How The Belgian Waffle Co.’s engaging rewards program grew their average check size by 27% amongst loyal customers!

Case Study

Introduction

Touted as India’s first specialty waffle station, The Belgian Waffle Co. by Bloombay Enterprise LLP, was founded in 2015 by Shrey Aggarwal.
The idea, to introduce a unique and easy to eat on-the-go waffle sandwich, was born out of passion and a mission to spread taste and delight.

Thanks to the company and franchise efforts alike, The Belgian Waffle Co. — has since grown from 3 to over 200 outlets across 55 cities in India and now also boasts international presence with outlets in Dubai and Nepal.

Challenge

The Belgian Waffle Co. was growing exponentially and a solution was required to track performance and to identify as well as retain the constantly increasing and fleet-footed customer base.

A robust and scalable solution was required — keeping in mind the geographical spread, the franchise model, limited skill of the staff, the sheer number of daily customers and transactions. The Belgian Waffle Co. also looked for a solution that allowed them to maintain their autonomy and execute campaigns and communications at a brand and not outlet level.

Solution

A PoS integrated loyalty program — to track customers; an enterprise grade solution with multiple access levels for the chain owners and individual outlet owners — to track business performance.

Plug & Play in nature, a POSist integrated loyalty program was implemented, to ensure simplicity, ease of use and complete data capture.
The program structure is spend-based where customers earn 1 point for every 1 Rupee they spend. The rewards were strategically set to be “just in reach” and offers on the frequently purchased and popular items at The Belgian Waffle Co. This proved to be a strong incentive for customers to spend more so as to achieve a reward and visit more often to redeem them.

The Belgian Waffle Co. held the reigns of the program and engagement using the Chain Owner access to the Merchant Dashboard while allowing the Franchise Owners had the liberty to run campaigns to their customers via an outlet level access to the dashboard. A real-time leaderboard and outlet performance comparison feature for the Chain and Sub-Chain Owners.

The deep customer segmentation, reward performance, insights on customer activity and behaviour enabled them to send data-backed campaigns to their customers in a targeted and personalized manner.
The campaign performance metrics were available down to the click and revenue generated, which allowed to chalk up clear RoI that helped to replicate and optimize future communications.

Automated campaigns at each stage of the customer lifecycle were also setup that ensured the customers stayed engaged with the brand and remained their first-choice dessert option at all times.

To help stay updated, a complete summary of the business performance in the form of reports are sent to the chain and outlet owners every week and month.

Impact

Hashtag Loyalty delivers improved business performance across all key focus areas.
The following metrics have been calculated from data across 200+ outlets of The Belgian Waffle Co. over the previous year.

Customers spend much higher on average; motivated to earn points to redeem rewards — customers actively spent more.
Customers who had redeemed the ultimate reward spent 27% more than those who had never redeemed one. Customers also spent 18% higher on a redemption visit.

Customers were mobilised and active; thanks to the engaging loyalty program.
In any given week, over 20% of the entire customer base frequented and interacted with the brand.

Customers return faster than ever; the loyalty program kept the customers highly motivated to visit.
Over 21K additional visits were generated and customers loyal customers returned 10x faster than new ones.