Velvet Taco, the popular Dallas-based restaurant brand serving globally inspired tacos, announces its partnership today with Thanx, the leading guest engagement platform for restaurant and brick-and-mortar retailers.
Looking to the future, Velvet Taco had a vision to revamp their technology stack with the goal of delivering the ultimate guest experience while focusing on direct-channel ordering. Thanx came to the table with a technology solution that covered four essential guest experiences: loyalty, mobile app, online ordering experience, and tableside.
Velvet Taco’s new loyalty program, The Velvet Room, offers a tiered, visit-based program that rewards guests with unique offerings and VIP experiences without leaning into traditional discounts. The program also plays a vital role in guest data capture, which will give leadership a complete picture of their guest’s behaviors and spending habits to inform overall strategy.
With each purchase, guests earn points toward distinctly “Velvet Taco” status tiers ranging from “Kick Ass,” with perks like special invites; to “Bad Ass,” offering free chips & queso and tacos. Guests who spend $400 or more reach the elite “Hard Ass” tier, featuring personalized “surprise & delight” rewards. For example, five lucky loyalty members will have a chance to earn a trip to Dallas and attend an exclusive Weekly Taco Feature tasting.
“A loyalty program just turns into a discount program unless we first understand guest behavior. With The Velvet Room, we are tying transactions to guests regardless of their order mode, and then trying to understand behavior,” says Cassie Cooper, Director of Marketing at Velvet Taco. “With this data capture, we can personalize our loyalty program--it’s our way of building personal relationships with our guests, not just with typical rewards, but memorable experiences.”
Thanx CEO and Founder, Zach Goldstein expands upon the importance of loyalty for restaurants today. “In a time when so many restaurants are launching loyalty, it is critical that brands differentiate their program so that everything - from the messaging to the experience - is distinctively tailored and personalized to the individual customer. It’s been fantastic working with the Velvet Taco team to ensure that their brand voice is reflected in not only their loyalty program, but across all of their digital touchpoints to create a fun and enticing program for their guests.”
Thanx will also power Tableside, the latest in on-premise digital dining innovation, which Velvet Taco is testing at two locations. Tableside gives guests the ability to place orders directly from their table via QR code. Technology innovations, like Tableside, help streamline team member duties and increase speed of service, which are timely given the restaurant industry’s ongoing labor crisis. The goal is to launch Tableside at all locations by 2022.
In addition to the loyalty program and in-restaurant dining enhancements, Velvet Taco also launched a new branded app and online web ordering interface via Thanx. Both digital channels have been optimized for an easy-to-use ordering experience for guests with technology like passwordless login, linked credit cards, reward redemptions and management; they can also easily give feedback, and view order history details.
Velvet Taco believes that their loyalty program, together with these new convenient advancements in digital ordering, will help entice guests to order directly, rather than from third party delivery channels, which have been problematic for restaurants since the onset of the pandemic. Velvet Taco projects that growth in direct ordering would mean hundreds of thousands of dollars in savings from commission fees for every 1% they shift away from third party channels.
“Our guest expectations are constantly evolving, and we are pleased we found a technology partner in Thanx to help deliver on those expectations whichever channel our guest prefers to use,” continues Cooper.
Join The Velvet Room by downloading the mobile app in Apple Store or Google Play, order online, or text “velvet taco” to 43618.
