The Key Features That Helped Clean Juice Keep Sales Flowing

Food isn’t the only thing quick-service restaurants (QSRs) have delivered since the pandemic swept the globe early last year. The restaurant sector’s investments in contactless technologies have provided consumers with convenient and flexible ordering, payments, pickup, delivery and rewards offerings to boost customer conversion as well as vitality.

Organic juice bar Clean Juice, which has franchise locations in 26 states expanded its tech menu offerings to make ordering, payments and delivery more seamless. The QSR, founded by married team Landon and Kat Eckles in 2016, offers plant-based food and drinks including organic cold-pressed juices, smoothies, wraps and salad bowls.

Clean Juice contracted with a New York-based software firm last summer to overhaul its four-year-old branded mobile app. CEO Landon Eckles told PYMNTS in a recent interview that the redesign has led to an improvement in sales.

“We didn’t want a cookie-cutter app,” he said. “We wanted our menu beautifully displayed, [with] the ability for our guests to not only order Clean Juice to be picked up from the store but [also to] get delivery through DoorDash, make seamless payments, access our loyalty program, order catering, learn about the benefits of eating organic and [listen to] our podcast.”

Meeting Demand For Off-Premises Dining

Consumers downloaded the app more than 72,000 times within one month of its debut. Sales equaled or surpassed levels generated by the previous platform, the company reported, and dozens of delivery orders were placed each day with an average tab of $45. The new and improved app has increased digital orders by nearly one-third, up from 10 percent prior to the pandemic, Eckles said.

“Before [the pandemic], we had started the process of developing a new app for our company,” he said. “Since [the pandemic began], I would say we made a big shift to digital, for sure.”

Eckles credited the rise in revenues to a combination of the company’s revamped app and customers’ desire for off-premises dining alternatives.

“I think people were looking for more digital options,” he said. “I think our new app is ten times better in terms of its functionality for the guests.”

Customers can order ahead, pick up their purchases in the store or curbside, or have orders delivered through third-party delivery services such as Uber Eats, Grubhub and DoorDash, partnerships the company formed prior to the pandemic in December 2019. Same-store sales increased compared to the previous summer after the app launched in June, Eckles added.

App implementation ran into a few challenges, he said. When Clean Juice updated its seasonal menu, diners were unable to order any of those items through its app, for example.

“When you’re not allowing guests to order what they want, and they have to tell you, that’s not good for business,” he said. “I don’t know the technical [details of] how it was fixed, but the connectivity was corrected.”