How Bakers Delight saw over a 20% increase in their basket size
Background
In 1980, the very first Bakers Delight bakery was opened by Roger and Leslie Gillespie in Hawthorn in Victoria, Australia. Forty years on, Bakers Delight has grown to become a beloved household name, serving patrons in over 500 locations across Australia and New Zealand.
Bakers Delight is still family-owned today and one of the largest franchised bakery chains globally. In March 2020, the business turned to Marigold Engage+ to implement a rewards program to reward their loyal customers.
Get a deeper understanding of their growing customer base across 700 locations
Attract new customers and motivate new and existing customers to make more frequent purchases
Develop a contactable customer database through which customer behaviour can be understood, measured, and profiled
Integrate a range of technology solutions into one digital solution to simplify the customer and franchisee experience in-bakery
Challenge
With a growing and engaged customer base, Bakers Delight felt the time was ripe to implement a loyalty program, and consumer research showed that customers agreed. Previously, Bakers had a stamp card program that ran successfully for 20 years, but it was time to evolve.
For Bakers Delight, the focus was on designing a program that was Simple, Valuable and Personal for customers, with the ultimate business objective of driving an increase in customer visitation frequency by existing customers, as well as attracting new customers to the brand.
Bakers started off their loyalty journey in 2017 by running a proof-of-concept (POC) for their program proposition to see if it was appealing for customers, and successfully influenced customer behaviour. It ran for 16 weeks across eight selected bakeries in Tasmania.
The first month revealed that the majority of customers were visiting only once per month. At the end of the 16 week POC, the majority of customers were visiting 2+ times per month.
Additionally, the eight bakeries saw an increase in their overall number of transactions during the POC period. With these results under their ‘apron’, Bakers Delight decided to roll out a loyalty program across all bakeries in AUS and NZ.
Bakers Delight opened in 1980
86 million transactions processed each year
700 bakers across four countries, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the U.S.
An engaging loyalty solution
Bakers Delight sought out Marigold Engage+ to build a loyalty solution that would address all their needs: a better way to engage with and reward customers, a consistent experience across all bakeries, technology that would remove barriers to joining and interacting, and a way to personalise offers to their loyal customers.
The solution had to be omnichannel, meaning the customers of Bakers Delight had a connected experience both online and in-store.
Working closely with the Cheetah team, the Dough Getters program was created in Australia, with the new loyalty program offering customers rewards and benefits far beyond the simple stamp card.
The Cheetah team provided a solution that was omnichannel focused. A customer can join, earn and redeem rewards at their local Bakers Delight using their plastic card, the mobile app, or by providing their mobile phone number. The solution is built around recognising and rewarding a customer at the Point of Sale, but the options for different methods of interacting with the program allows them to engage with the program in a way that they’re comfortable with, whilst still ensuring a consistent customer experience regardless of channel.
In April of 2021, the Dough Getters Pilot launched, testing out the Dough Getters app built and deployed by Cheetah. Following a successful Pilot period, Dough Getters was rolled out nationally across Australia and New Zealand in over 500 Bakers Delight bakeries.
In one month, the Dough Getters program has had over 200,000 sign-ups, putting them 30% ahead of target. They’ve also seen their members, aka ‘Dough Getters,’ spending an average of 25% more per transaction.
Even better, customers are loving the new program. The sign-up process is simple and easy to join, and customers are loving getting rewarded. For Bakers, partnering with Cheetah enabled them to transition to a strategy that emphasised a delightful customer experience, customer loyalty, and insights, enabling them to engage customers throughout their lifecycle.
Over 200,000 sign-ups in just one month, putting them 30% ahead of target
Dough Getters spend, on average, 25% more than non-Dough-Getters
“After thoroughly evaluating the market, it was clear that Marigold Engage+ was the only partner that could deliver an all-in-one solution to support us in achieving our business objectives and deliver a seamless customer experience; from developing a deeper understanding of our customers to driving brand loyalty, we know Marigold Engage+ has the capabilities to support us in both the short and long-term. The data security and reduced latency that Marigold Engage+ offered us with their market first Engagement Data Platform that resides in Australia was a defining factor in our decision-making.”
Kristy Elsworth, Loyalty, CRM & Digital Marketing Manager
