How Hummus Bros plans to a create single customer view through click and collect data

Speaking to The Drum, co-founder Christian Mouysset said since the company in 2003 it has built up a loyal customer base whilst also attracting large numbers of first time customers unfamiliar with the menu.

“Our food is not like sandwiches in Pret-a-Manger or sushi in Itsu, so people are a bit confused the first time they come. People take their time to order, we have staff that are trained to take people through the menu, and that process takes a long time,” he said.

Mouysset explains he quickly became aware that process frustrated its regular patrons who might come in for lunch five times a week and therefore have to spend a notable part of their break in a queue.

In its first attempt to solve the issue it created two separate queues, but he found it was difficult to communicate the tiered system to customers and those that first time visitors were receiving poor experiences as they waited in one line while other people skipped to the front.

It was at this point the idea for an app was born, allowing people to order and pay directly from their mobiles and then walk straight in and out of the restaurant with their food.

For customers using the app, their experience of the brand in-store is limited. Mouysset said this has meant the design and build had to be beautiful and seamless. There is a lot of focus on how to make payments easier, faster, more secure. But what people want is to not think about paying, was the insight the app’s designers took into development.

Customers are able to save their payment details within the app. Upon opening the tool, they select the store they will collect from, and pick from a menu of mains, tubs, salads, desserts and drinks. After each selection users can also add extras or request things like gluten free bread. Those registered users can then select the collection time and checkout within a couple of clicks

Moving forward, Mouysset reveals it will begin to harness the data it collects to build up a picture of individual customers in order to tailor the experience.

“What we would do before the app is ask people to try the chocolate brownie, for example, on the house with the hope they’d love it and buy it again. With the app we’ll be able to see that they’ve never ordered the brownie and offer them one. Or if we see someone used to come twice a week but hasn’t been in a few weeks then we can reach out and see if there is anything we can do. The data is so much better than we would get in store,” he said.

While one of the major barriers to wide-spread adoption of mobile payments has been security fears, Judo chief executive Dennis Jones adds customers have already moved past that.

“When we look at the end of this year, we’ll see it as being one where mobile payments really take off,” he said, explaining Judo’s mobile-specific fraud prevention technology enables real-time fraud scoring, for example, to prevent fraudulent activity.

Hummus Bros is among a number of food chains to embrace mobile payment systems as a way to boost footfall into stores. In the past few months alone, Starbucks, McDonalds and KFC (another Judo client) have all embarked on small scale trials to test the market ahead of wider investment.