How Pizza Hut Delivery utilised the opportunities of RCS to improve customer engagement and transaction rates
Pizza Hut Delivery has launched promotional SMS campaigns using Textlocal, a subsidiary of IMImobile Ltd, for the last eight years. With customer experience always at the forefront of each campaign, Pizza Hut Delivery decided to work with the Textlocal team to trial Rich Communication Services (RCS) messaging to share promotional offers with their customers.
What is RCS messaging?
RCS messaging combines the security and reliability of SMS with a richer and more interactive experience than plain text communications.
Using RCS, Pizza Hut Delivery was able to change the style of messages as well as improving the overall customer journey. Customers received branded messages which included the company logo and recognisable ‘blue tick’ verification icon (to confirm the message was genuine).
The offer itself was displayed using a carousel relating to various bundle options. With the options clearly displayed, customers could click through to the website to place an order. Should customers require more information, contact details for the nearest location could be accessed through the logo. T&Cs along with opt-out options were also clearly displayed at the bottom.
In addition to this, RCS also offered Pizza Hut Delivery better analysis of any engagement. The channel enables senders to track how many opens and interactions their messages results in helping to better inform future offers.
All the right ingredients
Over the last two years, Textlocal has undertaken a series of RCS trials with Pizza Hut Delivery. The trials started with a small selection of recipients in 2018 to provide a comparison between RCS and SMS. From here, we were able to build out the campaigns to send across a broader audience of opted in customers. This ran through two key stages:
1. Build your base
In the initial RCS trial, 150 customers were contacted across RCS and SMS. These early tests highlighted a far higher engagement rate with a click-through rate 280% higher than SMS.
To push the trial forward, the send numbers were increased to 720 customers and then 64,000. Again, RCS was the clear champion with a 12% higher click-through rate for the second send and 37% higher for the third when compared with SMS.
2. Choosing the right toppings
The trial campaigns showed a consistently higher engagement rate for RCS, we then looked to convert this interaction in purchases. Now it was time to better understand which types of display would work best to encourage conversions.
To demonstrate this a single rich card containing one single offer was sent to focus the customer attention rather than a carousel of options. Click-through rates were once again higher with RCS but with this type of send, transactions were also increased. In fact, transactions were 13% higher for RCS than those generated by SMS.
Next steps for wider RCS roll-out
With the success of the first few campaigns, Pizza Hut Delivery is looking build on the insight gained and further develop their use of RCS.
“The innovative way we engage with our customers has always been one of our highest priorities,” said Catriona Woodward, Head of Digital at Pizza Hut Delivery.” For us, we firmly believe that RCS has the ability to transform our customer communication, both in terms of providing a more visually appealing experience and a better insight into how customers are engaging with our promotions. The single card RCS campaign was most interesting as it was more popular than our multiple-choice offers. We plan to take the learnings from this campaign along with the others and develop our strategy even further.”
“Pizza Hut Delivery has always been open to new technology and this is one of the key reasons behind our successful relationship with their team,” added Eduard Moura, Commercial Director, Textlocal. “We thought RCS would be an ideal fit due to the franchise basis of the business- RCS streamlines the sending of tailored messages to specific customers in different regions.”
“The rich-media of RCS has already proven to be successful and we look forward to working with brands as they too look to make more of the opportunities the channel holds. Beyond its visually appealing nature, RCS enables the sending of real-time updates, customers can complete transactions within the mobile application. In that sense, we’re really only just beginning to see the possibilities of RCS”
If you’re interested in finding our the possibilities of RCS messaging for yourself, get in touch or visit our RCS messaging page today.
Source: IMImobile.com
