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Precise location data can provide richer insights into user behavior and interest, as we’ve covered previously in our Designing for Place series. Those insights can help you decide the best places to build experiences that promote ease of app use for the user opening the app and getting what they need as quickly as possible. We call this "appticipation”, and its end goal is to deliver personalized app experiences to each user. Having contextual data on where and when your users are accessing your app and its functionalities can help you optimize your app to become a vital part of users’ daily lives.

The app feature usage analysis we’ve outlined in previous posts can help you get a better sense of your app usage and functionality. Now, we'll take those findings and see how coffee apps can apply appticipation to better understand what functionality users favor and use in the places they are in.



Coffee shop apps today

Chain coffee shops are all about speed. Getting your coffee and / or breakfast quickly before you go to work, or stepping out for a morning / afternoon pick-me-up should be fast. So when a coffee shop has an app, they must cater to this need for speed. In fact, they must make the coffee shop experience even more streamlined as possible to ensure adoption and consistent usage.

Why do users download coffee shop apps? One word: loyalty. In most of these apps, there is a payment functionality where users can pay with the app and points are then added to their accounts. Points can then be redeemed for offers like a free beverage, pastry, etc. The more you use the app, the more points you get, the more rewards you can participate in.

Imagining the Future

We are proposing that coffee apps take user experience to another level based on current location, historical location and demographics of the user. Coffee apps can use location to to add context to their app in order to anticipate the next moves of their users and make their lives easier.

Context apps location


Drive In-Store Visits

With Infinite Geofencing, coffee apps can geofence all of their locations, allowing them to send users notifications when they are passing one of their coffee shops. with these location-specific notifications, the app can surface relevant offers and notify the users of new seasonal menu items.

The app can also geofence all of their competitor locations in order to geo-conquest. For example, when a user passes a competitor location the app can send a reminder to redeem an offer at the closest location.

The app can also use geofencing to drive repeat visits. Knowing how many times the user visits the coffee shop a day enables the app to offer loyalty discounts. For example, if the user visits the coffee shop and makes a purchase in the morning, their afternoon visit is discounted. Knowing the user’s purchase history and when they visit the coffee shop enables you to present unique and personalized offers to them.

Dunkin donuts app location experienceDrive Mobile Payments with Payment Mode

When a user enters a coffee shop the most likely thing for them to do is to buy a drink or food item. When a user enters the coffee shop the app can automatically surface the mobile payment screen for easy access so the user doesn’t have to search for it.

Walking into the geofenced coffee shop location can also trigger automatic reload notifications and remind un-enrolled visitors of the benefits at the time of visit. The app can surface time-of-purchase offers to sign up and get rewards.

Exclusive In-App Ordering

Enable in-app orders for purchasing with the coffee shop’s mobile wallet. The app can use geofence triggers to alert the staff of a customer’s arrival. The customer can run in, show a surfaced confirmation page and leave immediately with the order they made on the mobile app ahead of time. This option enables the coffee app to grab the busy consumer who doesn’t have time to wait in line.

Recapturing Lost Transaction Opportunities

Knowing the visit history of your customers enables you to have insights on the pattern of their visit and if they miss a normal time to come and grab their coffee and danish. The app can send out a notification saying, “You missed your morning visit yesterday – get a ½ price lunch item today with a morning coffee purchase,” prompting them to return.

Marry insights on visit history with weather forecasts to entice people to come out and get coffee even in the bad weather. For example, a user walking in to the coffee shop on a snowy day prompts the app to automatically surface a special reward or discount on their purchase. Or the app can provide pre-visit rewards that say something like: “Snow day = Donut Day. Don’t miss out on free donuts at your nearest location!”

Maximize User Intelligence with Persona-Based Discovery

Know who your customers are and where they spend their time outside of your coffee shop with location history. This location history can help you build Personas of your users and can help you influence where and how you advertise to them.

Bottom Line

Skyhook’s Context will enable coffee apps to drive more store visits, increase transactions through perks, have new levels of user intelligence and increase user engagement.apps_header