9th February is celebrated as International Pizza Day, sparking an interesting conversation—what is the co-relationship between pizza, F&B brands, and building customer loyalty? For instance, Pizza Hut launched its first loyalty program in 2015, and Domino’s recently introduced its Cheesy Rewards program. Meanwhile, industry leaders like Starbucks faced backlash for changes in their programs. This article explores food and beverage loyalty programs, especially in the context of pizza chains, and how loyalty software plays a critical role in driving customer retention.

Food & Beverage Brands and Emotional Loyalty

 
Pizzas are a marketing & positioning masterstroke! A pizza can be both a need (easy & filling food) and a want (satisfying a craving). It’s great with family, friends, solo, or even on a date! It’s perfect for eating out, ordering in, or workplace deliveries. Given how easily pizza fits into different situations, it’s no surprise that customers form emotional connections with it.

 
When a pizza brand becomes the creator of good memories, emotional loyalty follows. Getting it right the first time—even unknowingly—can set the foundation for a long-term customer relationship. This is where food and beverage loyalty management backed by loyalty program software can help brands create structured, data-driven engagement models that go beyond discounts and promotions.

Challenges of a Pizza chain to win customer loyalty

While businesses across industries strive to build customer loyalty, pizza brands have a unique advantage: a single experience can turn a first-time buyer into a repeat customer. However, securing that loyalty presents certain challenges.

1. Minimal Product & Service Differentiation

Despite innovations in pizza bases, toppings, and cooking methods, differentiation remains limited. Most pizza chains offer similar services, making it crucial to create loyalty beyond the pizza itself. This is where food and beverage loyalty programs powered by loyalty software can help brands deliver unique, personalized experiences that customers actually value. Check out Capillary’s robust Loyalty+.

2. Too Many Loyalty Programs

The average U.S. consumer belongs to 16+ loyalty programs, bombarded with deals, rewards, and exclusive offers. The risk? Customers forget they’re even enrolled. F&B loyalty management requires brands to create memorable, high-value loyalty interactions to remain top-of-mind. Advanced loyalty program software enables brands to automate these interactions and optimize engagement strategies.

3. Even Loyal Customers Explore Options

Even the most loyal pizza customers occasionally crave variety. A great pizza loyalty program can reduce churn by providing engagement beyond discounts—whether through gamification, exclusive perks, or cross-brand collaborations. Loyalty program software ensures real-time insights and dynamic reward structures to keep customers engaged.

4. A Broken Phygital Experience

Some F&B brands focus on in-dine experiences, while others are delivery-first. Capturing data across physical and digital touchpoints is vital for food and beverage loyalty management. Without a 360-degree customer view, brands risk missing opportunities to personalize rewards. Loyalty software plays a crucial role in unifying customer data, enabling brands to provide a seamless and data-driven loyalty experience.

3 Pizza Brands Innovating in the Loyalty Space

Here, we dive deep into three interesting rewards programs from Pizza Chains and pull out insights that can help F&B brands.

1. Pizza Hut and My Hut Rewards – Loyalty Success Through Hyper-Personalization

Pizza Hut’s My Hut Rewards is a spend-based program that rewards customers for every dollar spent and allows points to accrue without daily limits. Customers get 2 points for every $1 spent online or via mobile orders. 200 points earn them a free medium pizza with unlimited toppings and for 250 rewards points a large pizza with unlimited toppings. Pizza Hut leverages first-party customer data to derive insights and create hyper-personalized customer journeys that keep them coming back for more.

• Knock knock. Who’s there? The welcome journey incentivizes customers with discounts to share first-party data. The shared customer insights such as dietary preferences and party size are used to tailor-make the offers and deliver a better experience.
• Offering personalized discounts – Discounts are offered based on the expected average order value (AOV).  If the customer identifies as someone ordering for the family, they are likely to spend more and are offered a personalized discount bracket targeting a higher spend amount.
• Testing for loyalty acquisition – Through customer data insights, Pizza Hut determined the value exchange that would be a better motivator in getting a customer to sign up for the rewards program. An email campaign then tested the marketing messages and introduced the loyalty schemes to each customer based on their response.

 
By delivering the right message at the right time, via the right channel, Hut’s Rewards Program drives a functional frictionless experience and succeeds in building meaningful relationships with the customers.

