MarketView

Profitable Performance: Creating An Entertaining Experience Makes Customers Happier – And More Loyal
Entertaining Your Customers Reaps Rewards

Attendance at Major League Baseball, National Football League, and National Basketball Association games were all down last year.

These days when consumers “get away from it all” many of them aren’t going very far -- or spending very much. The leisure travel industry is suffering through one of its worst periods; over one-third (35%) of consumers surveyed by Deloitte said they spent less on personal trips between Thanksgiving 2009 and March 2010 than in previous years. Attendance at Major League Baseball games was down close to 7% last year; NFL Football, NBA Basketball and NCAA football also saw attendance decline in 2009. Theme parks and cruise ship operators had a down year too, as did the recreational vehicle and boat industries.

So what are consumers doing to entertain themselves during these challenging times? They’re staying closer to home, using their computers and watching TV. (It’s no accident that this year’s Super Bowl broadcast was the highest rated in history, even though it featured two teams from “small” markets. More people watched because it was free.)

Many consumers in search of low cost entertainment are also looking for new ways to add a dash of fun and excitement to their daily shopping routines. Retailers of all sizes have been eager to meet this demand with contests, give-aways and on-site events to make a visit to their stores more entertaining. As Janet Hoffman, a retail expert with Accenture, a leading consulting firm, observed in USA Today, retailers “have to get creative to get people in (their stores)” with “more tastings, more demos and more gimmicks…”

Everyone Wins With Contests

This isn’t to suggest that customers are expecting to see a Broadway musical when they visit their local convenience store or carwash, but retailers who take even small steps to add fun to their customers’ shopping experience should find their efforts rewarded. Businesses that go the extra mile to offer a more entertaining experience can not only expect to earn greater customer loyalty, they can also look forward to benefiting from more exposure, both in the form of traditional media coverage and social media buzz.

Last year Quiznos added 68,000 new names to their email list with the highly successful "Where do you Torpedo" contest.

Many retailers are delivering this entertainment in the form of contests. Aside from its “entertainment value,” a contest also provides you with an effective way to collect information for email marketing campaigns. A case in point is Quiznos. Last year the quick serve sandwich chain generated invaluable viral “buzz” on the Internet and in the traditional media when it invited customers to submit videos of its new Torpedo sandwiches. Quiznos added 68,000 new names to its emailing list as a result of the promotion.

Denny’s did even more, attracting 450,000 new members to its rewards program through its Free Grand Slam Breakfast For A Year contest. Subway also used “free” as a marketing tool in February when it gave 71 customers free sandwiches for a year to promote the introduction of its 5 foot long menu items. The sandwich chain added 400,000 new customers to its database during the promotion.

A website provides an ideal platform for running attention-getting contests, since it allows customers to submit entries from the comfort of their homes without slowing down the transaction process at your carwash. The SiteWatch® Website Design provides your carwash with an inviting website that customers can use to enter contests, in addition to buying carwash services online.

Beyond Free Is The Fun Factor

As the quick serve restaurant contests just cited illustrate, “free” is a powerful force when it comes to running in-store events and contests. Not only do people appreciate receiving free gifts; they also like to tell their friends about their windfall, which generates a lot of added buzz through social media posts on Facebook, Twitter and other outlets.

The SiteWatch Xpress Pay Terminal® (XPT®) makes it simple to market your carwash with free offer promotions. These promotions can be tied to specific time periods, purchases or events. Here are just a few examples:

• Time Periods – You can offer customers a free basic wash during a particularly slow period, such as Tuesday afternoons between 2 and 3. Sure some customers will visit only during this free period, but many more will probably come to your carwash at other times as a result of the attention created by this promotion. The SiteWatch Xpress Pay Terminal can automatically start and stop free offers at specified times. 
• Purchases – You can offer a free wash to customers who purchase a gift card worth over a specified amount. This can be an effective way to stimulate gift card sales during the holiday season – and lock in additional customers for the coming year. Learn more about our Prepaid Gift Card Module. 
• Events – You can use your free offer as a promotional tool by tying it to a local event. For example you might want give a free wash away to celebrate your local school’s victory over a rival, or to mark “Founder's Day” in your community.

