Demand for Personalized Offers Creates Loyalty Opportunity for Restaurants

With consumers seeking out targeted deals and offers, restaurants can use artificial intelligence to secure customers’ loyalty.

By the Numbers

The PYMNTS Intelligence study “Personalized Offers Are Powerful — but Too Often Off-Base” drew from a survey of more than 2,500 U.S. consumers to understand their preferences regarding personalized merchant offers. The results revealed that 83% would be interested in receiving personalized offers.

The Data in Context

Restaurants are looking to step up their personalization. In a conversation with PYMNTS last month, Smoothie King Chief Marketing Officer Marianne Radley noted that digital ordering has become table stakes, and the race now is to develop the most intelligent, targeted customer acquisition and retention capabilities.

“When you look at how the pandemic has really forced restaurants — whether it’s quick-serve, fast-casual — to adopt digital or get left behind, you’re seeing, of course, AI, but [also] personalization [and] the evolution of loyalty programs, and how you really make those more personalized and customized,” Radley said. “How do we go beyond the transaction to build that loyalty and lifetime value?”

Personalization is also beginning to influence the on-premise restaurant experience. In an October interview with PYMNTS, Stacey Pool, chief marketing officer at Noodles & Company, explained that the fast-casual brand intends to use digital menu boards to offer messaging that is “a lot more targeted and personalized” inside its physical stores.

“What I would like to see with that is that if you come into the restaurant, you’re able to get a message say, ‘Hey, Stacy, you ordered the Penne Rosa last time you were in here,” Pool said. “Let’s make it quick for you. Feel free to walk up and order that again.’ Or, ‘You have 1,500 points in your rewards wallet. You should use one today for a free regular entrée.’”