremental visits. The brand needed an all-new loyalty proposition. One based on REAL customer behaviour, with exciting, personalised rewards, which would drive REAL results for the business.
Games & Tech
We conceived an all-new loyalty proposition for the group, based on one fundamental insight: People don’t want points - they want experiences.
We built a tailor-made loyalty app, completely integrated with the rest of IR’s tech stack. This powerful loyalty ecosystem works with realtime data to offer Club IR members a completely seamless end-to-end experience, with genuinely compelling, personalised rewards and VIP experiences.
The result? A huge 128% increase in visit frequency.
We wanted to know what our guests actually wanted from a revamped loyalty scheme. So we worked with hospitality research agency KAM to conduct research with our own customers. The survey of 3,500 guests told us that most didn’t care about points. Exclusivity is key, with most people saying they wanted exclusive and personalised offers. They wanted to feel valued and rewarded accordingly. So it became our mission to understand their preferences and needs better than anyone, so we could drive visit frequency with real, personalised rewards, VIP experiences and unforgettable moments.
We collaboratively conceptualised the loyalty proposition, strategy and name. Instead of the outdated points model, we decided on a tiered approach, which encourages people to move up through three levels - Club, Black and Diamond - based on spend. Each tier of membership offers increasingly tantalising and exclusive offers; from food and drink rewards and birthday gifts; to invitations to menu tastings and masterclasses; to access to prestige sporting events, wine trips and a concierge service. The offers are highly personalised to our guests’ buying behaviour - made possible as the app is completely integrated with the rest of IR’s tech stack.
We collaborated with IR’s other technology partners to create one powerful loyalty ecosystem. From POS Quadranet, bookings platform OpenTable, CRM software Acteol by The Access Group, Ignite’s own ecommerce platform Fuse and customer support platform Zendesk, the entire tech ecosystem works together in realtime to create a seamless end-to-end user experience.
In the Club IR app, guests can book a table (and check upcoming and past bookings) with a native OpenTable integration; buy a gift card with a native Fuse integration; view their membership status and rewards with the Acteol integration; and Diamond members can access a concierge service through a Zendesk integration. Using POS data and the integration with Acteol, offers and rewards in the app are personalised based on people’s actual buying behaviour. Crucially, all actions happen within the app, without linking users out to third party sites or software.
First-class design and user experience was integral to the project, so we spent time ideating and finessing the app UX and UI. We created beautifully designed, branded app pages with the attention to detail and elegance you’d expect to find from a brand with luxury and style at its heart. As members move up through the tiers, the styling and design of the app, and the featured content, changes dynamically (using the Acteol integration), visually cementing their elevated status and providing super-relevant content. This ensures that the app is dynamic, intuitive and a pleasure to use.
Underpinning the entire scheme is a meticulously planned CRM journey which sends personalised, automated emails to Club IR members at every moment that matters. From welcome journeys to birthdays and visit follow-ups to unlocking new rewards, each email is hyper-personalised and targeted.
Club IR has helped Individual Restaurants increase market share and puts their brand literally in the palm of their most valuable customers’ hands. They know more about their customers than ever before, allowing them to utilise that information to create even more relevant products and experiences, as well as to deliver the most personalised rewards scheme on the market. All of their customer communications are subsequently more targeted, more effective and deliver higher ROI.
The new programme elevates what diners can expect from a loyalty scheme, ditching the worn-out ‘points’ system and instead focuses on giving guests what they really want; personalised offers, exceptional service and money-can’t-buy experiences.
Rob Carroll, Director, Nosaxa Consulting
Increase in visit frequency from Club IR members
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