2. Domino’s Piece of the Pie Rewards Program – Innovation for Customer Engagement

Domino’s Piece of the Pie rewards program has 25 million+ active loyalty members. Anytime a customer places an order for $10 or more, they earn 10 points. Upon reaching 60 points a customer can either earn a free medium pizza or continue earning points and cash out later for multiple free pizzas. However, the customer can only earn points on one order per calendar day and points expire if the account is inactive for 180 days.

 
Keeping customers loyal to a pizza is tricky business and Domino’s works around that with out-of-the-box and industry-first digital innovations. 

• Domino’s Zero Clicks app – The Zero Click app makes mobile ordering incredibly convenient. Once the app has been downloaded, customers link it to their existing Domino’s profile and save all of their favorite orders. Then each time the Zero Click app is opened on a smartphone, it will prompt the Easy Order to be automatically re-ordered without asking consumers to tap, swipe or click anything. The app displays a 10-second countdown until the order goes through, giving customers ample opportunity to cancel it, in case of a mistake.

• ‘Piece of the Pie Pursuit’ Mobile Game – The Piece of the Pie Pursuit provides players with pizza-themed challenges and highlights different ways to order a Domino’s pizza. With six types of unique gameplay to keep customers/players coming back for more, the game also gives Piece of the Pie Rewards members a chance to earn real-world bonus points toward free pizza.

• Points for Pies Campaign –
  Did Domino’s just say they will award points for eating any pizza? Even from a competitor?
  Expanding on its existing rewards program, Domino’s Points-for-Pies campaign lets customers earn rewards points by simply clicking pictures of any pizza! – whether it came from Domino’s, the grocery store freezer, a neighborhood slice shop, or anywhere else. Customers would earn 10 points for the scan and once they hit 60, they received a free medium two-topping Domino’s pizza. The advertising campaign ran for a 12-week window just in time for Super Bowl LIII and engaged with pizza lovers (customers or not).By rethinking innovation and service to deliver faster, easier, and better customer experiences (CX), Domino’s becomes the kind of brand customers would like to engage with, driving business growth and loyalty.

 
3. Slice Rewards – America’s Largest Rewards Program for Pizza Lovers
With 18,000+ local pizzerias in its network, Slice Rewards is the largest rewards program for pizza lovers in the US.

 
Slice is an innovative tech platform that empowers local independent pizzerias with the tech and services they need to thrive. The pizzeria owners can offer their products to customers and the customers can place orders, customize, track and earn reward points via the Slice app. Unlike third-party food delivery apps, Slice partners directly with independent pizzerias and passes the savings directly to the customers.

• A first-of-its-kind loyalty program, Slice rewards customers for supporting local pizzerias across the US.
• Delivering on its promise of keeping things simple for independent pizzerias and customers alike, Slice’s tech platform auto-enrolls the customers of local pizzerias onto the Slice Rewards platform. Customers receive emails, reminders, and notifications updating them on their journey and progress towards racking up Pizza Points, as they order from their favorite local pizza joints.
• >Every time a customer makes an order over $15, they earn 1 Pizza Point. Customers can redeem anywhere from 2 to 8 pizza points – offering a free topping for 2 points, a club soda for 4 points, garlic knots for 6 points, and a free pizza for 8 points. 
• Along with Slice rewards, customers also receive a variety of special offers, exclusive deals, and promotions.

 
Slice Rewards doesn’t create loyalty, rather protects and manages it. Slice acknowledges the loyalty that customers have for their neighborhood pizzeria and empowers it through convenience. In creating North America’s largest Pizza loyalty program, Slice Rewards delivers local diversity through its platform while creating value for small business owners and customers alike.

Creating A Robust F&B Loyalty Program That Really Works 

Take an insight-based approach – Customers are willing to share information with brands in exchange for relevant engagement and meaningful experiences. While zero-party data can provide insights into explicit interests and preferences, first-party data is rich with behavioral information and implied interest. By leveraging both, pizza brands can determine the personal context for each customer and the ways in which they want the brand to recognize them. Looking to upscale your customer insights efforts? Explore Capillary’s Insights+.

