Over the past 30 years, Jamba Juice evolved from a single smoothie shop in northern California into a largely franchised, multi-unit chain with over 800 stores in the United States and 65 internationally
Jamba Juice: The Ideal Holistic Retail Experience
Jamba Juice not only helped to pioneer the smoothie category, but it also developed its own strong brand, with powerful emotional connections for its guests.
EPAM Continuum and Jamba Juice partnered to design a holistic future state vision for the chain. We considered how menu, service, store design, and the digital experience could blend together to impact consumer perceptions and future growth.
Key Challenges
Jamba Juice knew it had to evolve its customer experience and offering to keep pace, or risk their position as the leader of the smoothie category. Like many established brands, Jamba Juice faced a tricky balance between identifying and delivering transformative new opportunities within their menu and in-store experience, while maintaining their existing customer base. Jamba Juice knew that they needed outside thinking to help craft new experiences that would be relevant to customers and would help boost their brand.
Solution Highlights
We recommended improvements to four key areas for the experience to deliver on:
The Menu: Shift the mix of offerings to find the right balance between indulgent and healthful options that are more relevant to today’s consumers and that the team members could credibly execute.
The Service: Strengthen the connection between the customer and the employee. Tailor personal interactions so that team members can guide customers wherever they are on their healthfulness journey.
The Store Design: Emphasize freshness cues by displaying ingredients in a way the customer can follow the journey of crafting a smoothie. Create multiple pathways that allow for mobile pickup, kiosk ordering, and guided ordering.
The Digital Ecosystem: Build a personal digital experience that allows for mobile ordering, social sharing, loyalty incentives, and health education. Implement in-store kiosks for quick ordering and customization. Create an in-store data visualization screen which displays ordering and ingredient stats.
The Results
The results of EPAM Continuum's work were impactful across Jamba’s entire business team, contributed significantly to the chain’s sale to Focus Brands in August of 2018, and are being factored into the ongoing changes being implemented over the next few years.
You can find the original case study from EPAM Continuum here.
- HEAR FROM THE CUSTOMER
I expected transformational innovation from EPAM Continuum, having worked with them previously at another organization. For Jamba, the stakes were even higher. We needed to understand consumer values, pave a path to greater relevance and differentiation, and prepare for a possible acquisition. This work helped us visualize a new brand experience and socialize it with our cross-functional teams, agency partners, and ultimately Focus Brands, who acquired us a few months later.
Claudia Schaefer
CMO, Jamba Juice
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