Hops and Abacus Combine on Gift Cards

Gene Thurston, IT Director for Hops Restaurant, Bar & Brewery, knew that his company needed to replace its traditional gift certificate program with a stored value gift card. He had evaluated a number of competing products and he’d reached his decision. The challenge? His vendor of choice was not yet supported by Aloha, Hops’ point of sale system. The solution? Partner directly with Abacus, Hops’ POS solution provider, to get the vendor approved.

“Aloha had made a commitment to supporting third-party vendors,” said Thurston, “but our vendor selection was not yet approved. Abacus is our support partner and they do such a terrific job, not just on customer support issues, but on any new initiatives. They’re always there to help us in any way possible. So it was natural for us to rely on Abacus to take the lead.”

Having an integrated system was desirable to Hops. Like other companies with similar programs, Hops was reconciling its gift certificates through a largely manual system. “We looked at standalone systems, but we realized that it was at best a short term solution,” said Thurston. “We knew we wanted an enterprise-wide, integrated solution, so we focused on that exclusively.”

But there was a larger issue as well. As Thurston explained, “From a marketing perspective, the gift card is a big win because you can do so many things with other businesses, such as cross consortium. Now that we have this program, we can explore those other avenues. We’re going to use this as a tool to get the Hops brand in front of a lot more people.”

The task of putting the plan together and executing it fell to Jason Dukes, MIS/POS Administrator for Hops and Earl Hayes, Special Projects Engineer at Abacus. The two worked closely together to ensure that the system worked not only to specification, but within the Hops way of doing business. Once Jason and Earl were confident, they installed and tested the system in the company’s Colorado market. “We tested it on a limited basis for a week in a live environment,” says Dukes. “From a redemption standpoint, we wanted to geographically isolate the test market.” Thurston elaborated: “Once we got the beta copy of the system, the timeline until we went live with it in our restaurants was pretty extraordinary. Jason and Earl did an outstanding job—they deserve all the credit.”

“Considering the scope of the project and the aggressive schedule, it was remarkable that it went in as smoothly as it did and that it functioned as well as it did,” said Dukes. “The feedback from the stores has been excellent. The operators and senior management are extremely happy with the end result.”

While the tangible benefits of the gift card program are undeniable, Thurston sees the intangible benefits as equally compelling. “As time goes on, we expect to see an increase in revenue from gift card sales, but that was not the main objective of the program. Successful implementation of integrated gift cards has opened a gateway for future marketing opportunities, which will increase traffic and create loyalty for the Hops brand.”

Abacus. You can count on us.