Tedeschi Food Shops Leveraging Technology to Communicate

7/11/2011

ROCKLAND, Mass. -- Tedeschi Food Shops is supporting its branding and trumpeting its strengths with a website redesign and other internal and external marketing and promotion initiatives, including a Facebook page.

The refurbished corporate website, which launched last August, provides information about the chain's fresh food offer -- a breakfast suggestion of a banana, orange juice and TD's Deli bacon and egg sandwich was featured in the spring, for example -- its most popular products, store locations and special events. A blog highlights store-level and chainwide news.

The site includes the option to search by service or offering, and customized store web pages that clearly convey Tedeschi's extensive core offering. It also offers details on current promotions. A recent Web promotion encouraged customers to "Like" Tedeschi on Facebook (or send an e-mail) to qualify for a chance to win Boston Red Sox vs. New York Yankees tickets.

"Our goal was to create a website that feels youthful while offering an intuitive user experience, appealing to a broader audience within a wide range of age groups," said Joe Hamza, vice president of sales and marketing.

The Facebook page gives Tedeschi Food Shops the opportunity to discover true fans for the first time, as well as deepen the respect of current customers and business partners, he added.

Last year, the stores began offering Blockbuster movies through DVD rental kiosks and were equipped with GoGo Cast's high-definition Go-Screens to engage customers with targeted messages. The Go-Screens highlight monthly and seasonal sale items with eye-catching graphics. Moving forward, store-specific deals and unique offerings will be displayed. For example, deli-equipped stores may have different specials than locations that sell beer and wine. Based on pilot tests, the retailer expects the screens to influence buying decisions at the point-of-sale.

"We're extremely excited about our ability to communicate with our customers in real-time with current promotions and compelling content," Hamza said.

In a more traditional marketing strategy, the chain often holds customer appreciation events at the re-openings of refurbished stores, handing out samples of TD's Deli Express sandwiches, hot dogs, salty snacks, ice cream and packaged beverages. Drawings for iPods, passes to Canobie Lake Park and tickets to New England Patriots football and New England Revolution soccer games are also typical.

To continually improve, the chain encourages – and acts on – customer feedback in many forms, including e-mail, postage-paid and conspicuously placed in-store comment cards, standard mail, office visits and phone calls.

"We are receiving more feedback these days from a varied cross section of our customer base profile, which is a good thing," Bob Tedeschi executive vice president of operations, said. "As a customer-centric organization, we take customer feedback very seriously. Every customer comment or complaint is personally reviewed by [Peter], then addressed promptly and responded to by a member of our management team. We do take the feedback to heart and pass it along to everyone that should be involved in learning the lesson or message, so we all can continue to do a better job in every aspect of our business."

 

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