Leaders in Customer Loyalty, Powered by Loyalty360
Leaders in Customer Loyalty, Powered by Loyalty360
Everyday Getaways and Extraordinary Customer Loyalty: A Deep Dive with Tropical Smoothie Cafe®
In today's highly competitive restaurant landscape, standing out requires more than just great food. It demands seamless digital experiences, deep emotional connections, and a loyalty strategy that touches every part of the brand. Tropical Smoothie Cafe is meeting that challenge head-on, leveraging loyalty principles to create what it calls “everyday getaways” for its guests.
At the heart of this effort is Melissa Cummings, Vice President of Digital Marketing. With over three years leading the Tropic Rewards® loyalty program and broader digital initiatives, Cummings has been instrumental in driving nearly 50% year-over-year loyalty growth — an achievement all the more remarkable given today’s fragmented foodservice market.
Welcome back to our Leaders in Customer Loyalty podcast series, our Brand Stories edition. It's great to have you here every Thursday. The Fast Casual Restaurant is in the midst of rapid transformation. Over the past year, we've had the privilege of speaking with many individuals and brands within the industry. We've seen significant disruption reshape the landscape, driven by evolving customer expectations, digital acceleration and heightened competition. Throughout our conversations with these industry leaders, one theme has remained consistent Brands that lead with customer centricity through loyalty, innovation, exceptional customer experience and purpose-driven initiatives are the ones that are redefining industry standards.
Speaker 1:Despite these challenges, certain brands continue to break through. Tropical smoothie cafe is one such standout, with impressive growth across both the store footprint as well as the store traffic within and digital engagement. The brand has demonstrated how a clear strategic focus on the customer fuels both loyalty and business results. Their success is rooted in a unified approach to digital transformation, brand storytelling and community impact. Today, we're thrilled to welcome Melissa Cummings. She is the Vice President of Digital Marketing at Tropical Smoothie Cafe. She's going to share how the brand is leveraging loyalty data and digital strategy to build meaningful connections with customers and drive scalable growth in a highly competitive marketplace. Melissa, welcome to the Leaders in Customer Loyalty Podcast. The Brand Stories Edition. How are you?
Speaker 2:I'm good, I'm so excited to be here. Talk all things loyalty with you, putting the guests at the center of everything we do here at Tropical. Smoothie Cafe.
Speaker 1:Looking forward to the discussion. My kids are a big fan of Tropical Smoothie Cafe, so it should be a very interesting discussion. Looking forward to it.
Speaker 2:Same. I think I'm one of the only parents out there whose kids ask for a smoothie party instead of a pizza party for their birthday.
Speaker 1:There you go. And wasn't Sunday National Acai Day? And then there was something yesterday. I know that I had some other acai specials as well. Sunday was Acai Day. I'm 100% sure of that.
Speaker 2:It was. It's a big holiday. We celebrate National Acai Bowl Day. That is the newest addition to our menu lineup. We debuted them last year and, if you can see behind me in the recording, we have this year debuted Nutella drizzle as a topping for those bowls and there is literally no better thing on our menu than this bowl behind me. It's fantastic.
Speaker 1:First off, for those who may not be familiar, could you give us a short introduction to Tropical Smoothie Cafe? How was the company started?
Speaker 2:I am very glad that you started there because for our brand, where we started and our roots are so critically important, it shaped that experience that we and our franchisees try to deliver every single day, because we believe it offers something that we can deliver so uniquely to our guests and our members that they literally can't get anywhere else. So we were born on a beach, literally on a beach in Destin, florida, and on that beach we learned that there's a better way to live and we want to share that with as many people as possible. From those roots in the beach came a simple but very compelling offering Freshly made, better for you bowls, like we were talking about, smoothies, and food that's served up with vacay vibes. It's who we are and we want and we strive to be that everyday getaway in our guests' lives, a kind of a tiny tropical vacation in the middle of your day.
