Barista Bar is a rapidly growing Northern Ireland based coffee chain offering self-serve hot drinks services in over 700 SPAR storefronts and service stations across the UK, with sales of over 12 million cups per year. The challenge for us was to replace a legacy card based loyalty points system with a mobile app based reward points loyalty scheme, increase adoption and most importantly clearly analyse the customer experience to give greater insights into Barista Bar customer buying habits and journeys to enable better ongoing commercial decision making.
A core part to the custom software platform development was to create seamless integration with the in-house ePOS system to ensure that reward points were able to be used as a pure digital currency for redemption against hot drinks purchased using reward points. Our team worked in partnership with Barista Bar's IT infrastructure team and the external ePOS provider to create an integration solution that linked the mobile app loyalty data to the till system in all Barista Bar outlets and branches.
The digitisation of the Barista Bar loyalty scheme also allowed for increasing the purchasing power and flexibility of coffee loyalty points.
Now Barista Bar customers can collect their loyalty points and not only redeem them against free drinks but also for Rewards+ points to be exchanged for branded merchandise and discount offers with selected partners and retailers.
A store locator allowed Barista Bar customers to find their nearest store from their location, enabling committed customers to access their favourite coffee brand conveniently and easily from their device. Store location markers overlay on a map which can then provide turn-by-turn directions using Google Maps.
Sugar Rush apps provide granular facilities to keep content and screens updated as changes or updates are made, with a view to keeping the app user community up to speed and informed. A robust community content system was designed to allow for promoting key content (stories) to Barista Bar customers and creating greater brand engagement and awareness.
Barista Bar was provided with a new vibrant home in the form of a web application based hub, to keep customers and followers up to date with all things Barista Bar. The My Barista Bar website also serves as a corporate communication hub allowing the Barista Bar team to issue commercial content for customers and the public, as well as giving voice to their social values for sustainability, environmental concerns and nutritional awareness.
Barista Bar can ‘relax and have a coffee...’ in the knowledge that they have a robust and accessible content management system together with at-a-glance dashboards was developed to show the Barista Bar team key business metrics and allow granular control to access critical user management functions.
Digitising N.Ireland's Biggest Coffee brand.
Within 1 month of product launch, the Barista Bar app gained over 10,200 subscribed users, rocketing up the UK App charts. 66% of users engaged with featured stories and store locator. 66% of app users made purchases using digital loyalty. Furthermore, 51% of lapsed card scheme users were re-activated through the app.
The Barista Bar loyalty app provides the perfect blend of digital features and ease of use, keeping customers engaged, connected and loyal with their favourite coffee brand, while keeping Barista Bar's team informed, in control of the app content and aware of their customer buying behaviours in real-time.
