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Cause Plus: Building Loyalty with Philanthropy

Summary:

At Corner Bakery Cafe, doing the right thing is not only a goodwill-marketing effort but an employee-retention tool.

March 16

Cause Plus: Building Loyalty with Philanthropy

Chain Leader
By Mary Boltz Chapman
March 15, 2010

Chain Leader’s Driving Traffic research in November showed that 73 percent of restaurant chains support charitable organizations to increase customer counts. Corner Bakery Café is one of those. But it finds that philanthropic efforts also help the 115-unit Dallas-based restaurant chain engage and retain employees.

Take, for example, its participation in Share Our Strength’s Great American Dine Out. In 2009, guests contributed $23,000; the company matched their donation, rounded up and gave $50,000. “This was double what we raised the prior year,” says Senior Vice President of Marketing Diana Hovey, “and it’s largely due to the tremendous passion of our team.”

Hovey says Corner Bakery surveys its 3,500 employees, or “bread heads,” about once a year. They revealed that workers wanted to do more for their communities and be part of something bigger than themselves. “Any type of cause effort we do on the marketing end, they have just grabbed it and run with it,” she says.

The Cool Factor

So when the chain began its involvement with the Great American Dine Out in 2008, the team was enthusiastic. “We got such great feedback from employees,” Hovey says. “And when we surveyed them again, there was a heightened sense of pride, a lot of write-in comments saying, ‘This is very cool.’”

That year, Corner Bakery gave a percentage of sales the week of the event. In 2009, it upped the ante. Customers who contributed a dollar or two received a two-part certificate. Half was posted in the restaurant; the other half held a bounce-back coupon for a free Whoopee Pie or other dessert. It required the staff to be more involved, telling customers about the program and sharing the effort. Two weeks before the September event, Hovey said there already were donation cards lining the walls at many units. The company had to print more certificates before the week-long event even started.

Hovey credits staff pride. “Our bread heads know a lot of the guests by name,” she says. “They want to share it with the guests. It’s another way to engage them, something to start a conversation. It’s exciting to see how fired up they are.”

Act Locally

Employees also contribute time and effort to local events. Last spring, the Corner Bakery ran a chainwide “Catering to Our Community” promotion that allowed online nominations for local charity groups to receive a full catered meal. Volunteer managers and servers brought free meals to 100 groups.

To help staff efforts to communicate the Great American Dine Out promotion, Corner Bakery Cafe sent an e-mail to its mailing list, created a Facebook page and used in-store materials.

Hovey says she was surprised at the number of thank you notes the company received from the employees who participated. “They were excited to see firsthand their efforts to give back.”

Measuring Success

While she says the efforts contribute to staff loyalty and retention, Hovey says it’s difficult to quantify cause marketing’s return on investment. But she argues that’s true with any marketing. “Anytime we do a promotional effort, we look at what did it do to traffic counts, what did it do to sales of promoted items, the typical measures,” she explains. “But you also have to look at, what was the operators’ feedback? Did they enjoy the promotion? Did it work well? What were some of the other benefits?

“And I think that the things we hear from this, from the comments and notes from employees, is they love being part of it. You’ve got to look at what it really does to tie the loyalty of your team to the brand, what it does to reinforce that relationship that the employee has with their guest.”

Hovey says Corner Bakery is definitely going to participate in the Great American Dine Out again this year.

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