Speaker 1:Excellent. We'd love to know a little bit more about you. Many brands are focused on building out their customer loyalty teams, and how people get into such amazing positions as yourself is of great interest. So could you tell us a little bit more about your current role at Tropical Smoothie Cafe and where you are today, and then maybe a position or two that led up to this role?
Speaker 2:Sure.
Speaker 2:So I am the Vice president of digital marketing at Tropical Smoothie Cafe and I literally just celebrated last week my three year anniversary with the brand and in that role I oversee what we call our Tropic Rewards loyalty program and I have helped in the three years to lead that program to explosive growth, growing the program by almost 50% multiple years in a row.
Speaker 2:And then I also oversee CRM, which we call internally our owned digital marketing, and that also includes promotion strategy. Like you talked about Acai Bowl Day, and some of those promotions have driven the highest sales days in our brand's entire history, and promotions that have driven our brand to become number one in the food and beverage category of the app store at certain times throughout the year, which, for a brand of our size, is fantastic and very difficult to achieve against the big QSR guns out there the big QSR guns out there. And then anything kind of that encompasses that miscellaneous digital marketing side of the world, like digital listings, overseeing our MarTech strategy with my counterpart in e-commerce, anything that's a part of that drive to digital, trying to educate and convert as many of our guests as possible to that digital ordering experience, since it is such a better experience to order ahead. It's a win-win both for our guests and for our crew inside our cafes.
Speaker 1:Excellent. What keeps you up at night? What are the biggest challenges or potential opportunities that you face with your position?
Speaker 2:Sure. So I think I have an answer that kind of hits both. It's both a challenge and it's an opportunity and that's a learning that we just recently got in our latest round of loyalty research when we talked to our current members people that are our guests but not yet members of our program and just prospective guests for our brand overall and we asked them an interesting question. It got a very interesting answer and it was how do brands earn your loyalty? And their answer which is critically important for everybody listening to this that runs or has a part of a loyalty program is their answer was not just restricted to the loyalty program is how a brand builds my loyalty.
Speaker 2:Over time it was a small part of it, but there was so much more to earning and keeping a guest loyalty. It was number one get my order right was the most important thing to gaining the loyalty. Then offering a worthwhile rewards program so our Tropic Rewards program, or the different programs out there in the industry. Rewards program so our Tropic Rewards program are the different programs out there in the industry. Third was providing a consistent experience and last was exclusive products. So it was just such a key reminder seeing those words on the page that every single touch point for the guest matters. It's not loyalty, is not just a marketing team's responsibility, the branding you do or the number of points that you provide in your program. Every single person in the brand is responsible for gaining and maintaining a guest loyalty. So for us that means every single aspect must feel like a tropical escape and has to deliver flawlessly for our guests to get them to get value for our brand and become loyal.
Speaker 1:Okay, excellent. It's kind of a unique time to be in marketing all the way around a lot of kind of macro and micro economic changes that are we're seeing. Hopefully it's temporary, but you look at it holistically. How is your industry the restaurant, fast, casual, that industry kind of changing? What are you seeing from the industry changing, maybe how the customers are changing and how is Choco Smoothie Cafe kind of responding to those changes?
Speaker 2:Sure, I mean, like you said, in this environment where you can get any single type of food or beverage ordered in any channel, you prefer the service method, you prefer pickup delivery. The need to stand out and be the brand of choice when people are hungry or thirsty has never been greater, and everything my team does and creates for the guests evolving needs also then has to be a digital program that not only works for the guests but it has to work for the brand financially and it has to benefit our franchisees and be something that can work operationally in the cafes. So we take, in this environment, extreme discipline, trying to thread that perfect needle, and invest the time and energy, collaborating internally with analytics with it, with strategy and operations, to craft these programs that can be a win-win-win for the guest, for the brand and for our franchisees.
Speaker 1:Okay, customer loyalty is very important, as we discussed with many brands. One of the things we like to do is get an understanding of how brands are defining different terms within customer loyalty. We do a lot of research, but I think having a firm qualitative understanding of what it means to you and to others is very important. So what does customer loyalty mean to you and to Tropical Smoothie Cafe?
