With over 450 stores operating across Australia and around the world, Boost Juice is the largest and fastest growing juice and smoothie franchise in the southern hemisphere. Since it opened its doors in 2000, Boost has been about the whole Boost experience that takes place every time a customer enters a store – giving customers what they want. Boost Juice Managing Director Claire Lauber shares how Boost continues to push the boundaries, stay ahead of trends, develop innovative strategies and ramp us its digital platform to excite customers and add value to the brand.
When Boost Juice opened its doors 17 years ago, its key point of difference was customer service. How have you been able to get the customer experience right and maintain that consistency?
As Boost has grown, ensuring we deliver on great customer experience has been a challenge but a challenge that we have embraced and one that has really pushed us to get creative in how we talk to our stores. A key focus is talking directly to our stores and the teams (internally known as Boosties) that are the face of our brand. As a support centre, we make the effort to travel to each state and have ‘Boostie’ nights where we can talk directly to our staff about customer experience alongside the day-to-day challenges in store. We no longer look to mystery shoppers for feedback but instead we ask our customers and we give this feedback back to our stores on a daily basis. It’s about empowering our stores with the feedback and allowing them to implement the best next steps. It also provides them with the training and support to feel confident in giving every customer that Boost Juice experience.
Boost was one of the first businesses to personalise service by asking customer names and announcing orders. Initiatives like this show that Boost is not afraid to do things differently. Is that part of the Boost ethos?
Most definitely! It’s not just about delivering a great product, it’s about every step in-between with our customers. The retail scene is constantly changing and being agile and finding different and innovative ways to communicate with our customers gives us a competitive edge.
However, it’s not just about being different it’s also about listening to the customer and giving them what they want – not innovating for the sake of innovating. When you put the customer first it makes every decision easy.
Boost has embraced the digital revolution - PayWave, Instagram, Facebook and an integrated app. Why is Boost investing so heavily in digital and what’s next?
We know our customer and we know where they are and that’s in the digital space. Consumers are savvier than ever and where once a billboard would work, today brands need to find fun, interactive communication tools that feel native to their core demographic – for Boost’s customer this is in the digital space. Bringing our digital strategy to life, holistically, is next. We have a very strong online presence (especially on our app and social media) and now we are looking at physical stores and how we can bring them into the digital age to really embrace all the benefits of digital.
Boost Juice won Inside Retail’s Innovation Initiative of the Year award in 2017. Can you tell us more about the digital initiatives that Boost has recently launched and why they’re important?
Our leap into the digital space really began with the Boost Juice app back in 2013, which we continue to improve on year-on-year. From it simply being a replacement to our physical Vibe cards to today being an app that has changed the way we are doing a number of things. Just last year we revolutionised how we obtained feedback from our customers with a new rating system (similar to Uber) that gives our stores real-time feedback on the service and products that there are delivering in store. We are also about to launch our new updated app that will allow us to do more targeted and strategic local area marketing. We have seen great success with gamification as well. In everything we do in the digital space it’s important to consider the benefit to the customer. At Boost, we want to make the customers’ experience better and easier and we’re finding digital is a great space in which to achieve this in.
Your business is always evolving and adapting to customer feedback with the biggest example of this the newly launched Boost Drive-Thru. Is continuing to look where your customers are and how you can connect with them a big part of the how quick-service retailers can continue to grow?
For every retailer it’s going to be very different. At Boost we have 280 stores across the country and most of these are located in shopping centres or along shopping strip locations. Now we’re really playing with different concepts and locations, which include our drive-thru store as well as transit hubs. We’ve also had a great uptake in our partnership with Caltex where we are moving beyond the typical transit location and into service stations where customers can fuel up and pick up a Boost while on the road.
The food retail space is constantly evolving. How important is it for Boost to think beyond just opening more stores?
It’s imperative. Retail is challenging and we’re constantly looking for new avenues that will get Boost to more customers. Something that is important to us is the ‘Boost experience’, which adds to the challenge. This is why digital is so central to our overall strategy, because it allows us to be agile and innovative in the way we bring the Boost Juice personality to life.
What are some of the challenges ahead for quick service food retailers and how can retailers respond?
It’s constantly changing, but the word innovation is one to watch. With every challenge there is a solution and the word innovation plays an integral role in finding that solution. Brands need to be innovative in how they approach challenges and ensure that the customer is central before making any decision.
Claire’s top five tips for 2018:
1. Customer 1st, always!
2. Engage with your best personality
3. Apologise if you get it wrong
4. Take care when making products
5. Always give your customer a reason to come back
