Voices From the Drive-Thru: Grounding QSR Loyalty Programs in Customer Insights

There will always be a deep sense of satisfaction that comes along with filling up your punch card at your local coffee shop. After all, you worked hard to earn that free oat milk latte — and worked even harder to keep track of your paper punch card in the bottom of your bag or wallet.  

But today’s consumers want more than half-filled punch cards cluttering a center console or junk drawer. Quick service restaurants (QSR) have to foster not only transactional loyalty but emotional loyalty, too. In an industry where costs, competition, and consumer expectations are all rising, loyalty programs build customer affinity and help brands increase customer value. 

Building customer loyalty may start with a traditional earn-and-burn rewards card structure, but true loyalty? That comes from an emotional connection. 

When Rewards Impact Consumer Sentiment and Behavior: Our Initial Insights into QSR Program Loyalty

How do customers really feel about their preferred QSR’s loyalty program? What are their current behaviors and preferences? These were a few questions we wanted to answer in our recent survey of 455 QSR loyalty program members in the U.S. and Canada. 

Led by an all-star research team and subject matter experts in QSR and loyalty programs, we sought to accomplish these research goals:

Objective #1: Inform design principles and feature expectations for QSR digital loyalty experiences.

• To what extent do consumers proactively plan to use rewards?
• In what part of the user journey do consumers decide to use rewards? 

Objective #2: Identify digital strategies for building customers' transactional, experiential, and emotional loyalty.

• What digital elements motivate consumer loyalty?
• Beyond just transactional benefits, to what extent do QSR loyalty customers value experiential and emotional program benefits? 
• To what extent does digital personalization drive emotional loyalty?

Objective #3: Understand consumers’ varied engagement with QSRs and impact on loyalty program interaction.

• How does customer regularity (frequent vs occasional customers) impact loyalty program engagement?
• Do expectations change if consumers are ordering to "treat themselves" compared to if they simply need to eat a meal?

As we consolidate our survey findings, we're excited to share insights into our first objective (universal design principles and feature expectations). 

Over 75% of QSR loyalty program members decide to use rewards when choosing 1) where to visit, and 2) what to order. 

Interestingly, customers most frequently decide to use rewards when they are either choosing where to go (34%) or what to order (42%). So, three-quarters of customers have already decided to use rewards before they even place items in their cart or complete an in-store purchase.

By the time customers pay for their order, they have likely already decided if they are going to use rewards. This pattern holds true across customer subgroups (i.e., age, country, frequency of ordering), which suggests that this timing for rewards usage is somewhat universal.

Here’s what that means for you. 

Understanding when customers plan to use their rewards has direct implications for designing seamless digital loyalty program experiences. With this understanding, our digital product teams can better implement business-specific features and design principles — then build those experiences according to each client’s unique needs.

For example, customers need easy access to review their available rewards before beginning an order. By drawing attention to available rewards or the actions that will help customers earn a reward when they first open the app — rather than at checkout — they may be more motivated to choose one restaurant over another. We can also intentionally design features to better engage customers in rewards usage during the payment process, such as one-click redemption in the cart.

WillowTree is your partner in QSR loyalty programs.

This isn’t our first foray into researching and building exceptional loyalty programs. We’ve spent over a decade delivering high-quality, award-winning, and bespoke loyalty programs for our clients. 

WillowTree understands customers and is the digital development partner of choice for optimizing your loyalty program experience. We ground our designs in a deep understanding of how customers think about and use their preferred loyalty programs. 

We’ve been hard at work unearthing these latest insights into the QSR customer experience, and look forward to sharing more of them with you in the coming weeks. 

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