The Scooter's Coffee Recipe for Restaurant Loyalty Program Success

Picture this: It's 7:30 a.m., and a line of cars snakes around a Scooter's Coffee drive-thru. Despite the queue, each customer receives their perfectly crafted drink in about two minutes. This scene, replicated across 800 locations nationwide, embodies Scooter's brand promise: "Amazing People. Amazing Drinks. Amazingly Fast." But in today's digital age, the "Amazing People" component of this promise can be overshadowed by technology. How does a rapidly growing quick-service restaurant (QSR) maintain a high-speed, high-touch experience while leveraging technology to boost customer loyalty?

In a recent episode of WillowTree's "Room for Growth" podcast, WillowTree Group VP and Partner of Marketing Services Billie Loewen sat down with Mitch Walden, Senior Director of Loyalty & Digital at Scooter's Coffee, to unpack the company's remarkable digital transformation journey. This followed my session with Mitch last month at Braze Forge 2024 in Las Vegas, "Using a Braze-Powered MarTech Stack to Drive Purchase Frequency."

At Braze Forge and on Room For Growth, Mitch shared how WillowTree partnered with Scooter’s to "completely overhaul our app, loyalty program, and overall technology stack in just nine months," setting the stage for a deep dive into how our favorite coffee shop is revolutionizing QSR customer engagement.

The Scooter's Challenge: Brewing Digital Innovation at Drive-Thru Speed

Founded in 1998 in Bellevue, Nebraska, Scooter's Coffee has grown from a single drive-thru to a regional phenomenon with ambitious expansion plans. "We're at 800 stores now, and we're on pace to double that again in the next five years," Mitch shared. This rapid growth presented a unique challenge: how to scale the personalized, speedy service that defines the Scooter's experience into the digital realm.

Billie highlighted the complexity of this task: “Restaurant brands are fighting in real time for that consumer's dollar and their ongoing loyalty. You’re trying to maintain a differentiated experience across the in-store experience, drive-thru, digital menu board, mobile app, and loyalty program to keep customers coming back.”

Over the course of nine months, we partnered with Scooter’s to achieve exactly that. Here’s how.

The Digital Transformation Sprint: 0 to 60 in Nine Months

Time was ticking, and Scooter's brought us in to completely rebuild their digital ecosystem and MarTech stack in just nine months. This transformation included:

1. Launching a new native mobile app
2. Reimagining their loyalty strategy
3. Implementing Braze for cross-channel messaging
4. Adding mParticle as a Customer Data Platform (CDP)
5. Integrating Talon.One for loyalty program and promotion management
6. Incorporating Radar for geolocation services
7. Adopting Amplitude for advanced analytics

"We knew the vision and what we wanted to be able to do,” Mitch explained. “But we needed the tools to unlock it." This integrated tech stack became the foundation for Scooter's new approach to its customer loyalty program.

Key Ingredients of Scooter's Digital Success

1. Real-time, integrated data flow

The new system creates a unified view of the customer and enables instant, personalized interactions. We connected Scooter's mobile app, loyalty program (powered by Talon One), customer data platform (mParticle), engagement platform (Braze), geolocation services (Radar), and analytics (Amplitude) into a cohesive ecosystem.

Mitch reminded Billie, “That was a big concern of mine when we went down the path of a separate loyalty program and communications platform: 'How are we going to make sure that those are staying in sync?'"

In practice, this means that when a participating customer makes a purchase, they earn points that are instantly updated, triggering personalized offers or progress updates towards rewards. Simultaneously, this data flows into the analytics platform, allowing the marketing team to track campaign performance in real time and make data-driven decisions — from specific menu items to the overall customer experience.

2. From national to hyper-local personalization

Previously, Scooter's relied on a two-level approach: national, one-size-fits-all perks or discounts sent to all program members, and individual local store promotions that often led to confusion and inefficiency. "We were doing hundreds of these every month to get a little bit of result,” Mitch explained, “which was just not an efficient use of bandwidth."

Scooter's shifted from broad, national promotions to highly targeted, data-driven campaigns — a significant change in strategy. "We're able to be much more efficient with the dollars that we invest promotionally," Mitch noted, "and we're able to look at our data holistically across the entire system to understand what customers are doing."

