Harmony Tea Bar offers an extensive menu of teas for all types of taste buds. Find out how text marketing helps its team keep in touch with VIP customers and increase sales.
Harmony Tea Bar is on a mission to introduce local communities to the world of tea through natural, organic, and locally sourced ingredients.
The tea house needed a way to communicate with customers who sign up for its loyalty program.
Harmony Tea Bar increased online orders, foot traffic, and drove a click-through rate (CTR) that is 1,094% higher than the average for restaurant emails.
The mobile marketing firm 3Cinteractive surveyed 3,500 U.S. internet users and found that SMS is the preferred channel for loyalty program messaging for consumers.
Despite the widespread popularity of SMS-based loyalty programs, the same study found that only 21% of marketers use SMS for this purpose.
Jordan Glenn–the owner of Harmony Tea Bar–is way ahead of the curve.
“We considered building an app for our loyalty program with push notifications, but it was going to be difficult to get customers to install yet another app on their phone. Texting made a ton of sense.”
Harmony Tea Bar, located in Mission Viejo, California, offers an extensive menu of teas for all types of taste buds. While it’s been open since 2015, Jordan purchased the business from its previous owner at the start of 2020.
We spoke with Jordan to find out how he’s used texting to keep Harmony Tea Bar profitable–despite the implications of COVID-19.
We’ve written before that retention is more important than conversions. We’re not alone in this thinking. More and more businesses are devoting significant time and effort to keeping customers than bringing in new ones.
That’s where a text message loyalty program comes into play. As Jordan puts it, “If you’re not building loyalty in our industry, you’re going to find it difficult to survive.”
Using Square, its Point of Sale (PoS) Software, customers sign up to the loyalty program at checkout in just a few seconds by entering their phone number and providing express written consent to receive texts.
Now Harmony Tea Bar needed a way to communicate with these highly-engaged customers. Having ruled out a custom app, Jordan began to research various text messaging platforms. He fell in love with the ease-of-use and affordability of SimpleTexting.
“We signed up for the free trial and immediately saw just how easy it is to use. It ticked all of the boxes for us.”
Jordan was able to export the loyalty program customer list from Square and import it into SimpleTexting.
Jordan groups the texts he sends customers into two categories: updates about the store, and promotional text messages that encourage in-store visits and online ordering.
The updates about opening hours and store closures became particularly critical because of COVID-19.
“Everyone reads their texts, so it was very reassuring as a business owner to know our customers knew exactly when we were closed and what our opening hours were.”
Jordan also works with a graphic designer to take full advantage of the ability to send MMS messages. (Another restaurant used MMS to drive a 52% higher CTR on a promotional blast.)
Running a tea house while dealing with the repercussions of COVID-19 sounds like a tall order for even a seasoned restaurant owner–never mind first-timer proprietors. Despite the difficult circumstances, the new venture remains profitable.
“It’s been an interesting time to take over a tea house. We owe part of our success to the texts we send. We see really high CTRs, lots of web traffic, and online orders.”
With CTRs as high as 16%–1094% higher than the industry average CTR for an email–it’s a quick way to drive online orders. Jordan also often hears from customers in the store that they received a text message and want to redeem the offer.
If you want to learn more about SMS marketing for restaurants, our restaurant SMS marketing industry guide is a good starting point. You can also sign up for a 14-day, risk-free trial. And, if you have questions about getting set up, email us at support@simpletexting.net.
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ReadWe surveyed 1,000 U.S. consumers & analyzed data from Open Table’s State of the Restaurant Industry report to learn the striking impact that COVID had on restaurants in 2020.
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