Fazoli’s will be implementing SpotOn’s technology in 15 of the chain’s corporate-owned locations in the Nebraska and Kansas City areas enabling customers to check-in with their smartphones or a loyalty card. The program is designed to help the merchant better understand guest behavior, reward customer loyalty and tailor offers.

“There is no denying that there is a movement toward mobile for checking in, which is most obvious at airports where many terminals are allowing scanning of mobile bar codes to authenticate a check-in,” said Doron Friedman, co-founder of SpotOn, San Rafael, CA.

“For chains, there are additional benefits using mobile to check in such as the convenience of not having to carry around a loyalty card or punch card and empowering the merchant to use mobile notifications to market real time to their customers, knowing that open rates are higher for mobile when compared to email,” he said.

“Using a mobile device in conjunction with a tablet could be a first step toward consumers being able to pay for transactions using their phone. Other members of the SpotOn community can see locations on a map and be able to view a business’ loyalty offerings.”

Fazoli’s is a quick-service restaurant chain with 217 locations based in Lexington, KY.

Rewards redemption
SpotOn offers a mobile app for obtaining rewards at local businesses that is used by over one million consumers and a tablet for power offers that is used at 6,000 businesses nationally.

Customers who visit a participating Fazoli’s restaurant location will be able to tap the SpotOn tablet located at the counter with their smartphone. The tablet app will then scan the QR code on  the mobile app to log a check-in.

Once users accumulate enough check-ins, they can click the reward redemption button on the tablet screen and the cashier gives customers their loyalty rewards.

When a restaurant sends a promotion via a mobile notification, mobile customers will see the offer when they use their phone to scan in at the tablet. They can choose to accept the promotion or just check-in.

Customers who add their birthday to their SpotOn app can also receive rewards during their birthday month. 

Fazoli’s decided to leverage the technology so it could compare performance at it various locations as well as to drill down on data about which offers worked best. 

Driving foot traffic
SpotOn offers merchants a dashboard that enables them to quickly toggle between locations to compare activity. Merchants can also view macro-level analytics such as customer loyalty across the chain as well as transaction-level details such as frequency and redemption history.

Marketing managers can also use the data to craft targeted marketing promotions on a brand level or to individual customers.

“Off-peak hours are simply one example of the types of problems that mobile technology products can help small business owners solve,” Mr. Friedman said. “The feedback we’re getting from merchants is that mobile is helping craft offers and turn around slow times rather quickly.

“They’re excited about seeing customers come by within minutes of sending a promotion, waving their phone to say ‘I just got your message,’” he said.

“We also found that younger consumers tend to be gravitating towards using mobile apps for loyalty. For businesses looking to reach a younger, tech-savvy audience, this is definitely the way to go.”

Final Take
Chantal Tode is associate editor on Mobile Commerce Daily, New York