Speaker 2:Sure. So to kind of build off that sentiment of how much time we spend collaborating internally to design these win-win-win experiences. A good example of that is we all collectively all of those teams that I mentioned IT strategy, infosec, brand analytics, all of those teams that I mentioned IT strategy, infosec, brand analytics sat in a room for a half day and we built collectively a North Star vision for what we want our loyalty, our digital marketing and our digital experience to deliver on is to leverage guest insights to create easy, breezy guest experiences that build brand love and maintain long-term financial growth and profitability. Everything we do inspires guests to live better and experience the fun and freedom of a tropical getaway in their everyday lives.
Speaker 1:Excellent. When you look at the Tropical Smoothie Reward Program, you know how does that fit into your vision for customer loyalty, how you view customer loyalty as an organization.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, with that, north Star filter has really helped us determine how loyalty fits within our brand and how it can best deliver for our guests. So easy breezy out of that North Star vision has really become the key factor in making any single loyalty decision that we make. So when we wonder, ah, this loyalty experience, redeeming a reward, the way we're doing it today, is it okay or should we try and make it better? Literally, if anyone asks that question about something, someone in the room not necessarily just in marketing, it could be IT or analytics will say is it easy breezy for the guests? If not, we need to make it better. So that really has permeated cross-functionally every decision we make about the program and improvements that need to be made.
Speaker 1:Excellent and customer loyalty, as we mentioned, is very germane, very relevant. Right now we have brand meetings where we talk about different facets of customer loyalty. One of the things that we see is that some brands prioritize customer loyalty holistically right, so they have a customer-centric culture and I know that can be a bit banal at times, but it's very impactful. But you see this bifurcation between brands who have that focus and those who do not. When you look at customer loyalty, how is it prioritized within your organization?
Speaker 2:Sure. So my favorite part is how much that North Star that we built last year has really permeated the entire organization, where loyalty is not just a marketing thing to drive and build. So, for example, unsolicited, my counterpart, the VP of e-commerce, came to me last week and said I was placing an order today and I realized there's something in redeeming rewards that's not as easy breezy as it should be. Do you want to brainstorm the options to improvement? And that someone in IT saying in a marketing experience your loyalty program is not as easy breezy as it should be. It falls under my team to fix it. I would like to partner with you and fix it is literally a marketer's dream and I think that North Star collectively has guided us that it is every single department's responsibility to constantly evaluate their areas, answer if it's as easy breezy as possible and then work collectively together to optimize things that aren't. So it has been literally a game changer for our cross-functional work to share that vision together.
Speaker 1:Excellent, Great to hear, and I know you are doing some very unique things in the corporate social responsibility kind of sustainability kind of big picture efforts within the organization. I think you're currently sponsoring the Sunshine for Teachers campaign to recognize and reward educators. Can you tell us a little bit more about the details of this campaign, how it came into being?
Speaker 2:I am so excited you're talking about this. We are very, very excited about this campaign. This is the first time we're doing this campaign, and this is because Tropical Smoothie Cafe knows that schools and the teachers within them are truly the heart of every single community. We're committed to finding meaningful ways to connect with and support the communities where our franchisees live and they operate their cafes, and recognizing and celebrating educators is a natural extension of that mission. So we designed a national teacher recognition program in that kind of everyday getaway style that we talked about, and we are giving away over $100,000 in prizes to be awarded to deserving teachers in their local communities.
Speaker 2:So one deserving teacher will win a $10,000 tropical getaway plus free smoothies for a year, and that $10,000 tropical getaway is not that little like everyday getaway in your day. This is a real tropical vacation that $10,000 could provide. And then 19 runners up each get $1,000 and free smoothies for a year, and then all 20 of the winning teacher schools will receive a $1,000 donation and a school-wide smoothie party, and then a fun benefit to those that took the time to nominate the teachers for this award. Those nominators of the 20 winning teachers also win free smoothies for a year. And then at the end we're surprising all 11,300 plus teachers that were nominated with a free smoothie, with food purchase during Teacher Appreciation Week. So we are just so, so excited to be all in on this and play a big role in spreading sunshine throughout our communities.
