Rémi Boglio (Bohébon): "At first, I was very reluctant to use Hey Pongo"
Rémi Boglio is one of our "good customers" in every sense of the word: he loves to talk about customer loyalty and restaurant marketing, and he does it well. We booked an appointment very easily, by phone, as we had to do over the August weekend. While many restaurateurs are struggling, he's constantly opening new outlets. Bohébonthe up-and-coming Poké restaurant. So we were keen to grill him on what he thinks keeps his customers coming back.
Hey Pongo: How did you come to gradually roll out Hey Pongo to the 10 Bohébon restaurants across France?
[.is--yellow-highlight]Rémi Boglio[.is--yellow-highlight]: To tell you the truth, at first I was very reluctant. I needed a loyalty system, and I wanted to test Hey Pongo, which is quite well known. At the same time, I thought it was a bit expensive, and I didn't know if we were going to make full use of it. So we decided to take it one step at a time, testing it in just one restaurant, and deliberately choosing one that was underperforming to see what Hey Pongo was all about.
And we saw right away that customers really liked it. We enrolled several hundred customers in the loyalty program, around 700, fairly quickly. We saw a lot of positive feedback very quickly, and we put out flyers for the fortune wheel, and customers really liked it. They seemed to appreciate that we were doing something for them.
So, thanks to Hey Pongo, we generated quite a few reviews. Reviews are nice, however they're not everything. But we've seen that they're effective, very effective even. Beyond that, the big advantage is the automated marketing we've set up with automatic SMS messages. This allowed us to take control of a lot of things.
"With Hey Pongo, [.is--yellow-highlight]knowing our customers is no longer a blind spot[.is--yellow-highlight] for us."
But the most important point, which was really a blind spot for us, was getting to know our customers. And it's true that since we deployed Hey Pongo in all our restaurants, we've enrolled over 6,000 customers in the loyalty program. We've been able to personalize the different questions we ask throughout the customer journey. Today, we can say that we know our customers. If there was one thing we were really missing, it was this.
What has the Hey Pongo loyalty program done for you?
What's great for us is that loyalty rewards allow us to showcase new products. For example, we recently launched mochis, then smoothies. In the past, we would have used point-of-sale advertising, but we have so many that it's not really effective anymore. We also pop them up on the order terminals, but that doesn't convert many people.
With Hey Pongo, we offer these new products as the first gift in the loyalty program, at 25 points, the most accessible total. This gives the product instant visibility. It's a lot better than free tasting operations: presenting it as a loyalty reward, you're enhancing the value of both the product and the customer. It's one of Pongo's real strengths to offer instant visibility for new products, to an audience that's nonetheless large.
"With Hey Pongo, [.is--yellow-highlight]we no longer wonder how to launch new products[.is--yellow-highlight]: we know we'll make them highly visible through the loyalty program."
What's more, people are going to give us their feedback en masse, because we put it on the lowest points accumulation (i.e. the most accessible gift), so they can obtain it after just one or two visits. Hence it's one of Hey Pongo's great strengths: to be able to use the loyalty program to give visibility to new products, and above all to encourage customers to try new products on a regular basis, while at the same time feeling involved. "Ah, there's something new I'm going to try".
As the manager of several restaurants, what do you think helps build customer loyalty?
The most important thing, of course, is the product, and how it is shown off. I would add other factors that are important to us: fast service is a good way of building customer loyalty. And then there's the human touchand the quality of service. For me, these are the three most important factors in building customer loyalty.
What about loyalty systems?
If you're looking to build loyalty via a specific tool, it's essential that it's as intuitive and integrated as possible into the customer journey.
That's where Hey Pongo really comes into its own, [.is--yellow-highlight]the fact that it's been integrated into the Tabesto kiosks, I think it's brilliant[.is--yellow-highlight]. I'm not a big fan of a device (like a tablet) dedicated to loyalty because it requires an action, you have to direct the customer to the device. Given what we use it at Bohébon, the most interesting thing was to integrate Hey Pongo with the Tabesto kiosks so that it would fit in perfectly with the customer experience.
As soon as I told my teams about Hey Pongo, some might have feared there would be friction, because we have very high volumes in certain restaurants. Once deployed, on the contrary: to date, no one has complained of slowdowns in the customer journey, either customers or my teams. It works well because it's completely integrated into the customer experience.
Would you say it's suitable for a restaurant or a brand with several stores?
Completely! From a single, very smooth and intuitive interface, you can set things for the whole network or for a single restaurant.
After 10 deployments, we haven't spotted any friction of any kind, or anything hindering our experience or that of our customers. Frankly, with Hey Pongo, we've found a very good partner. We were gradually able to take the reins and see the strength that it can have. There are things that can be one shot, like getting to know your customers: once you know them, you can move on to something else. The same goes for reviews: once you've boosted them, thanks and good-bye. But we've really identified a long-term strength in loyalty.
These two tools (customer knowledge and reviews) can be activated and deactivated as required. However, as far as loyalty is concerned, we can't imagine taking a step backwards today. Because it's a solution that meets ongoing needs.
Do you think that, as a franchisor, this can make your franchise more attractive?
Yes, anything that's connected, that's going to cause a stir, that's going to help. It's all very simple, but when you start your business, it's better to have all your packaging branded with your logo to make it look better.
With Hey Pongo, customers benefit from a loyalty solution that's perfectly integrated with the kiosks. You can unlock your reward instantly, and the staff hand it over to you with a smile; it works, it's smooth, it's clearly an asset.
Franchisees sense that there's a big machine at work, encompassing a number of solutions. They'll be sensitive to this set of tools that professionalize the concept a little, or make it more serious.
What communications are you setting up for the opening of a new restaurant? Do you have a roadmap?
Yes, we have several roadmaps depending on whether we're opening in a city center or a shopping mall, depending on what's already there, what's around it, and what we're allowed to do or not do. For example, there are shopping malls where you can distribute flyers, and others where you can't. If it's in a shopping mall, you're not allowed to distribute it. If it's in a shopping mall, we contact the marketing managers who show us everything that can be made available, whether it's extra or included in the rent we pay. Then we decide based on that.
We have actions on different phases: for example, we have digital displays in the vicinity of shopping centers for a period of 15 days before opening. Then, on the opening day, we'll be proposing offers.
We can also communicate with ephemeral totems at the entrances to shopping malls, stickers at the entrances on the ground, and so on... If it's in the city center, we can put up banners to announce the opening, as well as fairly dense leafleting campaigns, based on 5,000 leaflets, and adapting the quantities. We also communicate on social networks.
Is Marketing Offering something you do when you open a new restaurant?
We've stopped making them! At some point, we gave away the first 100 Pokés, but I think that's counter-productive. Of course, it creates a little crowd, which makes you think "what's this concept that brings in so many people?", but you soon realize that it's mainly the fact that it's free that does it.
Instead, we're offering a reduced-price deal with pokés at €5 for 15 days. This makes pokés accessible to everyone at a round price, and we're spreading the word in every way we can.
A final word on Hey Pongo:
I'd like to say that I'm really pleased with the solution. We're pretty loyal to our partners and therefore to Hey Pongo, although I had some big questions about it at the start, but in the end it worked and we're very happy.
