Latest news with #customerengagement
Forbes
17 hours ago
- Business
- Forbes
Z Grills CEO Unveils Radical ‘Reward Crowdfunding' Strategy
Z Grills unveils bold, new business shift. In a marketplace cluttered with promotional noise and fleeting brand loyalty, Z Grills is taking a radically different path—one that redefines what it means to do business with consumers. The company, best known for its high-performance wood pellet grills, is moving beyond the conventional sales model and launching what it calls a "Reward Crowdfunding" strategy. In this exclusive interview, Mr. Zhou, CEO of Z Grills shares why this long-term vision may just be the future of customer-brand relationships. Z Grills first grabbed attention with a campaign titled "Buy One, Get Ten," which sounded like a classic sales promotion. But as Zhou explains, 'It was often mistaken for a discount deal. In reality, it was the beginning of something much bigger.' That "something" is the Reward Crowdfunding model—a fresh take on customer engagement that aims to transform a single transaction into a decades-long partnership. 'You support us today, and we reward you for the next 50 years,' Zhou says. 'It's a completely different way of thinking about business.' So how does it work? In traditional models, profit margins remain with the company. Z Grills flips that script. 'We treat that margin as your investment in us,' Zhou explains. For customers, that investment pays off over time: Every five years, for up to 50 years, participants receive a brand-new wood pellet grill of equal value. It's a bold commitment, rooted in growth and loyalty. 'As Z Grills grows—through product innovation, market expansion, and brand building—we share that growth with you,' he adds. One of the central goals of the new initiative is to deepen customer trust—and keep it. The CEO lays out several key components of this trust-building framework: The company also draws confidence from its long manufacturing legacy. With over 30 years in grill manufacturing—and the last decade spent pushing innovation in the pellet grill sector—Z Grills has built products for major industry players. 'Now we're building something even bigger under our own brand,' he says. The CEO also views this model as a strategic defense against global uncertainties, including tariffs. 'By building a mutually beneficial relationship, we create a more resilient business,' he notes. The company has also taken proactive steps to optimize its supply chain, reducing the direct impact of tariffs on both the business and its customers. Z Grills' Reward Crowdfunding initiative isn't just about customer retention—it's a complete rethinking of how value is created and shared. In a time when customer loyalty is increasingly elusive, the company is betting on long-term commitment and shared success as the ultimate differentiators. 'Our vision isn't about the next quarter,' the Zhou says. 'It's about the next half-century.' If you'd like to learn how data and AI come together to deliver exceptional business value and help your business stay ready for what's next, click here.
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Shake Shack to introduce first loyalty programme
US-based fast-casual restaurant chain Shake Shack is set to enhance customer engagement through its first loyalty programme and exclusive app offers. From 28 May 2025, the chain introduced a $1 soda offer for app users, described as a "Shake Hack" with more to follow. The initiative, aimed at driving traffic and building loyalty, will be complemented by the launch of a loyalty feature called "Challenges" on 5 June, accessible via Shake Shack's app and website. Bloomberg reports that the decision follows a successful earlier trial, which indicated that such loyalty offerings could significantly increase customer visit frequency. Shake Shack chief growth officer Steph So described the strategy as intended to encourage repeat visits and incentivise app downloads and sustained usage. The soda deal will not only draw customers in but also prompt them to purchase additional items, such as milkshakes, potentially leading to larger transactions and increased overall profits. Under the leadership of CEO Rob Lynch, Shake Shack plans to grow from 333 company-operated US locations to 1,500. The chain opened a record 76 restaurants in the fiscal year 2024, with 43 company-operated, and is targeting suburban areas for further development, including more drive-throughs. Shake Shack plans to open 80 to 85 new company-operated restaurants in the second half of 2025. The brand reported first-quarter revenues of $320.9m for 2024, a 10.5% increase year-on-year, with comparable sales slightly up by 0.2%. In a 1 May 2025 shareholder letter, the company stated: 'Despite macro uncertainties, we remain focused on creating durable value for all our stakeholders through initiatives to drive same-Shack sales, including strengthening our culinary and calendar strategy and driving frequency,' In a recent move to broaden its reach, Shake Shack has entered a licensing partnership with PENN Entertainment, bringing the Shake Shack burger brand to ten of PENN's casino locations across the US. "Shake Shack to introduce first loyalty programme" was originally created and published by Verdict Food Service, a GlobalData owned brand. The information on this site has been included in good faith for general informational purposes only. It is not intended to amount to advice on which you should rely, and we give no representation, warranty or guarantee, whether express or implied as to its accuracy or completeness. You must obtain professional or specialist advice before taking, or refraining from, any action on the basis of the content on our site. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Fast Company