Speaker 1:Excellent. Emotional loyalty is another topic that's quite relevant within customer loyalty right now. There's some challenges with regard to emotional loyalty how it's defined, how it's understood, how it's socialized but health and wellness is obviously very emotive. Convenience has an emotive factor as well, and when you look at emotional loyalty from Tropical Smoothies Cafe's perspective, you know how do you look at it, how do you measure it and how do you differentiate around potential emotive appeal.
Speaker 2:Sure. So for that example, I'll stick with the sunshine for teachers example we were just talking about. So teachers inspire better every single day and that's the core of who we are at Tropical Smoothie Cafe and why we chose to celebrate them. Inspire better isn't just one of our core brand values, it's how we approach everything that we do. So teachers that live that value in their classrooms. They uplift their students, contribute to their local communities. So through this initiative, we want to show our gratitude, we want to spread a little sunshine and remind teachers everywhere that their hard work does not go unnoticed. So by celebrating them, we're not just saying thank you, we're reinforcing our brand's mission to make our communities brighter. One classroom and then, through this program, one smoothie at a time.
Speaker 1:Excellent. When you look at the program holistically, what are two or three things that you're most proud of regarding the customer loyalty program at Tropical Smoothie Cafe?
Speaker 2:Sure. So we have lots of little victories every day. Like, you and I were talking at the beginning about launching a new promotion for us this year to support National Acai Bowl Day this past Sunday. So there's lots of cross-functional victories like that standing up, important capstone promotions for our brand. But I think what I'm the most proud of is the combination of every single one of those campaigns and new ideas that we launch, the readable, massive impact that those have to our brand, that we can see and our franchisees can see.
Speaker 2:So, for example, the loyalty program, what we're doing inside our digital experience, digital marketing, helped the brand once again last year to post positive same store sales.
Speaker 2:And that's on top of 13 consecutive years of same store sales growth for our brand, which, as you and I talked about the very difficult environment that we're in, is very difficult to achieve that kind.
Speaker 2:The very difficult environment that we're in is very difficult to achieve that kind of success in the economy that we've been in and with all of the competition out there. And then we also saw our loyalty membership last year grow 50% again, on top of over 50% growth the year before. And last year was our highest amount of people signing up for our Tropic Awards program ever, and then last year, our highest amount of people signing up for our Tropic Awards program ever. And then last year our digital sales increased throughout the year and we had some all-time high digital sales mix weeks as a result of some of our great promotions. And then you can tell, the franchisees also feel all of that success and growth as well and that they want to keep being a part of it, as they helped us to open 161 new cafes last year and get us to our 1500th cafe milestone.
Speaker 1:Excellent. Last question somewhat self-serving what can Loyalty360 do to help you and your team with your customer loyalty efforts?
Speaker 2:I would say continue to do what you guys do in terms of continuing to share best unicorn in the industry, where they're one of the only groups where members are very willing and open up to share their true challenges, opportunities, their results that they're getting, because we're all trying to work together to understand and grow loyalty in our industry. So it's really unique in how forthcoming and helpful and best practice sharing this group of members is.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. Well. Now we have our wonderful quickfire question round, where we like to keep the responses to a word or short phrases. So the first one, first question we have is what word or short phrase do you use to inspire others?
Speaker 2:Work hard and play hard is the motto for every team that I've led and is the culture of my teams.
Speaker 1:Excellent. What is your least favorite word that others use?
Speaker 2:I would say it's can't, because there's literally almost nothing that you can't do. It might just be a matter of reprioritization budget resources that you need. So I encourage our teams and, cross-functionally, kind of shift your mindset a little bit, instead of saying can't answer what would have to be true for it to happen.
