Affectionally labeled as the “most Canadian brand in Canada,” Tim Hortons is a beloved quick-service restaurant (QSR) featuring coffee and other beverages, delicious donuts, breakfast favorites, and sandwiches. The brand counts more than 5,000 restaurants worldwide—with the majority of them located in Canada. Tim Hortons restaurants can be found in the U.S., with more concentrated pockets close to the Canadian border.
The company was founded 60 years ago in Hamilton, Ontario, and has since become the largest restaurant chain in Canada. Tim Hortons serves nearly 7 out of 10 coffees purchased in the nation, which represents approximately 80% of Canadian visits to Tim Hortons’ restaurants at least once per month. Today, the brand is arguably embedded in the fabric of Canadian life, with core values rooted in those of Canadians.
Tim Hortons was a finalist at Loyalty360’s 2024 Loyalty Expo in the Customer Experience Strategy and the Loyalty Program Design categories, taking home the Silver Award in the former and the Bronze Award in the latter.
Mark Johnson, CEO of Loyalty360, spoke with Ricardo Frydman, Director of Performance Analytics & Pricing for Tims Financial, and Shannon Torabi, Senior Manager for Digital & Loyalty Growth at Tim Hortons, about the launch of Tims Word Challenge, authentic emotional loyalty, and how customers must always be top of mind.
Affectionally labeled as the “most Canadian brand in Canada,” Tim Hortons is a beloved quick-service restaurant (QSR) featuring coffee and other beverages, delicious donuts, breakfast favorites, and sandwiches. The brand counts more than 5,000 restaurants worldwide—with the majority of them located in Canada. Tim Hortons restaurants can be found in the U.S., with more concentrated pockets close to the Canadian border.
The company was founded 60 years ago in Hamilton, Ontario, and has since become the largest restaurant chain in Canada. Tim Hortons serves nearly 7 out of 10 coffees purchased in the nation, which represents approximately 80% of Canadian visits to Tim Hortons’ restaurants at least once per month. Today, the brand is arguably embedded in the fabric of Canadian life, with core values rooted in those of Canadians.
Tim Hortons was a finalist at Loyalty360’s 2024 Loyalty Expo in the Customer Experience Strategy and the Loyalty Program Design categories, taking home the Silver Award in the former and the Bronze Award in the latter.
Mark Johnson, CEO of Loyalty360, spoke with Ricardo Frydman, Director of Performance Analytics & Pricing for Tims Financial, and Shannon Torabi, Senior Manager for Digital & Loyalty Growth at Tim Hortons, about the launch of Tims Word Challenge, authentic emotional loyalty, and how customers must always be top of mind.
Good afternoon, good morning. This is Mark Johnson from Loyalty360. I want to welcome you to another edition of our Leaders in Customer Loyalty series. In this series, we talk with leading brands about what they are seeing and hearing on the front lines of customer channel and brand loyalty. Today, we have the pleasure of speaking with Ricardo Friedman, the Director of Performance Analytics and Pricing for Tim's Financial, and Shannon Tarabi, the director of performance analytics and pricing for Tim's Financial, and Shannon Turabi, the senior manager for digital and loyalty growth at Tim Hortons.
Speaker 2:
How are both of?
Speaker 3:
you today Doing well, how are you doing Good, good, all right, good, doing well, thank you Excellent.
Speaker 1:
First off, we'd like to start these on a more personal level, so we'd love to know a little bit more about both of you and your role at Tim Hortons, and maybe share a fun fact or a passion you have outside of work. So, shannon, let's start with you first.
Speaker 2:
So hi everyone, my name is Shannon Travi. I'm the Senior Manager of Loyalty and Growth at Tim's. I've been with the company for about three years now and kind of worked on some of our CRM channels and growth prior and then moved over to our loyalty team and kind of a passion for myself. I'm a mom of two young kids right now, so my passions are kind of out the window right now and much more focused on them. But my son's getting into the era of sports so I'm really enjoying just weekends going to like the hockey rink or the uh soccer fields and stuff. So that's kind of my, my passion right now.
