The Westfield Strategy: How Free Toilets Build Customer Loyalty

I walked through Westfield Forum des Halles in Paris yesterday. Hours later, this email landed in my inbox: “Thanks for your visit! Please rate your experience.”

Here’s what makes this brilliant: I didn’t buy anything. I didn’t even enter a store.

The Strategy They Don’t Tell You About

To access Westfield’s free toilets, you need their loyalty card. Not a physical card—a digital wallet card you download to Apple Wallet or Google Wallet.

Every time you walk past a sensor—whether near the toilets, a store entrance, or an event space—they know you were there.

Then the automation kicks in:

• Post-visit thank you email ✓
• Review request with star rating ✓
• Personalized comeback offers ✓
• Event invitations based on visit patterns ✓

They’re not tracking transactions. They’re tracking presence.

Why This Changes Everything for Restaurants

The largest mall chain in Europe uses this exact playbook. But here’s what most restaurant owners miss:

You don’t need to be Westfield to do this.

You already have something better than free toilet access:

• Exceptional food
• Memorable service
• A reservation system that knows when customers arrive

What you’re missing: the automated communication that happens after the visit.

The Restaurant Equivalent

When a customer completes their meal at your restaurant:

What Westfield does:

• Automatic post-visit email
• Star rating request
• Personalized incentive to return
• All triggered by presence detection

What you can do:

• Automatic thank you after dining
• Review request with direct link
• Smart gift card for next visit (lunch only, 2-week validity)
• All triggered by table completion

Same psychology. Same automation. Better economics—because you’re not building malls, you’re filling tables.

But Here’s the Question Westfield Already Answered

Is one post-visit email enough to build a relationship?

Do all customers behave the same way?

Should your first-time visitor get the same message as your VIP who visits every week?

No. And Westfield knows this.

They don’t send everyone the same email. They segment:

• First-time visitors get welcome sequences
• Regular shoppers get exclusive previews
• Inactive members get win-back offers
• VIPs get private event invitations

Each customer segment gets a different journey.

How This Works for Restaurants: Two Real Examples

Segment 1: The Impressed First-Timer

Behavior: First visit, 5-star satisfaction, higher-than-average spend

Automated Journey:

• Day 1: Thank you email + complimentary dessert gift (lunch only, 14-day validity)
• Day 7: Reminder that gift expires in one week
• Day 15 (if redeemed): “Welcome back! Here’s what makes you a VIP”
• Day 15 (if not redeemed): Journey ends, added to general marketing

Result: 45% redemption rate, 60% become repeat customers

Segment 2: The Missing Regular

Behavior: Visited 4+ times in past 3 months, now inactive 45 days

Automated Journey:

• Day 45: “We miss you” email with personalized message
• Day 60: Stronger incentive (€10 off next visit, 7-day validity)
• Day 67: Final reminder before offer expires
• If they return: Re-enter active customer journey

Result: 18% reactivation rate, €320 average reactivated customer lifetime value

The insight: Different behaviors require different conversations. Automation makes this possible at scale.

The Technology Gap Just Closed

Westfield spent millions building this system. You don’t have to.

Caramel automates the exact same workflow with intelligent segmentation:

• Automatic customer identification - First-timer, regular, VIP, or inactive
• Behavior-based journeys - Different segments get different sequences
• Smart triggers - Visit completion, time elapsed, gift redemption, inactivity
• Multi-step automation - Thank you → reminder → incentive → win-back
• Performance tracking - See which journeys convert, which segments respond

The difference? Westfield needs sensors and wallet cards. You just need table management integration and smart automation.

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The truth: If mall chains use automated visit tracking to build loyalty, why are you still manually chasing reviews and hoping customers remember to come back?

Book a Free Demo → See how Caramel brings enterprise-level customer journey automation to your restaurant—without the enterprise complexity.