California Tortilla is adding zest to its mobile sales strategy by enabling customers to earn rewards for repeat visits and take advantage of a new single-sign-on feature in the chain’s new ordering applications.

The quick service restaurant chain has joined forces with guest engagement platform Paytronix to roll out the new loyalty program and sign-in functionality, the latter of which is expected to eliminate wait times for in-store visitors and streamline the order fulfillment process for employees. As mobile-savvy users clamor for instant gratification with their purchases, incorporating single-sign-on tools for tap-and-go ordering should be a top-of-mind tactic for food and beverage marketers.

“Earned rewards enable the marketer to target desired customer behavior,” said Michelle Tempesta, head of marketing for Paytronix. “Extending the Burrito Elito guest experience to the mobile ordering system enables California Tortilla to further reward guests for orders made via the mobile device.

“From the guests’ perspective, earning rewards for all purchase behavior just got easier,” she said. “With single sign-on, guests use the Paytronix California Tortilla app to locate the nearest restaurant, check reward balances in real time, and now order meals.

“Making the experience easier for the guest is likely to reduce friction and increase usage – which could lead to more mobile orders.”

Wrapping up digital sales
Quick service marketers’ digital footprints have been experiencing a rapid increase, thanks to consumers’ requests for easy ways of ordering their favorite meals on mobile without having to input personal payment information each time.

This has prompted many major brands in the food and beverage industry to introduce mobile ordering apps, which strike appreciation among customers but occasionally overwhelm employees with a barrage of orders during peak dining times.

Consequently, the California Tortilla restaurant chain opted to leverage Paytronix’s platform to release its loyalty-enabled apps for iOS and Android devices. The California Tortilla Burrito Elito mobile apps offer streamlined sign-on capabilities for repeat users, so that ordering may be completed with the tap of a finger.

The brand hopes to eliminate wait times for guests, instead allowing them to place orders via smartphones ahead of time, and pop in to their nearby restaurant to retrieve meals at their leisure. The apps are also projected to ramp up the amount of digital orders a restaurant can process during the busiest times, such as lunch and after-work rush hour.

The new mobile tools will streamline the view of the guest across all purchasing channels, which will enable the restaurant to deduce how often they purchase in-store or online. California Tortilla will be able to more effectively grab customers’ attention at the most crucial moment of the purchasing journey via real-time targeted messages.

“Giving customers the ability to preorder has proven to reduce the amount of time they wait in line,” Ms. Tempesta said. “Many quick service and fast casual companies implemented online ordering in 2015 – with the objective of reducing wait time.

“Long wait times are a visit deterrent for lunch-time guests who have a limited window of time to dine out for lunch. Extending the benefits of a rewards program to this group of pre-order guests helps marketers extend the reach of their programs and therefore extend the ability to send relevant offers and messages to motivate further visits and spending.”

Members of California Tortilla’s loyalty program can use the app to place orders from any location, check their account status, search for the nearest location and access their rewards point balances.

Seamless rewards
Consumers will now be able to log-in to their accounts, order meals and apply any available rewards, pay and submit their orders while only having to use the mobile app. This is set to culminate in a seamless ordering experience that will subsequently reward the customer for his or her business.

The Paytronix program will also help California Tortilla record all mobile interactions and target users with relevant offers and messages based on real-time behavior.

A slew of other food marketers have integrated Paytronix’s platform into their mobile experiences.

West Coast-based sandwich chain Port of Subs unlocked a Paytonix-powered app over the summer that enables loyal consumers to customize their favorite meals and place orders via mobile, underscoring the need for fast-casual restaurants to offer pay-now, pick-up-later options (see story).

Additionally, Which Wich Superior Sandwiches rolled out a new app and digital ordering platform, allowing customers to order and pay for hand-crafted sandwiches on their smartphones and pick them up at the restaurant (see story).

“Making the guest experience as rewarding and friction-free as possible is in the best interest of the restaurant,” Ms. Tempesta said. “From the guests’ perspective, the interactions with the restaurant should feel the same across channels.

“Having to log-in to multiple systems to interact with a single brand is not guest-friendly,” she said. “This single sign-on solution remedies a common challenge for brands.

“Having integrated technology systems for guest interactions helps enable a single view of the customer from the marketer’s Paytronix interface – which enables faster, more informed decisions regarding targeting segments for valuable promotions including discounts or otherwise. The single view also delivers insights in to predictable behavior and the unveiling of further opportunities for incremental revenue building.”

Final Take
Alex Samuely, staff writer on Mobile Commerce Daily, New York