Tom Kehler of Satmetrix

Tom Kehler is the VP and General Manager of Community Solutions for Satmetrix. Prior to the merger with Satmetrix, Mr. Kehler was Chairman and Founder of Informative. Prior to Informative, Mr. Kehler was Chairman and CEO of Recipio from 1998 through January, 2002. Recipio developed and marketed the technology platform for Adaptive Conversations ® and relationship marketing platform acquired by Informative. Before Recipio he was Chief Executive Officer of Connect, Inc. (CNKT), which pioneered application software for on-line communities and Internet-based e-commerce. Connect lead the charge of building large scale e-commerce applications for major brands. Before Connect, Mr. Kehler was Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of IntelliCorp (INAI). IntelliCorp was the leading provider of application development software that incorporated expert systems, artificial intelligence and object oriented programming. Mr. Kehler has served on the Information Technology Advisory Board of the National Research Council. Mr. Kehler received a Ph.D. in applied physics from Drexel University.

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WOMM-U: Day Two Case Study: Houlihan’s Restaurant

The final session of the conference featured a case study on Houlihan’s Restaurants, presented by Jen Gulvik, VP Marketing, Houlihan’s Restaurants, Inc.

In the past few years Houlihan’s has undergone a tremendous transformation. Spreading the word about this has been an interesting challenge. They’re not a national advertiser. While they are in some major markets, they don’t have the budget that many of their competitors do.

The task was to see if they could turn their customers into a marketing force. In the past many of their restaurants had established e-mail lists, it was one-way only. However they do receive a large amount of customer feedback, and this is increasing. She thinks this matches the trend of customers taking control of their brand experiences.

At a WOMMA event a year ago, Jen realized that they’re in an industry (food & beverage) that is heavily talked about. Why not take advantage of that?

First step was to determine who their brand lovers were. They created and sent out a survey. Some quick metrics: 114,949 sent, 18,695 received. From there they began to build out a program, an advisory group. This group would advise them on menu choices and other brand assets. They also developed a program for the HouliFAN’s.

The primary communication channel with the advisory group is the HQ, a password protected site that allows Houlihan’s to provide information to the fans. It also allows them to participate in coversations and get feedback.

One of the first things they did was ask the advisory group, what would you do? Early on they saw an issue related to the removal of fajitas from the menu, or as Jen said, a fajita-freakout.

Once the site was established with the advisory group, it expanded to the entire fan-base, the HouliFANs.

Soon afterwards they rolled out a new menu and used their fans and the site to spread the word. They found that 35% of the fans had spread WOM about the menu.

The program is still new and growing but they’ve been thrilled with the response and feedback they’ve received.

Tom Kehler of Satmetrix

On the agenda

WOMM-U: Day Two Case Study: Houlihan’s Restaurant

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