Kahala Brands' model of growth model has enabled the company to build an expansive portfolio of quick-service restaurant brands. But this success came with a significant operational challenge: each acquired brand brought its own unique, often outdated technology stack, creating a fragmented ecosystem with no standardization.
The company found itself managing a chaotic mix of different POS systems, loyalty programs, and guest data platforms across its portfolio. This made it impossible to get a unified view of guests or implement a cohesive strategy across brands.
Loyalty programs in particular had a critically low adoption rate—5% or less in many cases. Legacy loyalty models required guests to download an app and complete lengthy registration, which was problematic in quick-service environments where speed is paramount. Asking guests to download an app and set up an account while others waited in line behind them created a frustrating experience for guests and employees, and actively discouraged enrollment.
Without meaningful adoption, Kahala couldn't gather guest data, send targeted marketing campaigns, or prove the value of its loyalty initiatives. The marketing tools weren’t engaging guests and couldn't generate a meaningful return on investment.
Kahala turned to Olo Loyalty to solve these interconnected challenges. The platform's flexibility enabled it to integrate with the variety of POS systems used across Kahala's portfolio brands, creating a cohesive loyalty program that could operate consistently across the portfolio.
The key innovation was Olo Loyalty's frictionless, phone-first approach. Instead of forcing guests through a slow, app-based registration process, guests could simply provide a phone number and create an instant "starter profile." This faster registration dramatically increased enrollment while maintaining speedy service.
By establishing Olo Loyalty as the central hub connecting all of Kahala's marketing tools, the company could feed clean, consistent data to other platforms. Having clean data transformed their marketing capabilities and allowed them to turn high loyalty adoption into campaigns that actually drove sales. With this data, Kahala Brands increased its retention rate from the industry average of 15% up to 25%, an increase of 67% that far outperformed peers.
.png)