2 days ago
- Business
- Fast Company
15 tips for launching a customer loyalty program
For businesses, loyalty programs are a great way to encourage repeat purchases and strengthen customer relationships. Yet, launching a successful one takes more than offering discounts or points. The best programs are designed with the customer in mind—what they value, how they interact with your brand, and what makes them feel genuinely appreciated. To help, 15 members of Fast Company Executive Board discuss what it takes to build a loyalty program that drives not only sales, but genuine customer engagement. 1. PERSONALIZE REWARDS WITH EMAIL ADDRESS INTELLIGENCE. Points and one-size-fits-all programs don't build loyalty. Customers need to feel seen. This level of personalization requires visibility into who customers are, how they behave, and what they value. Email address intelligence helps this, revealing real, active identities so you can act on what matters to them. Without it, you're guessing who deserves what, or possibly rewarding fraud. – Tom Burke, AtData 2. FOCUS ON EMOTIONAL CONNECTION, NOT JUST TRANSACTIONS. Make your brand unforgettable in your customer's life. Don't just focus on driving transactions—build emotional connections. Celebrate unexpected milestones that your customers didn't even know they were working towards. Create personal, meaningful experiences, and reward loyalty in ways that show you truly know them. – Andrew Graff, A&G (Allen & Gerritsen) 3. CONSIDER THE CUSTOMER'S SIDE OF THE INTERACTION. Think about how it feels for your customer. Will they find the rewards you offer and the commitment you ask of them to be a good value exchange? Too many loyalty programs make perfect sense for the vendor and ask too much of the customer. This means that in the end, it won't work out for you either. – Arar Han, Sabot Family Companies 4. USE TAILORED REWARDS AND GAMIFICATION TO INCREASE PARTICIPATION. To build a loyalty program that drives real engagement, go beyond generic rewards. Align incentives with what your customers truly value. In logistics, we offer shower credits—more meaningful than cash. Tailored rewards create stronger loyalty. Add gamification elements to boost participation and make the program more interactive and sticky. – Mohan Kumar, AtoB 5. TURN ORDINARY INTERACTIONS INTO MOMENTS OF AFFIRMATION. A great loyalty program isn't about points. It's about emotion. The most successful loyalty programs recognize and reward you in a way that serves an emotional need for people. They turn ordinary shopping interactions into moments of affirmation, making customers feel seen, understood, and valued. Design a loyalty program like that, and your most valuable customers will love your brand forever. – Barry Fiske, Merkle 6. RESEARCH CUSTOMER PREFERENCES TO ENSURE REWARDS ARE MEANINGFUL. Make sure the rewards are meaningful to your target audience. A loyalty program only works if it aligns with what your customers truly value. Conduct research beforehand to understand their preferences—whether it's discounts, exclusive access, or early product drops—and keep the program simple and easy to use. – Maria Alonso, Fortune 206 7. REWARD BRAND ENGAGEMENT TO MAKE LOYALTY A HABIT. Design your loyalty program like a two-way relationship, not a one-time transaction. The best programs reward spending and engagement, such as referrals, feedback, or education. When customers feel seen and valued beyond their wallet, loyalty becomes a habit rather than an obligation. – Albert Lie, Forward Labs 8. OFFER A RANGE OF REWARDS TO INCREASE VALUE. Offer a mix of rewards—for example, discounts, free products, exclusive access, and early-bird specials—to cater to different preferences. To enhance the customer experience and make them feel valued, give out special rewards like members-only events or sneak peeks of new products. Consider cross-promotions with complementary businesses to increase the value of the rewards program. – Britton Bloch, Navy Federal Credit Union 9. KEEP IT SIMPLE, RELEVANT, AND RESONANT. When launching a loyalty program, focus on delivering real value. Align rewards with what your customers truly want, personalize incentives based on behaviors, and make enrollment effortless. Simplicity, relevance, and emotional connection are key to building long-term loyalty and engagement. – Scott Keever, Keever SEO 10. AVOID TRAPS AND