Why Going App-less Could Leave Customers Cold

Most loyalty and marketing analysts take the easy road. They wait until a program has either soared to success or crashed in failure before offering their analysis, comfortably playing Monday morning quarterback in the safety of 20/20 hindsight.

But that’s not my style. I’m going to go out on a limb—right here, right now—and make a bold prediction about Portillo’s upcoming app-less loyalty program before it even launches. I’m putting my reputation on the line because, quite frankly, I firmly believe I see where this is headed. And while most people say, “I hate to say I told you so,” I will gladly admit that I very much enjoy saying it. So, let’s break this down before I miss my chance.

Portillo’s, the beloved Chicago-based fast-casual brand known for its Italian beef sandwiches and Chicago-style hot dogs, recently announced an ambitious plan to revolutionize its loyalty strategy. During 2025, the company will introduce an app-less digital loyalty card, a system designed to eliminate friction by linking customer rewards directly to credit cards and delivering promotions via text message. In theory, this move promises to simplify the loyalty experience—no app downloads, no logins, no barcodes to scan. Just seamless, automatic tracking of customer purchases.

But while this frictionless approach may seem innovative, it also risks undermining the very essence of what makes loyalty programs successful. Loyalty is not just about convenience; it’s about engagement, emotional connection, and a sense of progression that makes customers feel valued. Sometimes even purposeful frustration. By stripping away the interactive touchpoints that turn casual customers into true brand advocates, Portillo’s could be heading down a dangerous path—one that may leave its loyalty program forgettable and ineffective.

A Digital Strategy Stuck in Neutral

To understand why Portillo’s app-less approach could be a misstep, it’s important to first look at where the company currently stands in its digital evolution. Right now, Portillo’s mobile app—available on the Apple App Store (2.3/5.0) and Google Play (3.2/5.0)—is little more than an online ordering tool. It lacks any features that drive real engagement, offers no rewards or incentives for repeat visits, and is essentially a thinly veiled wrapper for Olo, a third-party online ordering system. 

Customer criticisms reveal their dissatisfaction, particularly over the lack of a rewards system. One reviewer succinctly noted, “Okay, but I don’t think it has any kind of reward offers, so it’s not really worth the download.” Another customer summed it up thusly: “There is no rewards system like building points towards free food. No built-in coupons. I avoid fast food places who don’t offer these.” Unfortunately, customers have also discovered that many menu items in the app carry a hidden surcharge of $0.30 to $0.50 per item over walk-in prices, further eroding trust and discouraging digital adoption.

Rather than investing in a richer, more compelling mobile experience that fosters true customer engagement, Portillo’s appears to be taking an even more hands-off approach in 2025. Bypassing an app entirely in favor of an invisible, background loyalty tracking system, the company is betting that convenience alone will drive customer retention.

Unfortunately, history has shown that successful loyalty programs don’t just track purchases—they create compelling reasons for customers to return, interact, and deepen their relationship with the brand. With a digital experience that frustrates more than it delights, Portillo’s current app has already squandered an opportunity to build loyalty through seamless, rewarding interactions.

Instead of fixing these issues and creating an app that customers actively enjoy using, the company is opting to remove the app entirely in favor of an invisible, background loyalty tracking system. But if Portillo’s digital approach has failed this badly so far, what confidence should customers have that the new system will be any better?

The Hidden Risks of an App-less Loyalty Program

At first glance, Portillo’s new strategy would be appealing to any loyalty or marketing executive. A card-linked rewards system will eliminate the hassle of scanning QR codes or opening an app to track progress. A text-based sign-up process will ensure that even customers who avoid downloading apps can still participate. And by making loyalty “automatic,” the company hopes to encourage more widespread adoption.

But this convenience comes at a significant cost. By removing the interactive and experiential elements of a digital loyalty program, Portillo’s risks cheapening the customer interaction. Instead of actively engaging with a well-crafted app filled with visual and sensory elements that reinforce the brand, customers will be left with an impersonal, passive system that functions more like an afterthought than a compelling reason to return.

Looking at many of the world’s most successful loyalty programs—Starbucks Rewards, Chick-fil-A One, and McDonald’s Rewards—we see that engagement drives retention more than mere convenience. Starbucks, for example, has transformed its app into a dynamic digital experience where customers track their progress, participate in challenges, and receive personalized offers based on their habits. The result is a program that customers actively enjoy using, rather than simply accepting as a passive background process. As these brands have all clearly learned, loyalty without engagement is loyalty without value.

Portillo’s, in contrast, risks removing itself from the customer’s digital life rather than embedding itself deeper into it. Without an engaging interface, interactive rewards, or personalized experiences, there’s little emotional connection left. The best loyalty programs make customers feel recognized, appreciated, and involved. By eliminating these touchpoints, Portillo’s could reduce its loyalty program to a purely transactional experience, which risks making it both forgettable and ineffective.