Speaker 1:
That's good, it only gets worse I mean better, as they grow old, or so. I have two, two kids that are division one athletes and a third is going to be so uh, it only. The amount of travel only grows, and the money continues to go out, but it's good.
Speaker 3:
I can't but then when you get to college, they'll give you that that 30 scholarship, maybe 40 scholarship.
Speaker 1:
So, uh, you're always, uh, totally full right, that doesn't exist but that's just me. Maybe my kids aren't good at it. That's probably the problem.
Speaker 3:
Anyway, ricardo, what about you? Okay, so I'm originally from Brazil, where I graduated as a civil engineer, and I also hold an MBA from NYU, new York Stern. I started my journey at Teams about six years ago. That's when I came to Canada and I fell in love with the brand. So I spent the first four years working in different marketing roles, mostly related to analytics, and about two years ago I joined what's now known as Teams Financial, one of my passions, as you were saying, mark. Like my kids, they also play competitive sports, so I'm basically traveling or driving them all over the country, and also in the West they play competitive soccer so expensive. I'm hoping for the scholarship that you mentioned as well in a few years time. A fun fact for me, like, even though I work for one of the most iconic coffee chains in Canada, I don't drink coffee or any coffee-based beverages, so I cannot enjoy all those great machines that we have around here in the office. But it is what it is right. I love the brand anyways.
Speaker 1:
That's good. Well, what position does your son or daughter play?
Speaker 3:
in soccer. So my oldest one, he's 15, he plays midfield, and my youngest one, he's 12, he plays center, back left. Okay, good.
Speaker 1:
Perfect. Next, we wanted to talk more about the Tim Hortons Custom Ability Program, Now that we're finished talking about hockey and soccer. Tim's Rewards, great program, award-winning program. Can you tell us how it works, shannon, and what are some of the benefits of being a member of the program and how customers engage with the program once they join?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, absolutely so.
Speaker 2:
With the Tim's Rewards program, guests earn 10 points for every dollar they spend.
Speaker 2:
It's super simple and basically that's when they scan their app in restaurant or with our drive through, or when they order through our app for pickup or delivery so any of those kinds of ways of interacting they'll earn their points and then they're able to use their points to get food and beverages, such as coffee, cold brews or our new flatbread pizzas.
Speaker 2:
And then, in addition to earning and redeeming points, our members have access to a few different things. So they have weekly personalized offers that are available in their app, including a special birthday offer if they give us their birthday. We also have games and contests, which we spoke about one of them at the conference our Tim's Word Challenge, as well as our Tim's Coffee Challenge and as well as our Tim's Full Promotion. Roll-up to Win is all available through the app. Also, early access to different collections of promotions with Tim Shop, our retail platform. And then, finally, they have the ability to order ahead and skip the line in restaurant, or they can order their Tim's Faves from the comfort of their own home with Tim's delivery and get points while they're doing that.
Speaker 1:
Okay, excellent. Tim Hortons was a finalist in the Loyalty Expo. At the Loyalty Expo and the Loyalty 360 Awards and the Customer Experience Strategy and the Loyalty Program Design categories. They took home silver in the former and bronze in the latter. Can you give us a brief overview of your brand and your winning Lotte 360 award?
Speaker 3:
entries from the expo. Yeah, happy to do so. So let me start with Tim Hortons. Even though it's a well-known brand in Canada and in the US, we are in pockets of the US, mostly closer to the border of Canada. So let me give a brief introduction about Teams for those who don't know us.
Speaker 3:
So Team Horton is a QSR with over 5,000 restaurants, majority of them in Canada, but we span also in the US and various other countries across the globe. We opened about six years ago and we have since become the largest Canada restaurant chain. Just to put it in perspective, we serve seven out of almost every 10 coffees that are purchased in Canada. That represents about 80% of the Canadians visit teams at least once per month. So that's gigantic in Canada.
