Loyalty360 Reads: April 5th, 2018

The latest news in the world of customer experience and customer loyalty.

Battle of the Brands: Target Goes Small, Chick-fil-A Goes Big
In New York, just down from the Freedom Towner in lower Manhattan, Chick-fil-A opened its largest restaurant ever last week, spanning five stories and seating 140 people, according to an article in BuzzFeed. Meanwhile, in Chicago, Target is making plans to open its 10th small-format urban store, just a mile and a half from another Target, in the Logan Square neighborhood, according to an article in the Chicago Tribune. It’s expected to have 130 of the smaller stores nationwide by the end of the year. In both cases, the target audience is the urban dweller and/or worker who are brand loyal—and appreciate the convenience. Chick-fil-A, it should also be noted, is also moving up on the food chain—or at least the QSR chain. It’s poised to move from seventh to third in the rankings according to restaurant consultant Technomic, ranking just behind McDonald’s and Starbucks. However, watch your back, McDonald’s because QSR magazine found Chick-fil-A stores average $4 million in sales per year, while McDonald’s bring in about $2.5 million per year.
 
CryptoSportz Creates New Option for Sports Betters Using Cryptocurrency
Well, you knew it wouldn’t take long. Betting on sports is a multibillion dollar a year industry, so why waste time calling a bookie and exchanging cash when you can use cryptocurrency? Well, now you can, according to an article in The Cryptograph. Although using the currency is still somewhat of a gamble, CryptoSportz thinks it’s stable enough that it created a platform that saves sports betters from having to visit the ATM. The platform is built on blockchain for stability, and the CryptoSportz brand collects 3-4 percent of all wages as a means of eliminating spam attacks. And we’d bet on the fact that it probably won’t take long before it has its share of loyal customers.
 
It’s a rough day to be…
Panera Bread. Earlier this week Panera Bread announced that someone hacked into its system and stole the records of its MyPanera loyalty program members. The data was vulnerable for at least eight months. Panera, which has more than 2,000 stores and annual sales of more than $5 billion, originally estimated that fewer than 10,000 customers were impacted, but a security firm put the number at closer to 37 million. Small difference. The breach also prompted The Washington Post to write a larger article about the value loyalty programs: “Is a free sandwich worth the hassle of having personal identifying information floating into the wrong hands?”

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