Bazar Family case study

We talked with Henry Grigoryan, marketing director of the "Bazar Family" projects, about our work together and the results we have reached so far. We found out how to move from one loyalty system to another, what is good about the Loona.ai admin portal, and how the menu helps more guests download the card.

"Bazar Family" is a restaurant group. It includes: the "Vinny Bazar" wine bar chain, the "Tantsy.food&people" bar, the "Igristy" gastrobar, the "CROSTA pizza bar" pizzeria, and the "Kochevniki. Vino i Ogon" restaurant

Yulia, Loona.ai manager: Henry, tell us how our work together started.

Henry, marketing director of the "Bazar Family" projects:

Actually, I wasn't the one who found the company. A Loona.ai representative contacted me and offered a meeting with a loyalty marketing expert. The meeting also included a free assessment of the business.

The team reached out at the right time, because one of our goals for 2022 was to change our loyalty system or make it better. The one we had used for 5 years was not working well enough.

Yulia: How useful was the consultation?

Henry: During the presentation, I saw modern loyalty tools: easy installation, great automations that help keep guests, and UTM tags. These tags show how well the staff of our projects work and whether our ad spending makes sense.

By the way, I especially liked that we met in person, not online, which everyone got so used to during the pandemic. Honestly, face-to-face meetings make me trust people more.

Yulia: Did you look at similar companies on the market?

Henry: Yes, before we met the Loona.ai team, we had several offers. But no other company cared about its product as much as Loona.ai. We felt it right away, and it shaped our decision to work with them for Bazar Family.

We already had a loyalty program and didn't want to lose active users. So the Loona.ai team offered to digitize our active guest base and enter it into the new loyalty system by hand. That's more than 7,000 users!

Yulia: What loyalty system did you use before Loona.ai?

Henry: It was an app* that you had to install on your phone. Honestly, guests found it inconvenient and didn't want to install it. Because of this, fewer people installed the app, and we reached fewer guests of our restaurants.

Yulia: How long did the move from the app to the Loona.ai loyalty system take?

Henry: The move took 5 months, because our company was changing its POS system at the same time.

Time also went into building the loyalty system and agreeing on it with our operations director, digitizing the guest base, and ending the contract with our previous vendors.

I want to say that the Loona.ai team was fully involved at every stage, even though the move took a long time.

Yulia: How easy is the Loona.ai admin portal to use?

Henry: It has a lot of features, so at first it was hard to understand all the details of the system in the admin portal.

But after the training from the Loona.ai project manager, it became much easier and clearer. The manager also gave us a step-by-step guide for working with the admin portal and analytics. It's handy to have material you can look at any time.

Plus, our dedicated account manager (Arina) answers all our requests very quickly. And our private chat includes all the staff of our projects, so they can quickly get advice or ask a question.

Yulia: How do you give out the cards?

Henry: We made a separate UTM tag for each staff member. This lets us see how well each person works and get more guests to take the card. We also made POS materials. We added UTM tags to the menu and the website, and this also helps get more card downloads.

Yulia: How is the new loyalty program better than the old one?

Henry: First, it's easy to install on the phone. Now guests don't feel negative about it, and they don't have to fill up their phone's memory. Second, the integration with the POS system is easy: Loona.ai has a plugin for iiko. Third, we changed the loyalty idea: before, guests swapped points for gifts, and now points = money. The guest chooses whether to save or spend them.

Yulia: And which type of loyalty did you choose?

Henry: We chose a points card where guests collect points.

Before, users could spend points only on certain dishes or a bottle of wine. Now a guest can pay up to 25% of the check with the points they have collected.

Yulia: Do you use automations?

Henry: We give points for events. For example, 1,000 points for signing up and 1,500 for a birthday. We also set up triggers for 21 and 45 days without a purchase, and we give points for those too. And it's easy to track these days in the admin portal.

Yulia: What results have you already reached?

Henry: We launched the system more than a month ago. The results are already good: we can see at which locations the staff are more active, and 1,618 new cards are already installed.

We are not stopping, and we plan to reach more than 20,000 cards by the end of the year.

Yulia: Could you give a short review of working with us?

Henry: Loona.ai gave a great product presentation and offered flexible payment terms. The team helped us move from one loyalty program to another. I want to mention the professional work of our project manager Arina. She keeps in touch with us all the time and handles all our requests precisely. I already recommend this company to my colleagues: marketers and PR specialists of other projects.

To sum up, let's say it again: even a well-established loyalty system that has worked for more than five years is no barrier to new solutions. And a comfortable, modern interface will give guests a reason to return.