McDonald's Announces Plans For A Rewards Program

For those not lovin' the new Starbucks Rewards program, McDonald's is developing its own loyalty program to be implemented late this year or early next year.

At the UBS Global Consumer Conference earlier this month, McDonald's USA president Mike Andres said, "We're working on a customer-designed loyalty program that we think will be as good as there is out there in the marketplace," quotes Nation's Restaurant News.

The announcement follows the release of a McDonald's mobile app last October, which featured a loyalty offer exclusive to beverages, but was downloaded 7.5 million times, exceeding the company's expectations, according to Andres.

Andres says the new program would be "more robust," and linked to consumer purchases. Program offers will likely have an expiration date, and curated offers for favorite menu items would help to bring back customers where the chain sees a "thawing off." "If we see a thawing off, we can entice them with their favorite products to come to the restaurant," Andres said. "That's the future of customer relationship management. We think it can be a significant sales layer for us."