Shane’s Rib Shack has over 50 predominately southeast locations serving up slow-cooked ribs with a secret sauce, hand-chopped chicken and pork, and many southern sides to complement each plate. For 20 years, this Atlanta-based barbecue brand has been cultivating customer loyalty through its commitment to serving great food and giving back to its communities.
Loving what they do inspires the brand to foster authentic experiences that their guests truly appreciate. Over the years, Shane’s Rib Shack has noticed mobile app engagement grow as many enthusiastic customers have begun interacting on this channel. Wanting to meet their customers’ preferences, the Shane’s Rib Shack team sought to modernize their program and selected Punchh to develop and power an elevated digital loyalty mobile rewards app.
Growing Digital Loyalty to Optimize Results
Punchh successfully integrated the customized loyalty program with Shane’s Rib Shack’s online ordering system (Olo) and POS (NCR Aloha), giving them a compelling digital presence that captures customer data from multiple engagement touchpoints. The data is then made actionable through the Punchh Loyalty, Offers and Engagement Platform. Kalysea Lovan, Shane’s Rib Shack’s Director of Marketing, believes this has helped them drive increased guest engagement and participation through omnichannel interactions.
Shane’s Rib Shack’s marketing team promotes the Shack Rewards Program education with their front of house staff through webinars and quick online quizzes. Fun contests such as the store with the most app downloads, keeps everyone focused on a shared goal of promoting the rewards and benefits of integrating the loyalty platform.
Delivering Omnichannel App Education to Drive Customer Engagement
Educating their customers also has been a priority. Taking an integrated marketing approach to create app awareness, the team developed instructional material displayed on table-top POPs and posters announcing the promotional reward to download the app. Additionally, they highlighted their app’s capabilities and redemption offers over social to help customers understand the value of the mobile rewards program.
Consistent analysis of data from past campaigns, along with feedback collected from front of house team members and customer polls on social, inform Shane’s Rib Shack’s ongoing offer strategy. The team tests different types of promotions to create fun frequency challenges that increase repeat business.
“We are able to understand our customers and what appeals to them, targeting each segment with the right offer,” said Lovan. “Punchh gives us the ‘why’ behind what we’re doing.”
Their effort has paid off as Shane’s Rib Shack recently accomplished a difficult milestone in the fast-casual segment. They consistently reduced the days between transactions — not for one or two check-in stages, but across six check-in stages, to drive maximum efficiency and stronger engagement with guests at every stage in the customer journey.
Looking ahead to the holidays, Shane’s Rib Shack is excited for customers to play their “Wait and Win” giveaway promotion, which they have been running for the past 12 years. With Punchh, they now have the capability to offer the promotion digitally, increasing customer anticipation while reducing their marketing spend with the elimination of scratch off cards. They are executing the campaign through Punchh’s derived rewards functionality, which delivers a present inside the customer’s app for every check-in they make during the month of December. Come January 1, the presents will open and unveil their mystery gifts.