The proven playbook in restaurant and retail industries combines seamless convenience with engagement-driven experiences. The first principle of modern loyalty success is interactivity. Customers must have an active reason to engage with the brand beyond transactions.

This is why companies like Domino’s, Panera, and Chipotle invest in loyalty apps that offer progress tracking, exclusive challenges, and personalized offers. When customers see their progress, anticipate rewards, and interact with a fun, gamified system, they return more frequently and spend more per visit.

Personalization is another critical factor. Brands like Starbucks and Dunkin’ use data-driven insights to customize offers based on individual preferences, ensuring that customers feel like the program is built for them. A great loyalty program should not only reward purchases but actively shape customer behavior by suggesting new menu items, offering tailored discounts, and recognizing high-value customers.

Gamification remains one of the most powerful—yet poorly understood and executed—drivers of engagement. Customers love earning points, unlocking tiers, and achieving status levels that make them feel special. Programs like Chick-fil-A One and McDonald’s Rewards have proven that tiered structures—where loyal customers gain access to higher-value perks over time—dramatically increase repeat visits.

Finally, the best loyalty programs today use a blend of frictionless automation and engaging user experiences. A great example is Amazon Prime, which combines seamless digital tracking with meaningful, ongoing benefits that actively keep customers engaged.

A loyalty program should be more than just an invisible discount tracker. The best programs create videogame-like habit loops—psychological triggers that encourage repeat visits, reward progress, and make customers feel emotionally connected to the brand. When customers see their points accumulate, unlock achievements, or reach new loyalty tiers, they experience a sense of progress and anticipation. Portillo’s approach could eliminate these elements entirely and potentially even cheapen the brand-customer experience.

Additionally, without a dedicated app, Portillo’s will be losing a powerful tool for personalized marketing and customer engagement. A well-designed app allows brands to push targeted promotions, showcase limited-time offers, and introduce gamified challenges that keep customers engaged. Text messages, while useful for basic communication, are far too limited in interactivity and depth to create a truly immersive loyalty experience.

The Three Pillars of Active Engagement

An even deeper dive on Portillo’s customer loyalty strategy reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of what stimulates revenue-driving engagement. Loyalty programs that truly build strong brand-customer relationships  and positive ROI outcomes have shown the greatest success when they adhere to the three essential pillars of engagement:

1. Introducing Interesting Choices – A great loyalty program should present customers with meaningful decisions that shape their experience. Starbucks, for example, gives customers the option to spend stars immediately on small rewards or save up for bigger perks, making their loyalty journey interactive and strategic. Without a mechanism for active decision-making, Portillo’s future system will offer no sense of agency, making participation feel passive rather than engaging.
2. Giving Those Choices Consequence – The best loyalty programs ensure that every customer action leads to a tangible result, reinforcing behavior and encouraging continued participation. Chick-fil-A One rewards members based on tiered status levels, where greater spending unlocks exclusive benefits like priority ordering and VIP perks. When a loyalty program fails to create consequences for customer actions, it removes any sense of progress or accomplishment, reducing the motivation to stay engaged. Portillo’s app-less model may automate rewards, but without clear milestones, achievements, or differentiated rewards, customers will lack incentive to track their progress or feel a sense of achievement.
3. Adding Time Pressure – A well-designed loyalty program strategically incorporates urgency to drive engagement. McDonald’s, for example, uses limited-time bonus points promotions, encouraging customers to visit more frequently to maximize their rewards. Starbucks regularly introduces seasonal challenges and short-term point multipliers, prompting customers to act quickly or miss out. Without these temporal engagement mechanics, Portillo’s loyalty system will fail to create urgency, leading to passive, infrequent participation instead of habitual engagement.

By failing to integrate these three pillars of engagement into its upcoming loyalty strategy, Portillo’s risks building a program that customers barely notice, let alone actively engage with. The result won’t feel like a rewarding experience—it will feel like a forgettable background process that passively tracks purchases. And if customers don’t feel a reason to interact with the brand, their loyalty will be just as passive—if not nonexistent.

Final Thoughts: Convenience Alone is Not the Future of Loyalty

Portillo’s has correctly identified that friction can be a barrier to loyalty program adoption. But in its eagerness to eliminate friction, it may also be stripping away everything that makes loyalty programs truly effective.

A great loyalty program doesn’t just run quietly in the background—it keeps customers actively engaged, emotionally invested, and motivated to return.

If Portillo’s follows through with this app-less, engagement-free approach, there’s a real risk that it won’t deliver the lasting loyalty the brand is hoping for. If brands want to truly drive loyalty, they must think beyond transactions. 

Without meaningful choices, a sense of progress, or interactive experiences that make participation enjoyable, customers may simply forget about it altogether. Because in loyalty, as in life, when there’s nothing to engage with, there’s nothing to stick around for.