Cheesecake Factory developing loyalty program as part of marketing push

Loyalty is worth it.

It’s becoming more and more common for restaurants to offer some sort of loyalty or rewards programs to their regular customers. Soon, fans of cheesecake will have a new loyalty program to join.

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During a recent call with investors, the president of The Cheesecake Factory Inc. announced that the company plans on introducing a new loyalty program that will be tailored towards the chain’s dedicated fan base, Restaurant Business Online reports.

The program will be part of a marketing overhaul that the brand will implement throughout the rest of the year.

President David Gordon told investors that a significant amount of consumer research had been conducted before creating the loyalty program. The Cheesecake Factory will also make changes to its website. The new "commerce-forward" design is hoping to turn more visitors to the website into "order-placers."

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The announcement comes after a strong quarter for the restaurant chain. According to a recent report to Wall Street, the Cheesecake Factory has seen same-store sales increase to 10% above pre-pandemic sales Restaurant Business Online reports.

The chain also said that it is not being held back by staffing issues. As pandemic restrictions have eased across the country, the restaurant industry has struggled to bring workers back resulting in reports on staff shortages.

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In a statement obtained by Fox Business, a spokesperson for The Cheesecake Factory said, "With the strength of our sales performance, we have shifted our marketing for The Cheesecake Factory restaurants primarily back to brand-based messaging to raise the profile of The Cheesecake Factory brand. Pre-COVID we were evaluating upgrades and enhancements to our marketing and technology platform, including the potential launch of a rewards program to drive our next generation marketing strategy. The success we had driving sales and frequency through targeted campaigns during COVID reinforced our view that now is the right time to move forward with these initiatives."

The statement continues, "We completed a significant amount of consumer research to develop a program that is on-brand for The Cheesecake Factory and our guests, and we are targeting a launch next year. We plan to migrate our email database to a more robust CRM system to work hand-in-hand with the rewards program as well. In the interim, we are also revamping our website to transition to a more commerce-forward platform to deliver a better guest experience, with the goal of driving lifts in conversion rates and average order value for online ordering. The new site is expected to launch by the end of this year."