Luther’s BBQ is a Houston-based restaurant chain specializing in down-home Texas barbeque with over a dozen restaurants in the Houston area.

Its frequent diner program is called Great Rewards. For every dollar a customer spends on Luther’s saucy fare, they earn a Great Rewards dollar. When they reach 100 Great Rewards dollars, customers get gift certificates.

The problem lay in the program’s administration, which is handled by a third-party vendor out of California. In 1999, their vendor did not have real-time tracking, so customers had no way to get real-time reporting on their account.

Given our interactive multimedia, Web and marketing expertise—and love of their Chopped Baker—we were an excellent choice of vendor for the project.

Our solution was a web-enabled in-store kiosk. Resembling a chuck wagon, it allowed members of the Great Rewards program to enter their User ID and pull up their current point balance. Customers interacted using a touch-screen. Luckily, Luther's has plenty of free moist towelettes on hand!

The kiosk markets the program to customers who are not members of Great Rewards, explaining the program and letting them sign up right there at the kiosk. The kiosk prints out a temporary card, as well as coupons they could use for that day’s meal.

It also administers a five-question survey, asking things like how often the customer ate at Luther’s, their favorite Luther’s meal, etc. This information is e-mailed weekly to the CEO of the company, giving him instant access to the needs and buying habits of his customers.

And it happens to be very cool, with voiceovers from the CEO, clips from Hop-Along Cassidy and John Wayne and terrific sound effects. It may have looked like an old chuck wagon, but it was really a marketing machine. The Art Director's Club of Houston agreed, awarding it the 1998 Award Show Bronze Medal for Interactive Computer Presentations.

Want to make the best of your restaurant, lobby or retail store with a smart kiosk? Contact us.