TGI Friday’s Takes Customer Feedback Seriously

TGI Friday’s is leveraging relationships formed through its loyalty program and using that data, as well as feedback from customers, to inform everything from marketing campaigns and rewards programs to menu items.

“We’re creating a new look, feel and vibe at Friday’s,” says Rob Henderson, customer relationship marketing and loyalty manager, TGI Friday’s, who presented on the topic of leveraging human data to achieve multichannel engagement at the DMA’s Integrated Marketing Week event in New York this week.

The restaurant chain is redesigning locations, reaching out to customers with special campaigns like mobile food trucks and engaging them through its “Give Me More Stripes” loyalty program, where they can earn points and special offers. Once they have joined the loyalty program, Henderson says the marketing team’s goal is to turn them in to “best friends” who are Friday’s best customers and ambassadors.

“We want to create closer relationships with our customers, and members who are our best friends visit 23% more often, they spend more, they bring their friends and they appreciate our offers. Members like to feel special, so we treat them special,” Henderson says.

“Give Me More Stripes” members are privy to special VIP events and previews of new menu items, as a reward for being so engaged with the brand. Program members open Friday’s emails at a 50% rate, with a 61% response rate, according to Henderson.

The Friday’s team is also engaging it’s most loyal fan base across social media, and it has created a new social CRM database to manage social media and guest feedback. This helps Henderson to identify brand advocates, drive awareness of new products, influence menu and product options and alter or reward operational behavior inside Friday’s restaurants.

Example: Last year, Friday’s teamed with Bethany Frankel and Skinnygirl Cocktails to create the “Fantasy Cocktail Party” campaign, where consumers on social media created their own dream cocktail party and listed who they would invite, living or dead. The results: More than 10,000 parties were created, a total of 1 million social reach impressions, over 9,000 likes on Facebook and 22,000 social shares.

Henderson says the campaign also provided marketers with ancillary information on those who participated in the campaign, including gender, age marital status, number of children and income. Friday’s also gleaned data on users interests, like favorite TV shows, sports, websites and music.

“We’re looking to use that information to influence media buys,” Henderson says.

Another successful campaign allowed Friday’s customers to “Rate Your Burger,” and provide marketers with valuable feedback through diner reviews.

“It offered the guest a chance to tell us what their experience was like. We leverage guest feedback and transactional data to inform performance,” Henderson says.

TGI Friday’s needed a place to house all of these reviews so customers would have a place to see them displayed, so a new “Social Hub” section was created on the Give Me More Stripes webpage. This hub page shares guest reviews and authentic guest ratings, and helps marketers identify sentiment for Friday’s products, service or brands.

“The main thing here is trust. What’s better to build trust than other customers’ reviews? VOC creates brand sentiment and loyalty,” Henderson says.