Speaker 3:
But we are not just a coffee chain Like. We are embedded in Canadian fabric. Our core values are rooted in those of Canadians and we aim to be there to support them throughout their entire life. As for the awards, we are very pleased that we took silver in the customer experience strategy with the launch of our Teams World Challenge, which is a cross-world style game available only in our app, and the goal was to drive routine traffic to our app because we unlock on a daily basis new levels for those who love to play the game. We also won bronze in loyalty program design with the launch of Teams Financial, where I presented the Teams Credit Card, which is a way to offer even more rewards for those who already love our Teams reward program.
Speaker 1:
That's great. Great hearing the presentations, great seeing you guys continue to have such success. Obviously, the team culture you have and the commitment to focusing on the customer is pretty resonant within the organization, so it's always great to see that you also have a very unique interactive game for Tim Horton's customers the Tim's Word Challenge. It demonstrates a unique and innovative approach to customer engagement. Can you tell us a little bit more about that initiative, how it came to be, why you chose to develop the campaign and how your brand is measuring success?
Speaker 2:
Yes, I'd love to. So, as Ricardo mentioned, the Tim's Word Challenge is a new and free entirely free crossword style game in our app where our users trace the letters into words that they think are part of the puzzle, and three new puzzles are introduced daily to really drive that continuous engagement. So that's really what we're trying to drive here. We have been playing in the games and contest space for quite a bit, with both our roll up to win contest that I mentioned, as well as our Tim's hockey challenge, but given the success that we've experienced in that area, we knew we had a key opportunity to continue to leverage games to further drive engagement. And so when we looked like, why did we actually choose the word challenge as our next game venture? We kind of three key reasons behind it. So first was based on consumer research and the and analyzing market trends with games such as Wordle that went viral.
Speaker 2:
We knew that our guests were looking for those low stress, short term duration games with flexibility, where they could come back and their progress would be saved in the app, and we also wanted to engage guests that might be super interested in games but less interested in hockey and in our hockey challenge, um.
Speaker 2:
Secondly, we also um. This game provided us with opportunities to engage uh with our brand via special puzzles, uh for key campaigns, so like smile cookie, our charitable donation campaign, or to commemorate our 60th anniversary and finally, from. From a strategic standpoint, this type of game really provides the ability to not only increase our monthly active users, which is, of course, a metric that we look at daily, but to also drive that daily routine leading to weekly active or even daily active with our new puzzles. When it comes to measurement, the biggest measure of success for us was engagement. Really, as we know, the guests that use more features within our app become increasingly sticky, they spend more with us and ultimately increase their lifetime value, which is successfully like, increases that loyalty, that loyalty cycle, and we've seen an incredible increase in our monthly app visits amongst players, both pre and then post the game, which shows us that this game is accomplishing exactly what we set out for it to do. Okay.
Speaker 1:
In your loyalty program design presentation at the Expo, there's a discussion around your vision of building a digital platform and creating a holistic digital ecosphere for your customers to engage them. You know, can you talk a little bit more about that? And you know, and what stands out from that presentation?
Speaker 3:
Sure, sure.
Speaker 3:
As I mentioned during the presentation, our mission back then, two or three years ago, when we started their journey, was to try to replicate certain elements that really work for our brick and mortar business, but replicate that in the digital universe right, launching a holistic ecosystem that would be embedded in the daily lives of Canadians.
Speaker 3:
So what we wanted to offer was convenience right, so easy to use with the app, like a good value for money for Canadians. We know that it's always important and that stands with our core values Also, connection with and within Canadians and also offer delight in every single moment. So when we were envisioning that plan how to bring that to reality they usually have a payment platform that connects all the other elements of the app. So when we designed the plan for the next few years, we realized that we needed to launch the app that will complement our existing app that was initially centered around ordering, loyalty and engagement. So that's when Teams Financial came to life, which would be like that payment platform that would allow people to use our app to pay inside Teams but also outside Teams, always having the Teams experience that our customers love. So that was the idea behind and that's what we were striving to.
