Fast food franchise Chick-fil-A is overhauling its customer rewards app.
According to Michael Lage, senior manager of digital and mobile experience for Chick-fil-A, thousands of customers have complained about a lack of clarity when it comes to the points system within Chick-fil-A’s app, where members of the company’s rewards program–Chick-fil-A One–redeem free food for all meals purchased ahead of time through the app or by scanning a QR code at one of the chain’s 2,200 restaurants. Chick-fil-A looked at app store reviews, customer surveys and held its own focus groups.
Chick-fil-A is responding by instituting a new membership program and redesigning the two-year-old app with clearer directions, tallies of points and more options for rewards over the coming weeks, said Lage.
Within the old app, a “treat tracker” would fill up when a customer had spent enough to earn free food, but it was unclear just how many points a customer was receiving from every purchase and how many more points they would need until they would be rewarded. Options for rewards were also slim: users could only choose between one of three free chicken sandwiches.
Now, the app shows a count of total points in bold and lays out how much customers have to spend at the restaurant in order to win a certain amount of points: For every $1 spent, a customer gets 10 points. There are also now three reward tiers and 25 food rewards available, with specific rewards sets for every tier. Once a customer gets 1,000 points within a year, they can move up to silver status and with 5,000 points, they get Red status.
A new feature distinguishes the Chick-fil-A membership program from those at other fast food chains, said Kaitlyn White, project lead for customer digital experience at Chick-fil-A. When customers reach Silver or Red status, they can choose to gift rewards to their friends or donate a meal through Chick-fil-A’s partnership with nonprofit Feeding Children Everywhere.
The app now has 13 million active users and has seen many more downloads, according to Lage. It’s a slow uptick from last November when the app had 11 million downloads.
It’s not the first time the chain has had to redesign its app after customer feedback showed distaste of certain features. In November, Chick-fil-A redesigned its payment section after a design flaw misled customers into thinking they had to upload cash to order the food they wanted.
The chain has also been making a lot of moves to refine and develop its business recently. In July, it announced it will open its first international stores in Toronto in 2019, and will begin testing and selling meal kits at certain locations in Atlanta.
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