This article was originally written by Avanade alum Dan Larkin.

Once again, Sitecore Symposium was an industry-leading event highlighted by valuable sessions and keynotes themed around creating human connections in a digital world. 

One of my favorite Symposium moments took place when our client Subway accepted their 2019 Sitecore Ultimate Experience Award and the event’s first-ever People’s Choice award on the main stage in front of their industry peers. (This was after receiving a regional Sitecore Experience Award for “Best business impact or ROI” a few months earlier.) 

Subway isn’t just a client of Avanade. My colleagues and I are customers. I go way back with them – to the days of the loyalty cards where I collected stamps and redeemed full cards for a sandwich. The personalized experience I enjoy while engaging with a “Sandwich Artist™” through a pane of glass in the restaurant is now available anywhere through a digital pane of glass in my hand. 

So how did Subway transform its brand experience to earn all this prestigious recognition? I thought I’d share the story:

Subway, the world’s largest restaurant chain, offers guests in more than 100 countries a variety of handcrafted and delicious subs, soups, wraps and salads from more than 40,000 restaurants. In 2015, Subway embarked on a journey to transform their guests’ digital experience to meet their evolving expectations toward ordering ahead, convenient payments, and better rewards. In an effort to meet these expectations, the brand needed to create more personalized experiences that engaged guests on their preferred channels. Following a series of innovation sessions and customer engagement workshops, Subway teamed up with Accenture as its partner in digital transformation. The goal? Establish the brand as a digital leader and industry innovator by delivering exceptional guest experiences around the world. Together, Subway and Accenture would create a new digital foundation upon which the brand launched a premium omnichannel experience powered by personalized marketing and a highly-rated mobile app that increased customer engagement.  
 
Subway teamed up with Accenture and Avanade to launch a new digital loyalty program MyWay Rewards to replace Subway’s previous paper-based loyalty program. The results are in the numbers: loyalty members have increased by 10x compared to the legacy platform. Subway and Accenture/Avanade further enhanced the digital experience by delivering a new web ordering experience enabling guests to place their order ahead of time while being able to have the same customization experience they have at the restaurant with a “Sandwich Artist™”. This new ordering experience is fully integrated with MyWay Rewards and allows guests to add premium ingredients and extras to their meals including guacamole and bacon, as well as make it a meal by adding a side and drink. This experience resulted in an 8% lift in orders through customization.
 
Subway, together with Accenture/Avanade, work as one team to ensure consistent omnichannel experience across every interaction from web and mobile to in-store. Both MyWay Rewards and the new web ordering experience have contributed significantly to drive Subway’s goals. At the time of writing, over 45 million loyalty transactions have been processed by the new omnichannel solution. And it’s more than just open rates and click rates: average order value has surpassed US targets.
 
With the personalized experience delivered by MyWay Rewards and the Sitecore Experience Platform, digital order volume doubled from a year ago. The new web ordering experience, built on the Sitecore Experience Platform, is also driving a significant conversion uplift (10+% on desktop web and 40+% on mobile web) in comparison to the legacy website. 

These are the results you get when a brand focuses on the key moments in the experience of its customers. As a Subway customer myself, I couldn’t appreciate that more. And I’m proud the Avanade team was able to help them do it.

Are you ready to get closer to your customers? Connect with us to learn how we’ve helped global brands like Subway deliver great customer experiences at scale.