What’s a technology or loyalty feature that you haven’t implemented yet but are curious about? Why?
Personalized offers, the opportunity to target offers to our most loyal guests that they find value in. I think this is a critical next step to level up our loyalty rewards program. We use PDI Loyalty. We are currently looking at segmented offers with PDI Experience Designer [to expand personalized offers]. We are only in the beginning stages, but it is a customer relationship management (CRM) platform that allows you to target message customers.

 

What do you love about your category?
My favorite part is the data—I love it all. I can't get enough of the deep dives, trends, KPI success stories, etc. 

 

What are the biggest challenges?
Data. With our current tech stack, it can be challenging to get all the pieces you need to proper measure. Unfortunately, [collecting and managing the data] is one of the pain points, since we use different tech stacks each has a reporting element that we have to extract and combine to see the full picture of results. 

 

Have you experimented or adopted AI anywhere in the category? Do you plan to in the future?
We have not started using AI yet, but yes, with personalized offers.

 

What are your goals for 2025?
Increase registrations, increase app engagement and reduce overall churn.

 

What is another loyalty program that you look up to, whether it’s in the c-store channel or not?
There are so many honestly. Some of my favorites are:

  • Sheetz: My favorite attribute is the tiered program; I also like that they are original and bold in the marketing.
  • Kentucky Fried Chicken: Gamification is on point, fun, relevant, engaging.
  • McDonalds: Ease of execution, simple, great value and effective.

 

Would Weigel's ever switch to a tiered program?
I see this being an addition in the future.

 

How do you keep up with tech and make sure you’re not late to the market?
I read everything I can get my hands on and listen to any webinar that is available. Also, I like to watch other industries because they seem to adopt tech quicker than we do.