McDonald’s building loyalty program
McDonald’s Corp. is developing a loyalty program in the U.S., building upon the chain’s new smartphone app, that could be in place late this year or early next year, company executives said last Wednesday.
Speaking at the UBS Global Consumer Conference Wednesday morning, McDonald’s USA president Mike Andres said that the program could be a big sales driver for the Oak Brook, Ill.-based burger giant.
“We’re working on a customer-designed loyalty program that we think will be as good as there is out there in the marketplace,” Andres said.
McDonald’s released its app last year, which in many markets has a beverage loyalty offer that gives customers a free McCafé beverage after they’ve purchased five. The app has been downloaded 7.5 million times, Andres said, exceeding the company’s expectations.
Yet Andres said that McDonald’s new loyalty program would be “more robust,” and would be linked to consumer purchases, based perhaps on the number of visits customers make to the chain’s restaurants every month. Customers would likely have a limited time to take advantage of whatever deals the company offers through the program.
Such a move would be consistent with McDonald’s oft-stated belief in recent months that it needs to use technology to communicate more directly with customers.
Andres noted, for instance, that a loyalty program could entice customers to come in after they’ve been absent for a while. McDonald’s could use information it has on those customers’ buying habits to do the convincing.
Continue reading at Nation's Restaurant News Online.
Written by Jonathan Maze, NRM.com.
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