Speaker 2:Excellent what excites you at work, I would say hands down the people and culture we live every day to spread sunshine and inspire better. So that just makes work fun and fulfilling and it can't be beat at Tropical Smoothie Cafe. And if I can say two, I would also say that explosive growth we're seeing year over year at the brand just makes it such a fun ride to be a part of that success.
Speaker 1:Okay, and what do you find tiresome at work or at home?
Speaker 2:home michigan winters. It literally was a blizzard yesterday and it's snowing. It was 10 degrees this morning. It is never ending and I'm so tired of it there you go.
Speaker 1:My daughter plays soccer for eastern michigan, so I'm not, and michigan quite often was there she probably drinks smoothies then, because it is our number one smoothie market, us Eskimos up here, apparently love our cold drinks. That's good. Is there a book that you find you recommend to colleagues?
Speaker 2:Lean In out of any business book I have read has probably made the most impact and is a book I think about almost weekly.
Speaker 1:Okay, probably made the most impact and is a book I think about almost weekly. Okay, well, you're definitely not going to want to read the book that's out now. That kind of counters that.
Speaker 2:Okay, and.
Speaker 1:I'm forgetting Sarah. She was the PR secretary for I'm looking it up right now Facebook for the 400 years from, I think, 6 to 15. And it's called careless people.
Speaker 2:Interesting. I'll have to check that one out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm on my second time listening Ken driving back from Eastern, but just kind of she takes the whole Facebook team to task pretty hard. Okay so, but anyway. So, yeah, lean in is a good book. I've read that as well, but it's. It's interesting and you never know what is actually the truth. But Careless People. I think it's the number one business book out right now. So next, what is your favorite smoothie flavor?
Speaker 2:We talked about how much I love the acai bowl. Behind me, smoothie flavor is, hands down, the detox island green. It's made with no added sweetener but somehow still has so much flavor packed in there. It's great.
Speaker 1:Excellent, and what profession, other than the one you're currently doing, would you maybe like to attend?
Speaker 2:I am lucky because you know we didn't talk about how I got to this position, but I spent 17 years at Domino's Pizza, so learning literally at a what I consider more of a tech company than a pizza company, how to do digital marketing and digital experience. And I had a chance there as I started out to do almost every role. I did legislative affairs, investor relations, I worked in the supply chain placing dough balls on a tray like Lucille Ball, trying to keep up with it, so I had a chance to do a whole bunch of roles and once I touched digital marketing there, it was the first time that I said don't move me anymore. This is my home. I've declared my major and I would never do anything else now.
Speaker 1:Excellent. What do you enjoy doing that you often don't get the time to do?
Speaker 2:It's eight months of winter in Michigan, so I would say, wake surfing anything on a lake. We live on a lake in Michigan and I haven't seen the sun in seven months and I don't know if it's ever coming back.
Speaker 1:Okay, hopefully it does come back. They have bubbles in the air. I think, though, who inspired you to become the person that you are today.
Speaker 2:If it's work related, I would say at Domino'ses, it was our chief digital officer, dennis maloney. He created the entire vision and brought dominoes to the level of digital mix and success that they are today. He's the reason that it's a tech company as much as a pizza company and it was so fun to be part of that ride. Side by side with him, I literally watched the first digital order be placed for the brand and seeing it grow to what it is today, and all under his leadership and vision and innovations and pushing us. It was amazing to be a part of that ride and that success story.
Speaker 1:Excellent. And the last question you know how would you like to be remembered by friends and family?
Speaker 2:I would say present, I try, and when my kids are home, it is all about them God-centered and kind and a good marketer. Hopefully they think about that too.
Speaker 1:Excellent, well, great Well. Melissa, thank you very much for taking the time to speak with us today. It's always a pleasure speaking with you and getting an update on Tropical Smoothie, and we look forward to learning more from you and your team throughout the year.
Speaker 2:Sounds good, Thanks everybody.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and thank you everyone for taking the time to listen today. Make sure you join us every Thursday for another edition of our Leaders in Customer Loyalty series. Until then, have a wonderful day.