When takeout pizza chain Papa Murphy’s reimagined its loyalty program, it made simplicity the top priority. Rather than offer members points as a percent of dollars spent, MySlice Rewards gives customers a flat 10 points for every full-size pizza purchased.
“It's built around a single, clear rule,” Jason Focht, VP of digital marketing at Papa Murphy’s, told CX Dive. “Every pizza earns points. It's easy to understand, easy to message and easy to execute across all of our channels, including web apps and in-store.”
Papa Murphy’s updated program, which soft launched in October ahead of a full rollout earlier this month, builds on lessons from the company’s previous loyalty model, according to Focht.
The old MySlice Rewards focused on a surprise and delight model where customers would receive a reward every couple visits, according to Focht. While that approach offered customers meaningful benefits, it ultimately proved unpredictable, difficult to scale, and inconsistent in how it rewarded customer behavior.
The updated version of MySlice Rewards combines the new points system with three rewards options at 25, 50 and 75 points. This baseline system is designed to reward guests in a simple, transparent way, while making it easy for Papa Murphy’s to enhance the program in the future with features like personalized rewards, according to Focht.
“We've moved from unclear and inconsistent to simple and scalable, and it's a structure our guests trust and operators can execute easily,” Focht said.
Surprise and delight isn’t the only way
Surprise and delight can work as the main ingredients in a loyalty program, but sometimes they can make the experience confusing for customers and store managers.
The old version of MySlice Rewards helped Papa Murphy’s understand how its guests engage with the company, but it failed to drive sustained customer activity, according to Focht. The program failed to engage infrequent customers, and regular customers were never sure how they would be rewarded on their next visit.
While rewards were based on loyalty members’ visit and spending behavior, those rewards weren’t personalized to a significant degree, according to Focht. Even if the rewards themselves were straightforward, the lack of clarity hindered MySlice Rewards’ potential.
“We received that feedback, obviously, from our guests, but also from the store level, from our franchisees and store managers,” Focht said. “We needed a program that works the way our guests think in a simple, transparent and rewarding way.”
A points-based system provides a clearer path for customers while driving greater customer frequency for franchisees, Focht said.
Keep it simple, keep it transparent
Papa Murphy’s designed its updated loyalty program to make it equally simple to earn, track or use their points.
Customers can redeem 25 points for either $3 off an order or a free Pepsi, which means they are never more than one or two visits away from their next reward, according to Focht. They can also save more points for a free side or pizza. Together, these options create a clear sense of progress that aims to keep customers engaged.
“There's no need to calculate percentages or track spend or anything like that,” Focht said. “Every pizza purchase counts. It's straightforward, rewarding and fast, and for the business and the franchisees and the stores, the structure builds frequency.”
Another company that revamped its loyalty program with a focus on simplicity is convenience retailer Circle K. All Inner Circle rewards members get three cents per gallon off one gas purchase every day.
Customers can earn a bigger discount if they spend enough with the company, but the core of the program’s value proposition remains simple, according to Rick Rasor, VP of global loyalty and digital experience at Couche-Tarde, which owns Circle K.
“The customer doesn’t have to do any sort of mental gymnastics to figure it out,” Rasor told CX Dive in August. “And so we found that to be a key driver of success for us in the performance of the program.”
Transparency also plays a role in Papa Murphy’s loyalty program, according to Focht. Customers can track their points on Papa Murphy’s website or app, including through a points bar that shows them how many points they have and how many they need for the next reward threshold.
The foundations of MySlice Rewards are simple, and Papa Murphy’s will add more complex but unobtrusive features in the future, according to Focht. Plans include double points days, extra discounts for lapsed customers, and special offers during community events.
Balancing frequency and profitability
It’s not enough for a loyalty program to drive frequency and engagement — profitability also needs to be front and center, according to Focht.
The simplicity of MySlice Rewards’ rewards scheme benefits Papa Murphy’s as well as customers, according to Focht. It is easy for the company to calculate how the program is affecting the profit margin on every pizza sold, which makes it easier to adjust the program to increase customer frequency or store profitability as needed.
“We're going to see the averages of which rewards guests are redeeming,” Focht said. “And we've selected rewards and the points thresholds to be within a margin of acceptable and really optimal discount rates or yields of the program.”
The key to any successful loyalty program is striking a balance between customer experience and business interests, according to Focht.
“It has to work for operators, for our franchisees, and if it's too complex to run or hard to explain, it won't scale right,” Focht said. “A program really needs to motivate guests to return, drive higher average tickets, and build brand trust over time.”
