Over Under

Over Under’s motto: Great Coffee. Great People. Great Day. It’s hard to miss their distinctive pink and black branding on their coffee shops if you live in London, and we can vouch that they really DO make great coffee!

‍

Since launching their app with Pepper, they have seen loyal customers returning on average five times a month, with 900 customers using the app every month, and up to 20% of transactions going through the Pepper app across their coffee shops.

‍

Natalie Johnston, Marketing Manager at Over Under, told us that a big goal, as with most hospitality businesses, is to get as many customers through the door as possible. However, a lot of their stores are small in size so when it’s busy, the workflow can be quite challenging. However after introducing their ordering and loyalty app, this problem has been alleviated with a more streamlined ordering journey. ‘For customers they can just come, pick up their order and go. For staff, the orders come straight up on the POS, they make the order and they can put it out the window like at our Earl’s Court site. It doesn’t clutter up the shop with people and we can get a high volume of customers through without customers bumping into each other. It’s much less chaotic,’ Natalie said.

‍

The benefits aren’t just operational, though; it means less pressure on staff, and a better working environment with more effective staffing. For baristas and front of house staff, ‘using the app frees up their time because they’re not needing to take the order and process it. It literally saves that time where they can just focus on making the drinks and providing great customer service’, Natalie said. As for customers, they can just ‘put their order into the app and it takes two seconds, they can use Apple Pay and then it’s there waiting for them at the shop, which is particularly great in London where everyone’s busy and nobody has time for anything. It’s a good customer experience for them.’

‍

As of last month, Over Under’s app revenue was 7.2% of their total revenue taken as a business, and 13.5% of their transactions are through the app - with some stores like Wandsworth, this rises to a whopping 20%. ‘It’s crazy’, said Natalie, ‘we’re tracking every month and really pushing adoption, so It’s really great that we can see that what we’re doing is working.’

‍

As well as this, they reached their highest revenue and number of transactions to date via the app in September, which was partly down to the opening of their new site in Battersea and offering their well-known ‘Free Coffee Week’ - where newly opened Over Under Coffee shops give away free coffee for the week to celebrate and encourage new customers to visit. 

‍

Like with their Free Coffee Week campaign, Natalie said that one of the best things about the app for her as a Marketer has been the marketing capabilities, which have helped to alleviate some of their challenges by ‘operationalising things through the app, whether it’s discount codes or giving out a free product.’ Natalie pointed out that ‘as a start up business, budget is always a restraint, so we try to come up with ideas with a small budget, which means doing stuff with the app is great.’ So for them, the app has been the way to go for competitions and giveaways where customers can redeem prizes and benefits. 

‍

They are currently offering scratch cards with app orders, which the Over Under team made themselves, and the winning cards can redeem discounts and perks through the app. Another out-of-the-box campaign that they ran was a limited-edition NFT collection, where customers could purchase a unique piece of Over Under themed digital artwork and each one came with a different perk that customers could redeem via the app - ranging from 10% off to free coffee for life. For the Marketing team, it’s ‘great to have some fun and be creative in how we can utilise and market the app. Our Pepper app is huge for us.’’

‍

As for customer loyalty, Natalie said that ‘customers are crazy about their points - if the stamp hasn’t worked or if something’s happened, we’ll get emails about it and they’ll come into the store.’ On average, they have around 800 - 900 active app users per month and these customers are visiting repeatedly at least five times a month, which reflects a really engaged audience. ‘The app customers are probably our most loyal and engaged customers’, Natalie said, ‘they’re the ones that come back day after day, getting their morning coffee and the fact that the app has made it so easy for them to save their favourite order and put it through again, it’s such low effort for them which has definitely helped.’

‍

Natalie finished by saying ‘I love working with Pepper. You’ve dealt with hospitality and built these apps specifically for us hospitality businesses, so you understand the issues that we have. The team have always been so patient and helpful -  I speak to Joel on a bi-weekly basis, so I feel very supported in terms of marketing and operations. The team are always really quick to help us resolve any issues; I really feel like Pepper are an extension of our team to be honest.’

‍

‘I definitely feel like you guys are always there for us - the support is the most important thing, and I’m imagining that’s why we chose Pepper in the first place.’