Serving Up Omnichannel Success

Lessons Learned From Omnichannel Dynamo Chili’s

With different mediums of shopping, companies have to create a seamless shopping experience across the board. As a result, every aspect of the consumer journey, from browsing to purchasing, has to be a smooth transition, both online and offline. People demand an omnichannel experience that is social, quick, easy to use, and valuable to the consumer.

Technological creativity seems to have more of an impact than a brand name. Customers are no longer impressed by a shiny new app of their name being personalized in an email. The 21st-century customer expects brands to create an omnichannel shopping experience that encompasses all online and offline interactions. 

Let’s take a look at how Chili’s is using omnichannel and a little technical creativity to create the ultimate dining experience

Wait in line….from home

Gone are the days of waiting in line at Chili’s to get a table. The casual dining restaurant has partnered with NoWait to power their new mobile waitlisting feature on the Chili’s app.  Through the use of the app, Chili’s can provide an enhanced dining experience. For diners who wish to enjoy their favorite menu items during peak hours. With the waitlisting feature, diners can reserve a spot in line and check up on wait times from any location or mobile device.

The waitlisting capability has given Chili’s an advantage in restaurant-diner relations. By combining the mobile and in-restaurant experience, diners have convenience and speed at their fingertips. The wait listing feature allows Chili’s to have faster table turnover and accurate estimates for wait times.  Guests can not only check up on wait times but can also go ahead and order what they would like while still “waiting in line” while in the app. With combo offers and other special menu offers, Chili’s now gives diners a way to get their food without waiting in line and with little preparation time. Chili’s use of the waitlisting feature creativity uses mobile to optimizing the in-store dining experience.

 

Social Media Embrace Social Media 

Across social media platforms, food and beverage mentions are the most popular. The way customers review restaurants on social media fundamentally changes the way restaurants are approaching social media. According to a Netbase report , Chili’s is one of the most popular brands on social media.

So what did Chili’s do right to make them among the top 15 most popular social media brands?

Chili’s embraces the way food and beverages are consumed from a social media perspective. It is no longer enough for a restaurant to have great written reviews. Presentation and picture quality is the new buzz in food reviews. Because of this shift, Chili’s has made changes to the brick and mortar restaurant to garner positivity on the digital landscape. Even the way food is prepared is being changed to be more appealing in photos. For example, French fries are served in stainless steel bins, ribs are neatly placed on plates, and even the plates themselves have been revamped to be prettier in photos.

The goal is to make menu items look more tempting in pictures, increasing the number of mentions and shares online. This improves Chili’s online presence and visibility on high traffic platforms like Instagram.

Tabletop tablets 

Smartphones and tablets have made access to information and services available at our fingertips. The demand for convenience and speed has started shaping the way restaurants are tackling food service. While online ordering and delivery have made the eating-out experience easier, customers lose the dining experience. As a result, sit down restaurants are now introducing the tabletop tablet. This system allows diners to place food and drink orders through a provided tablet. Diners now have control of their dining experience. These tablets streamline food service without replacing the personal interactions with servers. With the tap of the finger, dinner guests can now input orders and requests such as waiter service, beverage refills, and chats with the chef.

This year, Chili’s implemented over 70,000 tablets across its restaurants to provide a smooth, reliable dining experience. The smart table top option is tightly integrated with the Chili’s ordering system, ensuring that everything is up to date. The tablet displays the most relevant and updated menu items, prices, and descriptions and can even show customized consumer reviews of the items that you have ordered.

The ability to omnichannel approach to ordering and paying for food through a tablet has boosted the volume of orders. The speed with which customers can pay with the tablet has also increased table turnover. As a result, Chili’s can seat more customers than before.

Chili’s has done a fantastic job of leveraging technological creativity to create omnichannel success.  Have you seen other restaurant brands using omnichannel to enhance their customer experience? Let me know in the comment section below.

Outsmart the Smartphone: Expert Insights into Mobile Marketing

Marketers know mobile marketing is a critical component of any marketing strategy. Consumers cannot live without their smartphone and mobile device’s have become an integral part of consumer’s daily life.

 

Despite knowing the inherent impact of mobile, many brands are struggling to create and implement an effective mobile strategy. Yesterday’s American Marketing Association (AMA) meeting helped marketers better understand how to outsmart the smartphone and optimize their mobile marketing strategy.

 

Experts Scott Talbott from Verve Mobile, John Nosal from Advice Local, Abhi Vyas from Dex Media, and Bryon Morrison from NectarOM, sat down and shared how your brand can outsmart the smartphone.

 

Dallas AMA Mobile Marketing Panel

 

Here are a few highlights from the panel discussion.

 

Consider the Omni Channel Experience  

In addition to the 40 or so apps on your phone you also have the option to do email, send SMS, browse the web, post on social media, and receive push notifications. Smartphones have put 6 channels into one device along with more than 100 sensors, making it more important for marketers to think about the omni channel experience the device creates. Traditionally brands have siloed channels, creating a disconnected experience for the customer. Mobile is forcing marketers to break down silos and unify their efforts. Bryon Morrison suggested the consumer needs to be the center of the customer journey, not the channels. He continued, “If you understand the individual and their motivations then the mobile device is the most important marketing tool, because it packages all the channels in one device along with movement.

