Smokey Bones Launches New Rewards Program

Smokey Bones has partnered with Personica, a marketing and analytics platform for restaurants, to launch a new, more robust Smokey Bones rewards program.

Personica’s rewards program goes beyond traditional points, currency, and frequency programs and allows restaurant clients to create and deliver personalized communications, offers and experiences tailored to guest preferences. While earning points and visit credits are available, Smokey Bones can also execute Surprise & Delight rewards and offers triggered by
behaviors designed to retain most frequent guests while activating less frequent ones.

Data-Driven Personalization

"This is just a big foray for us to get into first party data and.. build this robust view of our customer, in terms of where they prefer to transact, whether on-premise or off- premise, understanding a bit more of their purchasing behavior, and what they like to purchase and then building and tailoring rewards around on that,"  Brian Wallunas, Smokey Bones Chief Technology Officer, explained to HT.

[39% of restaurants say using data to understand guest preferences and behavior is driving their next POS upgrade, according to HT's 2022 POS Software Trends report]

“We’ve been partnering with Personica  since 2015 to power our CRM program; using intelligent offers to drive personalized guest experiences. With such a robust dataset it made perfect sense to expand our program to include a rewards component to create even stronger relationships with our guests."

Early results are impressive. In the past two months Smokey Bones added 25,000 new members, Wallunas said.

With the launch of its Bones Club rewards program on the Personica platform, Smokey Bones has the power to collect and leverage member, campaign, and transactional data across offers and customer engagement journeys, building lasting guest relationships with every interaction across touch points.

Smokey Bones guests can gain rewards benefits from visits on-premises or via online order options that are powered by Fresh Technology’s ToGo solution that is fully integrated with Personica.

“Through our partnership with Personica, we are employing a data-driven approach to creating personalized offers and more meaningful rewards,” said Nichole Robillard, Vice President of Marketing at Smokey Bones. “The new Bones Club rewards program is designed to incentivize greater visit frequency while inspiring new usage occasions and trial around the menu. We know diners have a lot of options when choosing where to eat, and a loyalty program that provides unique and high-value offers is another way for Smokey Bones to
stand out among the crowd.”

Personica’s Engage rewards platform integrates with several POS systems.  Fishbowl rebranded as Personica last year.