Chick-fil-A gives free meals for a year to the first 100 customers who visit a new Chick-fil-A location.

As attractive as give-away offers are however, they become even more effective when they’re part of a coordinated marketing theme that goes “beyond free” to interject fun. This lesson is convincingly demonstrated by the $3 billion Chick-fil-A chain, one of the fastest growing companies in any retail industry. The quick serve chain gives free chicken meals for a year (about $300 in store credits) to the first 100 customers who visit a new Chick-fil-A location. The give-away has ensured large crowds, exciting media coverage and high social media chatter whenever a new Chick-fil-A opens.

However, Chick-fil-A doesn’t stop there. The chain runs free promotion offers throughout the year to generate viral buzz. Last New Year’s Eve it gave away free chicken biscuits; on Labor Day it gave free chicken to any customer wearing sports apparel; and on July 10, it celebrated “Cow Appreciation Day” by giving away free chicken to encourage people to eat less beef.

Weaving an element of fun into its free offers has made Chick-fil-A more entertaining for quick serve restaurant customers. This is why the chain passed one million Facebook fans in August; why its volume has grown by 50% between 2006 and 2009; and why same store sales increased by 4% in a challenging market in 2009. Meanwhile rival Kentucky Fried Chicken has seen a downward sales trend for the past two years.

Apple has also followed a strategy of making its network of 287 stores entertainment centers as well as retail sites. Emphasizing activity, engagement and a strong emotional connection to customers, the stores resemble clubs as much as retail establishments, with stages for presentations and workshops, a training studio, and the famous “Genius Bar” where customers can receive technical support for Apple products. This retailing-as-entertainment format has powered Apple Stores to unprecedented success. The company reached $1 billion in sales faster than any other retailer in history; and it’s sales per square foot are the highest anywhere, more than four times greater than Best Buy’s and more than 50% higher than Tiffany’s.

Grab Your Partner

You can enhance the entertainment value of your marketing by partnering with another business. Broadening a promotion to include a partner increases the level of fun for your customers by adding an entertaining element of surprise to their purchase.

For example, suppose you launched a co-promotion with an ice cream store, pizza parlor or coffee shop and gave every customer a free cone, slice or cup on a busy Saturday. Your customers’ response to this promotion would be more enthusiastic, because people don’t expect to get a free ice cream, pizza or cappuccino when they visit a carwash! Customers who are surprised this way are more prone to tell or Tweet their friends about their visit to your carwash.

Finding partners eager to participate in your co-promotion shouldn’t be difficult, since they’d stand to gain valuable exposure for their products during your busy Saturday. You can set up the free ice cream, pizza or coffee stand in an out-of-the-way part of your lot so it doesn’t slow down your line.

As part of your co-promotion, you can give your partner coupons for a discounted carwash to distribute at its locations. The XPT’s built-in barcode reader will make it simple for you to read and control these coupons at the point of sale.

Banish The Boring

Of course, adding entertaining elements to your customers’ shopping experience won’t do you much good if these marketing benefits are undone by long lines, confusing menu boards or a self-pay terminal interface that is difficult to navigate.

According to a February 2010 study by the retail consultant IDG, 62% of adults said that they like to use self-pay stations because it helps them get through the “boring” parts of the shopping experience more quickly, so they have more time to enjoy the entertaining aspects of shopping. According to one review of the study, “while shopping can be a leisure activity, and retail stores have come to be recreational destinations, most shoppers will happily take every opportunity to make the more mundane parts (like waiting in line or paying) as quick and painless as possible.”

The SiteWatch XPT helps you appeal to these customers with time-saving features like a user-friendly A/V interface; a convenient “strike zone”, which puts all essential functions like credit card acceptance within easy reach of the customer; and the FastPass® Wireless Acceptance System, which completes transactions in less than three seconds.

Thanks to features like these, the SiteWatch XPT will not only make a visit to your site more convenient for customers, it will also give them more time to spend enjoying the entertaining features of your wash. When they do, they’ll become “fans” as well as customers, locking in their loyalty for many “return engagements”.