OVERCOMPLICATED PROGRAMS. First, avoid setting traps—for example, other than points, requiring additional fees to redeem rewards. Second, ensure high quality of the rewards. Do not use unsellable or expired products as rewards. Third, don't overuse the program to excessively promote other products. Finally, don't make the program too complex for customers to understand the direct benefits of their actions. – Chongwei Chen, DataNumen Inc. 11. MAKE THE PROGRAM A NATURAL EXTENSION OF YOUR BRAND. Focus on alignment over generic offers. Ensure the rewards reflect what your customers genuinely value—exclusive access, unique experiences, or curated product perks. A well-designed program should feel like a natural extension of your brand, not just a discount engine. – Kristin Marquet, Marquet Media, LLC 12. DON'T TRY TO BUY LOYALTY. Earn loyalty. Don't buy it. Transactional loyalty is transparently obvious. The reward-based exchanges you broker will either build relationships or break them down. Understand that your intentions are more apparent than you think. – Jay Steven Levin, WinThinking 13. TIE BENEFITS TO BEHAVIORS THAT ALIGN WITH BUSINESS GOALS. When launching a loyalty program, focus on creating real value for the customer. Make it simple to join, easy to understand, and genuinely rewarding. Tie benefits to behaviors that align with your business goals and ensure it feels personalized—loyalty is earned through relevance, not gimmicks. – Stephen Nalley, Black Briar Advisors 14. FOCUS ON WHAT YOUR CUSTOMER IS TRYING TO ACHIEVE. Make it truly valuable. Don't just gamify, personalize it. At LambdaTest, we were focused on what the customer was trying to achieve and aligned our rewards to speed that outcome up. It has to feel like a thank-you gift, not a marketing tool. – Asad Khan, LambdaTest Inc. 15. REMEMBER TO 'TEND' YOUR PROGRAM CONTINUOUSLY. Loyalty programs are designed to retain revenue and work on growing the share of spend; they are not acquisition tools. A program is not a project, it is a product. It lives and breathes and must adapt and grow. It needs an owner, a gardener. You don't build it and forget it. Finally, it is not a marketing function; it's an enterprise function with a leader who has a seat at the strategy table. – Maury Giles, Material
Associated Press
3 days ago
- Business
- Associated Press
Readymode Unveils "Autopilot" - A Smarter, Automated Tool for Managing and Optimizing Outbound Calls
VANCOUVER, BC, May 30, 2025 /PRNewswire/ - Readymode, a leader in intelligent outbound customer engagement and predictive dialing for sales teams, is excited to announce the launch of Autopilot, a powerful new feature within its Readymode iQ suite. Autopilot intelligently manages phone numbers (DIDs) to ensure that only the most effective numbers are used in outbound calling—maximizing answer rates and minimizing the risk of spam flags. Phone number reputation can make or break a campaign. With Autopilot, Readymode iQ users can say goodbye to manual caller ID management and no longer have to personally monitor which numbers are flagged. This automated feature continuously scans carrier networks—including AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile—to detect which numbers may be flagged as Scam/Spam likely and dynamically selects only the healthiest numbers for live campaigns. 'Autopilot is like a co-pilot for your dialing strategy,' said Jason Jantz, CEO and Founder at Readymode. 'It automatically ensures you're always using your healthiest numbers, improving call outcomes and reducing the likelihood of reputation damage for your business.' Autopilot automatically filters and selects only non-flagged, high-reputation numbers to place calls. Users can select flexible configuration modes to meet their business's risk tolerance and compliance needs. Readymode performs regular reputation checks across all major carriers, ensuring that the phone numbers used are optimized for performance. 'Autopilot not only increases connect rates and conversation volume, but also protects the long-term reputation of your phone numbers,' said Jantz. 'By maintaining a healthy call cadence and automatically adapting to flag changes, it provides outbound sales teams with a seamless, proactive defense against declining answer rates.' Autopilot helps boost answer rates and reduces downtime and campaign impact from spam/scam labels. Readymode customers enjoy the benefit of having the system work in the background while their team focuses on selling. Learn more. About Readymode Readymode is a cloud-based, outbound customer engagement platform for sales teams. Our all-in-one platform empowers businesses to engage smarter, connect more, and grow their revenue. Along with an industry-leading predictive dialer, our outbound calling solutions include advanced features like fully integrated CRM, built-in compliance tools, and real-time reporting and analytics. Readymode is at the core of the conversation; we're designed for businesses that want to maximize productivity and scale affordably. View original content to download multimedia: SOURCE Inc.