Speaker 1:
Excellent. When you look at emotional loyalty, it's a topic that's top of mind for many brands today. Tim Hortons obviously an iconic brand, does a great job with serving coffee but also creating unique engagement. They have a very loyal and devoted fan group. So, when you look at the affinity that you have, how do you drive emotional loyalty and how does Tim Hortons foster it with their customers?
Speaker 2:
So we've said it a few times, tim's is a really special brand, especially within Canada, where there's such a high level of nostalgia within our brand. You know we've been around for 60 years this year and so everyone has their Tim's memory and they really feel like they're part of this brand and it's like such an honor to be able to continue to deliver that to Canadians. But it can also be really tricky sometimes. You know it's a double-edged sword, um, as you know, guests can often feel that they have very strong reactions when we don't get things totally right, and so to me, emotional loyalty is really appealing to your consumer on that deeper level and not just transactionally.
Speaker 2:
There's elements of a loyalty program that are inherently table stakes and transactional. You know earning and burning of points that's kind of baseline um and so uh. What we strive to do as a brand is really connect with our guests on that deeper of points. That's kind of baseline um and so uh. What we strive to do as a brand is really connect with our guests on that deeper level, whether that's through our donation campaigns like smile cookie or camp day that raise money for local charities or for our tins foundation camps, um, or with our sponsorships in sports communities, um with timbits, hockey and soccer, um really just being a part of our guests' daily lives outside of coffee and points. That's really what emotional loyalty is to me.
Speaker 1:
Okay, you know, aside from receiving recognition for the program's success, what are one or two things that you're most proud of when it comes to your brand's customer loyalty program and customer experience efforts? Shannon?
Speaker 2:
Yeah. So I'd say the number of Canadians that participate in our program is kind of number one. We have about 35% of Canadians that are registered with our Timber Wars program and are interacting with us on a daily basis. And secondly, I'd say, the speed in which we accomplish this growth. So we started in 2019, so not that long ago and we very rapidly evolved over the past five years to become not only one of the top loyalty programs in Canada but the number one QSR app in Canada.
Speaker 1:
So that's something we're very proud of Okay, great when you look at the success that your program has had. Ricardo, many people are looking to redo their customer loyalty programs, many individuals who run the programs and brands themselves. Is there a piece of advice or two that you could give to someone who seeks to expand or enhance their customer loyalty efforts?
Speaker 3:
Sure happy to do so, but I do hope our competitors are not listening to that. But it's honestly straightforward because it will still seem simple. But whoever is aiming to launch a successful loyalty program, it has to have the customer always top of mind and always think what's in need for them, like why the customer would care, why the customer would join the loyalty program and will continue to engage over time. As I mentioned, it is simple, but oftentimes we see brands or individuals deviating for their you know, that vision, their path, and because distraction always happens right. So we have, like profitability, other things that people sometimes they put in front of everything else. So again, it is simple Keep the customer always top of mind. Everything that they should do should be aiming to do what's best for the customer and if you do that, the customer will follow and the brand will be successful. That's our vision.
Speaker 1:
Okay, great, and Shannon, what is next for Tim Hortons and their plans to continue to strengthen the customer engagement and loyalty strategies?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, so Tim has a lot on the hopper right now when it comes to loyalty strategy that are ultimately centered around three key areas. So driving value for our guests and making sure that they are getting the most out of the program and they're aware of all the ways they can get the most out of our program. Two, driving engagement within our app Digital is, you know, digital? First, so through games and contests, as well as other offers and member benefits that are exclusively available within our app. And then, finally, driving increased usage of our digital ordering channels. There's lots of value that that brings for both our guests, but also for our restaurant operations, so that's a key area of focus for us going forward.
Speaker 1:
Excellent. And lastly, what can Loyalty360 do to help you and the Tim Hortons team with your customer loyalty efforts?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, so we were talking about it when we came back from the conference and really conferences like Loyalty360, where there's not only fantastic, relevant content presented on the main stage but there's also those breakout sessions where we can really hear and learn from other brands and industry leaders it's so, so valuable and I was taking so many different notes. So really just continuing to foster that platform for industry sharing, I think, is a key area that you can continue to help us.
