Dave & Buster’s + Mobile App
Challenge
Like any business, D&B has points of “friction” as part of the Guest experience. One of the biggest is long lines of guests waiting at the front desk during peak hours to buy Power Cards (yes, we made guests wait to give us their money!).
Insight
The head of Technology and I were convinced that we could alleviate some of those frustrations, particularly with our most loyal guests, through a mobile app. Unfortunately, the rest of the executive team did not share our confidence. Their concerns were that consumers in general were overloaded with apps, and there was no reason for them to download yet another one – especially for an experience as infrequent as D&B.
the solution
No investment dollars were allocated to the project. But we still believed. That’s when we identified a Credit Card Processing company that agreed to build an app for a percentage of the Sales. It would be rudimentary given app development was not their core expertise, but it could provide a clear “Proof of Concept”. If the app generated Sales, we were confident there would be a path towards investment.
results
The initial “Proof of Concept” app generated over $20 million a year with minimal promotion. These “twenty million reasons” helped encourage the executive team to embrace the mobile app as the core driver of the digital transformation.
A new, redesigned mobile app was rolled out in October of 2019 with the functionality to purchase Power Cards and activate games. A partnership and promotion with Apple Pay increased downloads and drove Sales. By February of 2020, the mobile app had over a million users and accounted for over 10% of Sales in a single month.
This is just the beginning. As the hub of the digital eco-system, the future capabilities of the mobile app will include ordering food & beverage (vs. a table-top system such as Ziosk), closing out guest checks and much more.