 
Go Phygital for end-to-end immersive CX – Having delivered the no-contact digital service counterparts to in-person interactions, brands can now create a seamless immersive CX that combines the best of both physical and digital (phygital) ecosystems. A common phygital execution would be for a pizza lover to arrive at the pizzeria with rewards points on the app profile notifying that a free pizza is due today. From making digital payments in-store to click-and-collect, curb-side pick up and QR code scannable menus, phygital experiences break channel silos to ensure a continued and cohesive brand experience throughout the customer journey. The greater the synergy between digital and physical, the more efficient the service delivery and the more satisfying the consumer experience.

 
Gamify – When each touch point on the customer journey can be gamified, which one should you choose? Whichever can help accomplish a specific brand or business outcome in the most fun manner possible – Is it possible to take an otherwise mechanical process and gamify it to reduce process drop-outs? Is it possible to build a community of pizza lovers and create brand advocates for your upcoming campaign? Is it possible to evolve relationships with customers who are otherwise engaging with the brand in a purely transactional manner? Gamification makes it possible to bypass the business-customer role play and builds emotional affinity and better engagement.

 
Going beyond for a beyond reach – A successful loyalty program looks to create value for the customer in their daily lives within and outside the brand’s ecosystem. Go beyond to include offerings from other brands that share the same values as yours and brands your customers enjoy engaging within their daily routines. The more frequently and variedly a customer can leverage the rewards program each day, the longer they would like to stay enrolled.

 
The cardinal Do Not – Previously when digital engagement was non-existent, brands were non-intrusive by default. Now with customers open to an omnichannel phygital engagement, brands must be specific about when, how, and how often to engage with them. Value stepping back as much as stepping in to ensure customers stay onboard to receive what is served next.

Powering the Future of Pizza & F&B Loyalty

The pre-pandemic customer behavior has evolved, and brands must view every customer as a new customer. In the initial phase of digital loyalty for F&B brands, new sign-ups drive growth. However, as the market matures, customers will expect more than transactional benefits.

 
Capillary’s Loyalty+ helps F&B brands navigate this shift by providing:

• AI-powered loyalty program software to personalize rewards and engagement strategies.
• Phygital integration to unify online and offline customer interactions.
• Gamification and real-time insights to enhance food and beverage loyalty management.
• Advanced analytics to track customer lifetime value and retention metrics.

 
Whether you’re running a global pizza chain or a regional food brand, Capillary’s loyalty software helps create customer engagement strategies that work.

 
Ready to future-proof your F&B loyalty strategy? Get in touch with Capillary’s experts today!

FAQs

1. Why do food and beverage brands need a loyalty program?

Loyalty programs help F&B brands increase customer retention, drive repeat purchases, and enhance brand engagement. With the right loyalty software, brands can offer personalized rewards, gamification, and seamless omnichannel experiences, ensuring customers keep coming back.

2. How do pizza brands benefit from a loyalty program?

Pizza loyalty programs, like Pizza Hut Rewards Points and Domino’s Piece of the Pie, encourage repeat orders, increase average order value (AOV), and build customer loyalty. By leveraging food and beverage loyalty management, brands can provide personalized rewards, gamified experiences, and exclusive member perks to strengthen customer relationships.

3. What features should an F&B loyalty program include?

A strong food and beverage loyalty program should offer:

• Points-based rewards system (e.g., Pizza Hut Rewards Points)
• Personalized discounts & exclusive offers
• Gamification elements to boost engagement
• Omnichannel accessibility (app, website, in-store)
• Real-time data tracking and analytics via loyalty program software

4. How does loyalty software improve food and beverage loyalty programs?

Loyalty software helps brands automate rewards, track customer behavior, personalize offers, and manage omnichannel experiences. It enables real-time insights, allowing brands to optimize engagement strategies and ensure a seamless F&B loyalty management experience.

5. How can Capillary Technologies help F&B brands with loyalty programs?

Capillary’s AI-powered loyalty program software empowers F&B brands by:

• Automating personalized loyalty experiences
• Integrating online and offline customer data for a 360-degree view
• Enhancing gamification and instant rewards
• Providing real-time analytics to optimize customer engagement

Share

Manan Kashyap is a technology writer and social media consultant who loves to play the flute. After his MBA, Manan worked with Bajaj for five years after which he pursued his journey as a freelance writer with a focus on B2B SaaS.