How 9 Coffee Shops Built Loyalty With Mobile Ordering Apps

The Orda Blog
getnewline
Published in
7 min readJan 25, 2022

As a coffee shop owner, chances are you have experienced challenges in providing an exceptional customer experience more often than not. In today’s hyper-fast world, customer expectations are justified, and delays frowned upon. Yes, even with coffee.

This set the trend for coffee brands of all sizes to develop their own mobile ordering apps with coffee shop mobile app builder Orda. It makes placing the order on-the-go much simpler for your customers, and the incentives for loyal customers to keep coming back helps build a habit.

Mobile ordering apps for coffee shops have become a strong business driver for coffee brands both small and big.

In this article, we will show you 9 examples of how coffee brands are leveraging the trend for mobile ordering to boost growth.

1. Dunkin Donuts: Easy Digital Rewards

Customers love to easily get coffee when they are on the move. Dunkin’ Donuts knows this, and they decided to put together their own mobile loyalty app. The app features an easy reordering feature, which customers are drawn to. Other key features include in-app payments, live order tracking and contactless pickup and delivery. Their loyalty program, titled DD Perks is enticing because of the constant offers and discounts, and the ordering process takes just three simple steps.

For every purchase customers make on the Dunkin app, they get points which they can also redeem for free beverages and snacks. Loyal members who sign up for the DD Perks program also get a free beverage on their birthday, weekly discounts and chances to earn bonus points. Accumulating the points is so easy that customers keep coming back because of the savings on their weekly coffee spends at Dunkin Donuts. When customers use the coffee loyalty app, they spend more because it is so easy to get rewarded.

2. Starbucks: Mobile Order Ahead

When Starbucks decided to develop their own mobile ordering app, they quickly grew their app to 18.9 million active members (announced in the beginning of 2020). When you download the app, you can see why.

The app hosts several features with the intention to have customers come back to Starbucks for their everyday coffee on-the-go. The app features mobile-order-ahead, easy in-app payments that accept card, PayPal or cash on pickup. Customers particularly like how easy it is to place their orders ahead of time. It is no wonder that 26% of Starbucks’ transactions in the United States take place through their mobile ordering app.

3. Dev’s Coffee Bar: Create Loyalty Online

If you want to know how to grow your loyalty program through social media, you need to look at Dev’s Coffee Bar. A family-owned and operated brand, Dev’s Coffee Bar is particularly famous for their combination of great coffee and insanely delicious bagels. Their unique loyalty program is completely driven through social media, and with the convenience of their mobile loyalty app, Dev’s Coffee Bar has great reviews for their beverages.

While social media and a popular brand bring in fresh customers, a coffee shop’s loyalty program is what keeps them hooked. Termed “Squatch Bucks”, these are points that can be redeemed for free beverages or food at Dev’s Coffee. The points are easy to collect, with 1 point being awarded for every dollar spent at the shop. To pull off this point collection as a game is no small task, but Dev’s has done it successfully through their plan of social media engagement and customized mobile app.

4. THINK Coffee: Easily Find Locations

THINK Coffee knew it was time to invest in a mobile ordering app as they grew from a single shop to four locations. With Orda, they knew they could take their chances, and it sure did take off. The app features a straightforward design, offering a way to easily put together your coffee just the way you like it. The map feature makes it easy for customers to find the location closest to them. This also reduces mistakes because customers make sure they are ordering from the intended location. Because of a community that loves their coffee, they also have a lot of offers in place, which you should check out.

5. Coffeehouse Five: Share Your Story

Coffeehouse Five is a coffee shop with a larger purpose. Not to say they don’t focus on their coffee. Their coffee brews, which are roasted in-house and family-recipe pastries are absolutely delicious, which is supported by how quickly their Orda mobile ordering app took off. Coffeehouse Five calls themselves a “for benefit” organization. Every coffee you buy supports your community with counseling for various mental health issues. With a unique “Share Your Story” feature, they manage to give regular updates about their cause to their community in their mobile app. Coffeehouse Five leverages this to transcend from being just a coffee shop to a coffee shop with a higher cause.

Between their two locations and the robust mobile ordering app, Coffeehouse Five is a growing coffee brand, and you can definitely learn from their brand.

6. Blended Coffee: Grow With Commission-Free Delivery

Blended Coffee attracts their customers using their classic rendering of our favorite coffees, a millennial messaging and a pub-style setting. They also manage to upsell their products at the time of checkout, which customers love. And when their customers keep coming back for more, it is no surprise that the mobile ordering app played up their game. Because of Orda’s easy integration with third-party on-demand delivery fulfillment partners, Blended discovered an opportunity and nailed it for massive growth. By leveraging no-commission delivery for in-app purchases, Blended saw a growth of 46%. This was possible due to Orda’s partnership with DoorDash. Blended can now reach customers at home and keep them engaged.

7. Cake and Coffee House: Raise Support for Female and Minority Owned Businesses

Cake and Coffee House is a new favorite for the Californian community with their occasion-themes drinks which always delight. Run by a Latina family since 2019, this coffee shop decided to onboard their own mobile ordering app, powered by Orda. What prompted this? One thing led to another in their efforts to offer better customer service. With a very successful loyalty program paired with a constantly innovated list of food and drink, they have found success which is much deserved.

8. Coffeeholic House: Create Excitement On Instagram

Coffeeholic House has generated a lot of buzz since they began their dream coffee shop in March 2020. Their message to bring in a new trend for coffee to Seattle by using authentic Vietnamese coffee resonated well with the coffee-passionate people in the area. Which is why when they announced that they were deploying a mobile ordering app with Orda, their customers were very happy. The ease of using their app for pre-placing orders before pickup and simple payment process qualifies their app to be added to our list.

9. Kino’s Coffee: Build Community

Building a strong community out of their small town, Kino’s Coffee is the next mobile ordering app success story on our list. Kino’s Coffee’s mission to bring the 800-strong Cissna Park community together in a safe space through coffee. While their shop and friendly people develop the community, their mobile ordering app plays a significant role in this mission, by making ordering beverages and pastries simple. Their social media profile further focuses on the essence of community-driven growth. Their drinks are plenty delicious too! Their secret for growth is community and adding a mobile ordering app to smoothen the ordering process only improved their chances at becoming a household name.

Summary

The future of ordering is mobile, there is no question about it. Especially for coffee.

Coffee brands realize this, and Orda became the go-to place for our favorite local coffee brands to quickly deploy their own mobile ordering app for their community. With Orda’s easy and affordable app deployment process that lets you customize your unique Square-integrated app, mobile ordering became a reality much closer at hand.

As a coffee shop owner, you’re always thinking of ways to improve your customer service. It could be loyalty programs, faster order fulfillment or better community engagement. All this can be achieved by having your personalized mobile app.

Here’s your chance for stepping up your brand in your community. Sign up on Orda’s platform, get your own coffee shop mobile ordering app to develop your community of loyal customers within minutes.

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