How BIBIBOP Uses SMS to Improve the Customer Journey, Drive App Downloads, and Keep Customers Coming Back

Talking to customers, not at them

BIBIBOP has always leaned into their Korean heritage, focusing a lot of their marketing efforts on engaging with customers during key cultural moments and holidays. But they were looking for a way to build more touch points throughout the customer lifecycle to help them strengthen customer relationships. “We wanted to talk to people and not at people,” said Senior Digital Marketing Manager Ryan Sanecki.

While they had a loyalty app, they knew not all customers were immediately ready to download, and didn’t always continue to engage once they did. They wanted to find another channel that could help them nurture customers at every stage of the relationship, and “SMS allowed us to connect with our guests in real time, quickly and efficiently,” said Marketing Implementation Manager Savannah Brush. 

Nurturing the customer relationship via SMS, before prompting app download

BIBIBOP recognized that asking customers to download an app required more of a lift on their part than providing a phone number, so the brand decided to push customers to opt into SMS first. Then, once a customer was more invested in the channel, they would ask them to download the app. They promoted SMS opt-in via their site, and followed up with a monthly campaign to encourage the previous month’s subscribers to download their app as well, offering an in-app reward to sweeten the deal. 

Maintaining engagement with seasonal and culturally-relevant campaigns

Once BIBIBOP acquired new loyalty app users, they wanted to make sure they kept them engaged. Since not all app users enabled notifications on their phones, SMS provided another opportunity to push users to their app and remind them to engage in the BIBIBOP loyalty program. 

In one particularly successful campaign tied to Lunar New Year, BIBIBOP let SMS subscribers know that anyone who placed an order during Lunar New Year would get a special surprise in their rewards account: one of four potential offers. By orchestrating a multichannel campaign via app and SMS, BIBIBOP drove strong app engagement, app download, and offer redemption rates.

Leaning in to immediacy to drive more revenue

Because dining decisions are typically made in the moment and text messages have an average 97% read rate within 15 minutes of delivery, BIBIBOP knew they had an opportunity to use the immediacy of SMS to drive more revenue from hungry customers via triggered messages. They sent triggered browse and cart abandonment messages to customers who were considering purchases but hadn’t completed them to drive more purchase behavior.

“People might look at the menu and think, ‘Oh, I’ll order this for lunch later.’ But then they get distracted. Reminding them to place their order is key.”
- Ryan Sanecki, Senior Digital Marketing Manager

Driving 26x ROI

By leveraging SMS alongside their loyalty app, BIBIBOP has built strong touch points throughout the customer lifecycle. They’ve seen a 26x ROI from their SMS program so far, with their loyalty app acquisition and engagement campaigns seeing average conversion rates of 32% and triggered messages reaching average conversion rates of 79%. “The amount of revenue we see from our cart abandonment messages is crazy,” said Brush.