The new approach also leverages the integrated data ecosystem to create targeted segments based on customer behavior, purchase history, and location data, ultimately boosting repeat business.

3. Gamified loyalty campaigns

On the subject of repeat business, we’re often asked about specific campaign ideas that drive loyalty, including gamified loyalty campaigns. One recent one-off experiment we developed with Scooter’s was a 5x weekly challenge campaign for low-to-mid frequency customers, which incentivized and encouraged repeat business with an escalating bonus structure over the course of five days. For instance, if a customer makes their third purchase of the week, they instantly receive a push notification congratulating them and encouraging them to complete the next step in the five-purchase challenge, all without any lag or manual updates required.

This may sound like a simple example of gamification, but setting it up correctly actually involved quite a bit of complexity across multiple tools. Real-time synchronization allows Scooter’s to execute these kinds of complex, multi-step loyalty campaigns without manual intervention.

“Looking at that in the Braze canvas we built to support that campaign, I think there were 44 different actions to trigger all of the different messaging along the way — from the introduction through to the daily reminders of progress and then the completion confirmation,” Mitch explained on Room For Growth. “And it was cross-channel. So we included in-app messaging, we included email, we included push. So it really was a very thorough campaign, which was incredible. The incrementality that we saw — and this kind of nods then from Braze over to Amplitude — we were able to track that audience because we were able to have a holdout audience as well, so we could do a true A/B measurement.”

Mitch also shared the impressive results: "We drove almost 500% incrementality through that fifth-day purchase... nearly a half-million dollars in incremental revenue over the course of that week, which is maybe not huge for some organizations, but for us, it was material."

4. Building trust with franchisees

New data capabilities have also transformed Scooter's relationships with its franchisees. "Once we could manage those conversations with more data, it started to get easier and easier,” Mitch explained. “And then as we started to be able to deliver results and show the impact that the strategy was having and the returns that we were able to drive, then it got easier still."

Again, the success of Scooter's digital transformation and shifting relationships hinged on the seamless integration of multiple platforms. Billie put it more bluntly: “One shitty integration — one platform that doesn’t speak well to another — could have potentially derailed all the success of this campaign.”

The Future of QSR Loyalty: Trends to Watch in 2025

As Scooter's continues to innovate, Mitch and Billie discussed some key trends in the loyalty space, including:

1. Experiential Rewards: "Being able to add benefits that don't necessarily come with a hard cost but have a huge perceived value to the consumer, I think that’s huge," Mitch explained.
2. Sustainable Program Design: Mitch stressed the importance of building loyalty programs that can adapt and grow over time (5+ years) without requiring complete overhauls.
3. AI-Driven Personalization: I see many potential use cases for AI in loyalty programs, largely based on data capture and integration as well as data engineering. As Billie said, “AI can create so much lift through this optimization, but you have to have the bones right first.”

Practical Advice for QSRs

For QSRs looking to embark on their own digital transformation journey, consider these key takeaways:

1. Invest in Integration: Ensure all your digital systems work together seamlessly.
2. Leverage Real-Time Data: Use real-time insights to create personalized, timely, automated perks and offers.
3. Think Beyond Discounts: Explore experiential rewards for new customers that create emotional loyalty.
4. Build for the Future: Choose technology platforms that can evolve and scale with your business.
5. Test and Learn: Implement robust A/B testing strategies to continuously optimize.

Conclusion: Serving Up Digital Success, One Cup at a Time

Scooter's Coffee's digital transformation journey demonstrates that even in the restaurant industry where speed is paramount, investing in a robust, integrated digital ecosystem can yield remarkable results. By blending their commitment to fast, friendly service with cutting-edge digital capabilities, Scooter's has created a recipe for success that's as satisfying as their signature drinks.

As Billie aptly put it, “Integrated tech actually lets us think wildly outside the box to gamify experiences, reward customers, and match a super unique brand aesthetic.”

Ready to brew up your own digital success story? Explore how WillowTree can help craft a winning digital strategy that drives loyalty and revenue for your QSR.

And don't forget to check out all our "Room for Growth" podcast episodes for more insights into the digital transformation journey!