Aurelio’s Pizza, a 55-year-old Homewood-based chain, welcomes what’s always its busiest dine-in day of the year Wednesday. The company hopes to entice diners — on the night before Thanksgiving when they especially don’t want to cook — with a loyalty-focused mobile app that launched Monday.
Beginning next week, the company said, the app also will allow customers to order online.
“For the customers, it gives them complete control and flexibility,” COO Kirk Mauriello said. “From a business standpoint, everything’s electronic so there [will be] no more paper.”
The free app, available for iOS and Android devices, enables users to accrue and manage loyalty points, and it will replace Aurelio’s existing card-based rewards program. Mauriello said Aurelio’s already has 85,000 rewards members and that it will take up to six months to transition all of them to the app. He hopes the new system will help that number grow markedly.
The app comes with a new loyalty structure as well. Each dollar a customer spends earns one point. In the old system, customers could redeem 200 points for a $10 discount. Along with the app comes a tiered program through which customers can redeem 50, 100, 150 or 200 points for $2.50, $5, $7 or $10 off.
To earn rewards, customers must use the app to scan a barcode on their receipt or enter the associated code. Mauriello said this extra step puts control in the customer’s hands rather than require servers to match dine-in customers to their reward profiles.
But additional steps can be barriers to use, particularly for the Millennials the company likely is targeting with its app, said Darren Tristano, executive vice president at restaurant consulting firm Technomic. He said some customers may see the system as “antiquated,” much the way some regard mail-in rebate programs.
Mauriello said an app update next week will integrate online ordering but that only about 3 percent of Aurelio’s orders come through digital channels.
Tristano emphasized the importance of online ordering to smaller companies such as Aurelio’s, which boasts 40 locations in six states. The company has 35 locations in Illinois and Indiana.
“What we’re overall seeing is smaller, regional chains trying to remain competitive and relevant with larger national and even global chains,” he said.
Aurelio’s sees the new app as a marketing opportunity and plans to engage customers with an in-app game that rewards users with loyalty points. Mauriello said the company aims to lure loyal customers more often and that it will use app-derived data to target special offers to specific customers.
“We want to be able to control when the customer comes in with the offers and when we’re discounting,” Mauriello said.