Almost everyone who orders from the Casey’s app is a rewards member, and that was the chain’s goal, according to Mike Templeton, director of digital experience at Casey’s General Stores, Ankeny, Iowa.
Casey’s tested its app for six months by talking to customers and having debates, such as whether the program should include a plastic card or be completely digital. With the loyalty platform established, Casey’s has been able to connect the dots and understand each guest’s interests, whether it's fuel, the store or foodservice.
“We are so thankful that we made the decisions that we have because when we go back and look at the data from the guests that are visiting stores, those guests were the ones that kept coming back,” Templeton said in a session with Brittany Maroney, head of marketing at Punchh, a loyalty engagement platform, at CSP’s Convenience Retailing University conference in Orlando, Florida.
Rewards at Casey’s are point-based, meaning customers can collect points each time they make a purchase. Loyalty members can customize how they want to spend their points—on in-store purchases, fuel or donations to schools Casey’s supports.
“People love having that freedom to pick what loyalty looks like for them,” said Templeton.
For customers to want the app, they need to see value in it, and team members can be advocates for rewards, he said.
Casey’s offers its team members additional perks when they have the loyalty app, such as free items. This encourages associates to try products that deals are based around so they have more knowledge about products and talk to customers about what they have tried and enjoyed.
When it comes to food orders, due to the number of third-party delivery services that Casey’s works with and the chain’s own delivery service, which includes app and phone orders, Casey’s implemented a system so that all orders go to the same place.
One of Casey’s goals is to offer ease in its own app so that customers can use it for anything at Casey’s they need.
“We built our app around our business, and I think in the future, we want to build our business around our app,” Templeton said.
An app also leads to an additional format for customers to pay for purchases. Contactless payment has increased in popularity since the pandemic, so whether the app can hold cash or the register accepts Apple Pay and Venmo, mobile payment is a good strategy to adopt, he said.
To consider offering mobile payment “using a device to pay had to be easier than pulling a piece of plastic out of your pocket; We’re at a spot now that it is,” said Templeton. “Do you want to be in a position where you have to turn somebody away because they think it’s inconvenient to do business with you? That’s the business that we’re in, convenience.”
Casey’s is also testing artificial intelligence-based chat bots, where a robot will pick up the phone, talk to the customer and take its pizza order. Orders are tracked to make it easy for guests to place a repeat order.
“All of this technology is evolving so quickly … but if somebody doesn’t want to engage, they can hit a button and opt out,” Templeton said. “Nothing against humans, but a robot never forgets to upsell.”
- Casey’s General Stores is No. 3 on CSP’s 2023 Top 40 update to the 2022 Top 202 ranking of convenience-store chains by total number of company-owned locations.
Casey’s operates more than 2,400 convenience stores in 16 states. The company, one of the top pizza retailers in the nation, has introduced new private-label foods such as cheesy breadsticks to draw consumers into its stores.