CUSTOMER SUCCESS SPOTLIGHT
Ben & Jerry’s Factory Experience made one tweak that moved 73% of their tour bookings online
When Ben & Jerry’s moved from a manual booking process to online ticketing, they found they drove better guest experiences and deeper consumer insights.
Ben & Jerry's Factory Experiences
Ben & Jerry’s Factory Experience made one tweak that moved 73% of their tour bookings online
Ben & Jerry’s Factory Experience brought its ticketing system into the now for a smoother customer experience and more visibility.
73% of tours now booked online
With AnyRoad’s online booking platform, Ben & Jerry’s Factory Experiences created a more seamless experience to meet guest expectations.
1,100 visitors per day
Ben & Jerry’s welcomes an influx of factory tour visitors, and now can avoid long lines and waits with AnyRoad’s platform.
Visitors from 50 states
With AnyRoad’s analytics, Ben & Jerry’s can glean new insights and learn more about their visitors.
CASE STUDY
Re-designing the booking process
For more than 40 years, Ben & Jerry’s has been a beloved brand and a global phenomenon. In fact, the company’s ice cream is so popular that millions of fans have made the trek to Waterbury, Vermont for a guided tour of the company’s original factory, along with a gift shop and scoop shop, known as Ben & Jerry’s Factory Experiences.
Despite sold out factory tours, buying tickets hasn’t always been easy, mostly because they couldn’t be purchased online. “The only option was to show up day-of to purchase tickets onsite for the next available tour, which at peak times might be a two hour wait” recalls Samantha Lacasse, the general manager of the factory.
“Unfortunately, since we were getting as many as 2,000 visitors a day, our guests often had to wait in line for a half hour or more just to get a ticket,” says Lacasse. “Worse, they then might then have to wait up to another three hours for their tour to begin. That wasn’t ideal for them or for us.”
Another drawback was how manual tracking visitors was — a classic Excel spreadsheet and printed physical tickets. They had a double whammy on their hands. Despite the tedious process, they weren’t able to make up for the effort with useful insights.
“All we were able to track was how many adults, children, and senior tickets we were selling,” says Lacasse. "We were eager to gain deeper, data-driven insights using AnyRoad's platform that would help us to demonstrate the impact and value our tours were having within the brand."
Measure. Smooth. Create.
With AnyRoad, Ben & Jerry's Factory Experiences aimed to:
- Measure the demographic data of who was coming in and how the tour impacted their brand perception.
- Smooth out the booking process by bringing ticket reservations online.
- Create a better experience through analytics and consumer reporting.
After talking to several vendors to relieve their ticketing woes, Lacasse and her team landed on AnyRoad. “Everyone we spoke to there was so helpful and knowledgeable. They taught us about the value the platform could deliver, which we quickly realized could improve not just the ticketing process, but the overall guest experience as well.”
Starting July 2022, Ben & Jerry’s factory tours were powered by AnyRoad’s experiential marketing platform. Now visitors can buy their tickets online through the Ben & Jerry’s website. After receiving a confirmation email, all they have to do is show up on the date and time of the tour they selected. That’s right — the visitors now can book tickets ahead of time.
Beyond online ticketing, the AnyRoad platform helps Ben & Jerry’s Factory Experiences collect valuable first-party data to better understand who attends the tours and what impact they have on the brand. Guests who bought tickets online are asked to fill out a pre- and post-experience survey. These questions capture demographic information and feedback about their experience.
With AnyRoad Atlas, the insights and intelligence side of the platform, Ben & Jerry’s Factory Experiences can use the survey and purchase data to learn who their guests are and how taking the tour impacted brand perception. They can also use the analytics and reporting to evaluate the tour experience impact on purchasing behavior, brand loyalty, and overall ROI.
Focus Areas
Ben & Jerry's Factory Experiences aimed to focus on the the following areas:
- Automate the reservation process — By bringing reservations online, they did away with pulling manual Excel reports and printed tickets. They saved their customers, and their staff, hours of time.
- Understand who was visiting — Through first-party data collection, they could better understand who attended their tours and what impact the tours themselves had on the brand at large.
- Reduce tedious heavy lifting — Make group reservations and invoice delivery easier across the board by re-directing large group bookings to the online system.
While it’s still early days, the impact of AnyRoad has been immediate. Customers no longer have to wait in line to buy their tickets or kill hours hanging around until their tour begins. That also means the factory is less crowded, making for a more pleasant experience as guests peruse the gift shop or visit the scoop shop for a scoop of their favorite flavor in a freshly-baked waffle cone.
Using AnyRoad has also automated the more tedious parts of the day-to-day. “It’s much easier to handle group reservations and send invoices,” says Amy Weller, Admin & Marketing Coordinator. “And we’re able to measure where our visitors are coming from and their net promoter scores.”
Since implementing AnyRoad and re-opening its doors, 73% of Ben & Jerry’s factory tours have been booked online. “It’s been great to finally be able to give people the convenience and flexibility they’ve long wanted. As we ramp back up to our pre-pandemic levels of tour hours and operations, using AnyRoad is going to make an even bigger impact.”
As the Ben & Jerry’s Factory Experiences team increasingly uses the data available to them through AnyRoad, being able to demonstrate the value that their tours are having on the brand will be incredibly valuable. “It will be the hot fudge on top of what’s already proven to be a very sweet upgrade for us,” says Lacasse.
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