Krispy Kreme Doughnut Japan Co., Ltd. the operators of the popular US doughnut brand in Japan, uses Mixpanel to analyze a combination of members’ in-app behavior and offline purchase data from their store’s POS systems. This enabled them to identify the characteristics in the buying behavior of their top repeat customers, resulting in increased conversion and retention.

Visualizing the customer journey by integrating app data and store POS data

Krispy Kreme Doughnut Japan’s menu offers a wide range of product and purchase options, including single items, sets with drinks, and dozen sets (sets of 12 doughnuts at a discounted price). This made it tricky for them to clearly identify which products and purchase options helped to create repeat customers.

Outside of the app, Krispy Kreme Doughnut Japan also had a robust mobile app but the app data and store data were not connected. This limited their ability to holistically understand the purchase patterns of frequent customers, making it difficult for them to figure out how to get new app users to become repeat customers.

The solution to this problem was to use Mixpanel to track user behavior data on the app, and load POS data directly into Mixpanel. They then analyzed the combined data to identify the right measures that drive repeat purchases.

In particular, Krispy Kreme Doughnut Japan zeroed in on new app users who had signed up in the past month and made at least two purchases. They looked at the customer journey in a number of ways, including the types of doughnuts/products or coupons used and the frequency of purchase.

Optimizing newsletter communications and coupons with historical user behavior data

The increased insights gained from Mixpanel analysis was quickly put to good use. One such project was the improvement in their newsletter content and coupon promotions. The Krispy Kreme Doughnut Japan team identified a segment of users that could potentially be turned into repeat customers. They then used Mixpanel’s Cohorts feature to create a cohort of users who became members in the past three months but have not ever purchased the “dozen” doughnuts set. After identifying these users, Krispy Kreme Doughnut Japan then actively introduced the “dozen” set in their newsletters sent on the eve of major holidays like the Obon Festival. 

They had another idea to send the cohort coupons to encourage purchase, and both the newsletter and coupon ideas were A/B tested against each other to identify the most effective method.

Driving users to take actions that drive retention

Krispy Kreme Doughnut Japan also made use of Mixpanel’s Signal report to understand what actions have a strong correlation to repeat purchases. The report helps to unearth specific measures like “how many times a specific event should be executed in how many days”.

The team discovered that many repeat customers were making use of a specific coupon for their second purchase within 14 days of their first purchase.

Armed with this knowledge, Krispy Kreme Doughnut Japan increased the number of push notifications, which used to only be sent on the day after a user’s first purchase. They also created an article on the topic of “How to enjoy Krispy Kreme Doughnuts at a discount” to further educate users, encouraging them to make their second purchase and preventing app uninstalls.

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