 

Target the Right Person at the Right Place and at the Right Time with the Right Message

From a location perspective mobile unlocks an interesting opportunity for marketers: location based marketing.  Customers are starting to expect brands to tailor content to their location, and are more likely to convert when content is customized to their location. Brands leading with location by utilizing location based advertising or managing their local presence will be more likely to convert mobile customers.  John Nosal believed that brands who focus on the mobile experience will win more customers.

 

“61% of smartphone users are more likely to buy from mobile sites and apps that customize information to their location.”

 

Get in the Game

When asked who is doing a great job in mobile, Morrison replied, “The ones in the game that are testing and failing fast.” He cited specific examples of early innovators that are now experiencing great success with mobile – eBay and their multi-app strategy were the first to post a billion in mobile sales; Walgreens gets 6x more revenue from customers that download their app; Walmart attained a 2% increase in conversions by shaving 4.3 seconds off their page download time.

Nosal responded that Starbucks was a leader in the mobile experience citing the ability to order and pay for coffee through their app.  He also mentioned grocery stores like Tom Thumb (parent company, Albertsons) are leading the way, mentioning ability to build grocery lists through scanning barcodes with the app and use of push notifications to notify consumers of deals.

 

Know the Metrics that Matter

Don’t get caught up in the funnel metrics.  Keep it simple and make sure that your KPIs link to mobile moments that matter like conversions and sales. Scott Talbott gave an example of automobile marketers getting too caught up in desktop web funnel metrics while missing out on the opportunity to reach prospects while they are physically standing on a dealership lot. Morrison also shared an example of a client that spent an immense amount of energy on app optimization, as opposed to growing their SMS channel which was delivering in-store mobile coupon conversions between 25%-45%.

 

Get to Know Your Customers   

Brands know it is important for them to understand their customer and Abhi Vyas mentioned 81% of them think they are doing a good job. However, only 37% of customers think their favorite retailer understands them. The panel agreed this was a function of marketing departments, as opposed to mobile marketing. As an example, Morrison mentioned that marketing departments are often set up to launch and manage channels which is time consuming and laborious. That creates silos and makes cross channel marketing a challenge.  If organizations focused on profiles and used a personalization platform then their ability to integrate a new channel would be much faster, easier and cost effective. That approach would also allow a brand to innovate faster which is currently being outpaced by consumer sophistication levels and expectations.

Talbott proposed one way companies could better market is by focusing on context, stating that “content is now secondary to context.” He also mentioned that mobile location matched against 1-to-1 knowledge of a customer is the best way a marketer can get to an understanding of intent.

 

If you are interested in learning how you can better deliver the right message, at the right time, to the right person let us know and schedule a demo to see the NectarSuite in action.

How Big Data and Dating are Colliding

Online dating is not new. In fact, it’s been around for quite some time, but has only recently been exploded in the mobile space. It wasn’t too long ago that a negative stigma of online dating existed within American society. It was thought of to be mainly for “older” people or people who really had trouble finding someone via traditional avenues such as bars, Church groups, blind dates, or through mutual friends. People thought it was a poor way to find love, because the relationship was created through digital means versus in person social interactions.

Oh, how times have changed.

With the invention of the smart phone/iPhone apps, dating has been taken to a whole new level. It has now actually become trendy to use digital devices to find another person. While the traditional dating websites such as Match.com and Plentyoffish.com have created apps as an extension of their websites, let’s take a look at the popular/up and coming aka “trendy” dating apps.

Tinder-logo
Tinder: Perhaps considered the most controversial of the dating apps, Tinder uses a combination of looks and geographic data as a means for a connection. This app connects to a user’s Facebook account, and uses the data from this social media website to display mutual friends between 2 individuals. Ultimately this has resulted in a more superficial dating app, where the majority of people are not looking for long term relationships.

Coffee Meets Bagel: This app also integrates Facebook data into the user experience by leveraging mutual friends of friends to find matches for the user. Once a day, a user will receive one “bagel”, that is, they will receive one potential datable candidate a day. Within a 24 hour time period, they have the ability to either LIKE or PASS the person. If both individuals LIKE, then CMB will give you a private phone line to set up phone calls and/or exchange texts without giving away your actual number. facebook image

Lulu: This particular app is not really considered a mutually beneficial dating app, rather, it’s a girl-reviews-boy app. The app was launched in 2011, but has recently come to limelight within the past year because of its controversial nature. Lulu used to be a safe haven for women to rate their experiences with any guy who has a Facebook account. Essentially, any male on Facebook was automatically listed on the app, whether they opted in or not. Recently, however, Lulu changed the rules so that guys have to opt-in to be rated on the app.

The digital dating world has evolved from a mostly static user profile description to a vastly dynamic and data mining method. Using Facebook information has become the norm in these dating apps primarily because the Facebook platform allows direct access to data on its 500 million users.

In the near future, it won’t be surprising to see a dating app that uses Instagram or Snapchat as a means for connecting.