Speaker 1:
That's awesome. Well, thank you both for taking the time to speak with us today. It was great getting to know you and know a little bit more about the Tim Hortons efforts around customer loyalty. You guys do such a great job, so thank you very much for taking the time to speak with us.
Speaker 2:
Thank you so much for having us. It's great. Yes, thank you so much.
Speaker 1:
And now we have our quickfire questions. I think, shannon, we're going to go with you first. We like to limit these answers to one word or short phrase answers, so the video is under 60 seconds, so I don't get in trouble with Megan and Carly, and the rest of the content team. So first off, what's your favorite word?
Speaker 2:
Love there you go.
Speaker 1:
What's your favorite word? Love, there you go. What's your least favorite word? Easy moist what excites you?
Speaker 2:
um. What excites me right now? Um is kind of decorating and getting our new house ready we just okay.
Speaker 1:
What do you find tiresome?
Speaker 2:
Unpacking.
Speaker 1:
What book? Is there a book that you have that you'd like to recommend to colleagues?
Speaker 2:
I just read the Year of yes by Shonda Rhimes, which was really great, especially for women in the workforce, so I'd recommend that one.
Speaker 1:
Okay, excellent. And what is your favorite? Tim Hortons menu item.
Speaker 2:
I'm a traditionalist. I'm going to go with a coffee with two milks, but if I get a donut it's a sour cream glaze.
Speaker 1:
Okay, there you go. Uh, what profession under the one you currently have would you like to attend?
Speaker 2:
Vet.
Speaker 1:
I love animals and I'd love to Uh, and what do you enjoy doing that you don't often get a time to time to do.
Speaker 2:
I really like to go running and I don't get as much time to go running outside.
Speaker 1:
So I'll say running, okay, running. It is then. And who inspired you to be the person you are today?
Speaker 2:
I have to give to my parents. They were great role models, both professionally and as parents.
Speaker 1:
Okay, and how do you want to be remembered by your friends and family?
Speaker 2:
Someone who's fun loving, caring and kind.
Speaker 1:
Okay, great. And now, ricardo, quick fire. What is your favorite word? Life, excellent. What is your least favorite word Hate, Okay. What excites. You?
Speaker 3:
Being around friends and family. What do you find tiresome? Not being active. Staying at home all the time Hate.
Speaker 1:
Okay, is there a book that you enjoy reading or have read that you recommend to colleagues?
Speaker 3:
Yeah, I read the book a few years ago and I recently watched the series. It's the Foundation by Isaac Asimov. It's a great book to read and the series is also nice.
Speaker 1:
Okay, excellent. What's your favorite Tim Hortons menu, aside from coffee?
Speaker 3:
Yeah good, I don't drink coffee. It's the Loaded Wrap, a platform that we launched a few years ago, and it's delicious.
Speaker 1:
Okay, what profession, other than the one you currently have, would you like to attempt?
Speaker 3:
If I could, you know, go back in time, I would love to attempt to be a tennis player. I love tennis. I was very good at it, but I never tried a profession.
Speaker 1:
Okay, what do you enjoy doing that you often don't get a time to do?
Speaker 3:
I love traveling and since I came to Canada, I haven't been traveling enough.
Speaker 1:
Okay, who inspired you to become the person that you are today?
Speaker 3:
My grandparents. They were amazing and, yeah, I am what I am today because of them, same here and my wife the grandparents is great.
Speaker 1:
We don't hear that often, that's awesome, and how do you want to be remembered by your friends and family?
Speaker 3:
Someone who was always there for them whenever they need.
Speaker 1:
Excellent. Well, thank you very much for taking the time to do the quickfire, as who was always there for them whenever they need? Excellent. Well, thank you very much for taking the time to do the quickfire as well, and thanks for the interview and looking forward to hearing more from you guys this year.
Speaker 3:
Thanks, mark, thank you so much, thank you, thank you so much and thank you everyone for taking the time to listen today.
Speaker 1:
Make sure you join us back for another edition of our Leaders in Customer Loyalty series. Until then, have a wonderful day.
