Adding a New “Dish” to the Menu
Founded by restaurateur Rich Komen in 1969, Restaurants Unlimited (RUI) operates more than 55 upscale dining locations encompassing a dozen different concepts, including its flagship chains, Palomino Restaurant Rotisseria Bar and Kincaid’s Fish, Chop & Steak House. Its single location destinations include Cutter’s Bayhouse (Seattle), Horatio’s (San Leandro, California), and Skates on the Bay (Berkeley, California).
Client Challenge
With more than 350,000 members in its Preferred Email Dining Club (PEDC), Restaurants Unlimited recognized a revenue-generating opportunity to convert its nonpaying email members to an exclusive paid-membership loyalty club, “Eat, Drink and Earn.” Acknowledging the state of the economy, RUI was also more interested than ever in retaining its loyal customer base. The group’s successful PEDC program was working, they thought. But there just wasn’t enough data to deliver measurable marketing messages designed to increase the number of guests with recent visits, the frequency of guest visits, or the monetary value of each guest.
Solution
Since RUI had a limited number of people in its marketing group, it needed strong, experienced partners that could help maintain and increase its brand capital through its loyalty program. Diamond Communication Solution made recommendations to RUI based on past experience with other loyalty programs.
Diamond put standard operating procedures in place to handle daily data feeds, an email order confirmation solution, and a material order and management system. In addition to quickly establishing the fulfillment side of the solution, we were able to efficiently ramp up our customer service call center to support the business rules and system requirements of the “Eat, Drink and Earn” program. Our experience allowed us to proactively uncover the information we knew we needed for a smooth launch, giving RUI time to focus on training its staff and keeping its internal constituents abreast of the progress.
Results
A seamless operation emerged that allows RUI to do what it does best: managing restaurants and delivering exceptional dining experiences. Diamond works stealthily in the background, handling the distribution of materials to the restaurants, constructing and mailing personalized welcome kits and member cards to new program members, and fielding all telephone and email inquiries pertaining to the loyalty program.
