Interview with Zak

Why did you start using CityGro?

Connecting with our customers has been a long time goal for us. When I was introduced to the CityGro kiosk, I saw the potential to get a lot more contacts in a way that looked modern and exciting, so we tried it out.

Can you explain your strategy with CityGro?

We incentivize customers to join our loyalty program by giving them points each time they come in. Based on how long it has been since the customer has come in we’ve set up automated reminders to encourage them to come back. We also send updates on events and promotions about ever 2 weeks.

How do you get so much participation?

I personally credit our employees. Every customer that walks in is greeted with a smile and as they come up to pay for their ice cream they are asked if they would like to check-in for loyalty points. They almost always do.

What kind of messages do you send?

Well, we’re always looking for an excuse to connect. We’ll send anything from promotions to holiday reminders, birthday incentives, and more. If we are trying to get rid of inventory, we’ll send out a special on a specific item or flavor.

Can you talk about your ROI with CityGro? (ROI = return on investment)

Sure, we track everything from redemptions to loyalty check-in. Since we started CityGro we have gotten rid of the cost of punch cards, employees don’t have to insert the phone numbers and emails from business cards we used to collect, and since we now have thousands of people in our network, we don’t have to reach people through 3rd party advertising. It costs us a couple cents to contact a customer and even if it takes 10 messages to bring them back, it is extremely profitable.

“Last year we had $600 in sales for the 4th of July. And the year before that was a little less. Yesterday morning I sent out 3805 texts and 800+ emails from your software and on a short business day, we ended at $1,537. With 78 redemptions in just text messages and 11 emails. We also saw a jump in our average sale by $2.50. In short, the text and emails more than doubled our sales! Good job CityGro.”

-Text message sent to CityGro from Zak Manning