Setting the Table: Pret A Manger's Journey to Digital Enhancement
Pret A Manger, a beloved sandwich and organic coffee chain boasting a global footprint across 650+ locations, faced challenges in managing its online listings and engaging customers effectively. Transitioning from a previous vendor to Uberall marked a significant turn in its strategy, aiming to sharpen online visibility, ensure information accuracy, and bolster customer interactions.
The quest for a centralized, efficient, and cost-effective listings management solution led Dan Locke, Product Manager: MarTech at Pret A Manger, to Uberall.
Steaming Ahead: Pret A Manger's Recipe for Local Search Success with Uberall
Uberall offered Pret A Manger a comprehensive platform to do just that. Key achievements include:
Improved Google Maps Views: A 40% increase in visibility on Google Search, driving higher customer awareness and store footfall. This also reflects the observable trend of consumers returning to big cities and offices where the majority of Pret’s locations are.
Increased Direction Clicks: With a 19% rise, it's clear that better visibility led to more in-store visits. Pret leaned on Uberall’s experts to ensure that it had clear, representative photos of its locations and freshly made food and organic coffee, avoiding any confusion for potential customers on-the-go.
Enhanced Engagement with Uberall Local Pages: An 80% surge in clicks on content items on store local pages, indicating that users are increasingly seeking updated content and offerings near them.
Dramatic Improvement in Customer Interaction: An 89% increase in response rate to customer reviews and queries with an 18-hour response time, significantly down from the previous response rate and time.
Pret's local search strategy is underpinned by Uberall’s Local Pages product, focusing on enriching their store's local pages with rich content to aid location discovery, especially in complex formats like train stations, inside other stores or mall food courts or varying customer interactions like mobile ordering and pickup, enhancing customer convenience. These local pages are powered by Uberall and hosted on Pret's global websites for total control and quick update to ensure customers never miss a beat.
Spotlighting Local Offers and Events: Tapping into Google’s vast reach
Pret has been using the Uberall Publisher to enhance its digital footprint, particularly by highlighting special deals, promotions, and events across its locations through Google Business Profile posts. As their Google Business Profile had over 100 million impressions in 2023 alone, the investment in this channel yields high visibility and traffic.
This approach ensures that when customers search for Pret A Manger or related terms, they are not only met with standard business information but are also presented with timely, engaging content about what's happening at their local Pret. From seasonal menu launches to community events, Uberall Publisher enables Pret to dynamically update its listings, making it easier for customers to discover and participate in these unique experiences.
Navigating Local Search with Pret's Hybrid Franchise Model
Pret A Manger's hybrid franchise model merges company-owned and franchisee-run shops into a global network. This approach facilitates expansion into new markets, like exclusively franchise-operated locations in India, while keeping a mix of ownership models elsewhere. Navigating the complexities of local search with a model like this requires a strategy that's both flexible and cohesive.
A delicate balance is crucial for ensuring that each Pret shop can adapt to its local context and customer base, providing a personalized experience that feels both distinctly Pret and uniquely local. However, managing a consistent brand presence across these diverse operations poses a challenge.
To bridge the gap between autonomy and unity, Pret utilizes Uberall's comprehensive suite of tools. Uberall's platform enables Pret to syndicate accurate, up-to-date information from a central shop database informed by franchisees to various listings, including Google My Business and other local search platforms. This ensures that whether a customer is searching for a Pret in the bustling streets of London or a mall in Mumbai, they find correct and consistent information.
On the Horizon
As Pret A Manger continues to leverage innovative location marketing tools, the future looks particularly exciting with the anticipated integration of Google’s AI Overviews (formerly known as SGE). Customers will soon encounter a rich array of interactive widgets, videos, images, and more, all curated directly on the Google Search results page. With AI Overview’s ability to dominate the top of search results, overshadowing even the Local Pack, it’s more important than ever to represent accurate information online.
Dan Locke, Product Manager: MarTech at Pret A Manger, UK, emphasizes the critical nature of this preparation: “AI Overviews make it more important than ever to keep our data accurate because Google is going to be pulling that listings info and however they choose to shape it, we need to make sure the information is accurate.”
Looking forward, Pret aims to grant shops greater autonomy through direct interaction with Uberall. This shift could empower shop managers to tailor their digital presence more dynamically to local needs and preferences, while still aligning with Pret's overarching brand standards. This move would not only enhance the agility of Pret's local search strategy but also deepen engagement with customers by leveraging the localized insights and responsiveness of franchisees.
These efforts, and the continued success of its location marketing strategy so far, ensure that Pret A Manger’s global network of shops remains easily discoverable, engaging, and relevant to the needs of today's tech-savvy consumers.
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