Forbes
3 days ago
- Business
- Forbes
5 ChatGPT Prompts To Accurately Predict If A Customer Will Buy
5 ChatGPT prompts to accurately predict if a customer will buy Who is a time waster and who is your next biggest client? The clues exist. Some people love your content, but they'll never buy. Time-wasters act interested but never commit. You need a system to test for them. What if you could spot the difference between browsers and buyers in minutes? These ChatGPT prompts will transform how you spot real buyers. Filter out the tire-kickers and focus your energy. Copy, paste and edit the square brackets in ChatGPT, and keep the same chat window open so the context carries through. Everyone claims interest. Anyone nods along. They say your pitch sounds 'great,' they say when they leave. But real buyers have specific patterns that set them apart. They ask different questions. They focus on results over price. They make quick decisions once their concerns are addressed. Knowing these differences means you stop chasing ghosts and start closing deals. When you know what to look for, you never get strung along again. "Based on what you know about my business and sales psychology, write 3 clear questions I should ask potential clients to quickly determine if they're serious prospects or just browsing. Focus on questions that reveal buying intention without seeming pushy. Make each question conversational but designed to uncover their timeline, budget readiness, and commitment level. Ask for more detail if required." Some objections are solvable. Others signal you're wasting your time. When building my social media agency, I learned to tell the difference. When someone says they want to "check the budget first," they might genuinely need to do that. But when they say "I need to speak to my business partner' while avoiding eye contact, they're never buying. Know which objections mean no. Stop the endless follow-ups and move on fast. Your time is more important. "Based on what you know about my business from our conversations, identify 5 objections that indicate a prospect will never buy, no matter how I respond. For each objection, explain the underlying psychology that makes it a dead-end rather than a negotiation point. Then suggest a respectful exit strategy I can use when I hear these objections, so I can preserve the relationship while moving on quickly. Ask for more detail if required." Buyers give themselves away. Their body language changes. Their questions get specific. They start using future-focused language about working together. These signals appear in emails, on calls, and in meetings. Missing them means missing sales. Catching them means you know exactly when to ask. Your conversion rate climbs when you time your close perfectly to match their readiness. "Analyze buying behavior patterns based on your knowledge of consumer psychology. Create a list of 7 specific verbal and non-verbal cues that strongly indicate someone is close to making a purchase decision. For each cue, provide a brief explanation of why this behavior signals buying intent and how I should respond to it. Include examples of the exact language or actions I should watch for in emails, on calls, and during in-person meetings. Ask for more detail if required." The first two minutes of any sales conversation tell you everything. Many people waste hours on prospects who were never going to buy. A simple decision tree changes everything. You ask strategic questions in a specific order. You listen for key responses. You know exactly when to invest more time or politely end the conversation. This system becomes your secret weapon for filling your calendar with real buyers. "Based on what you know about effective lead qualification, create a decision tree I can use to qualify prospects within the first 2 minutes of a conversation. Start with an opening question, then show exactly what to ask next based on their response. Continue the branches until you reach clear 'pursue' or 'politely end conversation' endpoints. Include exact scripting for each question and response. Make the questions feel natural while strategically filtering for buying intent, decision-making authority, budget, and timeline. Ask for more detail if required." Service-based business owners get burned by forever-shoppers. These people love free sessions. They take your advice. They tell you how helpful you are. But they never pay. They have telltale signs that experienced providers spot instantly. They overanalyze your prices. They talk about what they'll do "someday." They want guarantees no real business can offer. Learning these red flags protects your energy for clients who value your expertise enough to invest in it. "Based on your understanding of coaching and consulting relationships, list 5 red flags related to my business that suggest someone wants my expertise and advice but won't invest financially in my services. For each red flag, provide the exact language or behavior pattern to watch for, explain why it indicates reluctance to commit, and suggest a professional response that respects their position while protecting my time and energy." You can't serve everyone. Not everyone will buy. These prompts help you quickly separate serious prospects from casual browsers. Identify dead-end objections, recognize buying signals, create a qualification system, and spot red flags before they waste your time. Your biggest business breakthroughs come from focusing on the right people. Stop chasing everyone. Start finding hidden opportunities with real buyers. Your dream clients can't wait to meet you. Access all my best ChatGPT content prompts.
