Starbird Chicken: Driving 6X SMS Growth and 70% In-Store Kiosk Adoption Through Integrated Technology

Overview

Starbird is a tech-forward quick-service restaurant brand specializing in premium chicken offerings paired with global flavors. Founded in Silicon Valley, Starbird has built a reputation as a trailblazer in restaurant technology, with locations spanning the Bay Area and Southern California. The brand has consistently embraced innovation to enhance the guest experience while driving operational efficiency and sales growth.

Business Name: Starbird Chicken

Interviewee: Casey Hilder, Director of Marketing

No. of Locations: 17 

No. of Bite Kiosks: Deployed in 100% of locations

The Challenge

Before implementing their integrated kiosk and SMS strategy, Starbird faced several challenges:

Customer Retention & Communication: As text messaging became increasingly common in the restaurant industry, guests were being inundated with messages, making it difficult to maintain an engaged subscriber base and communicate effectively with customers.

Meet the Guest Wherever They Are: Traditional SMS opt-in methods, such as website pop-ups and wheel spinners, helped build their list, but Starbird aimed to go further by capturing the attention of their most engaged audience—guests visiting in-store.

Operational Efficiency: As a growing brand committed to staying at the forefront of restaurant technology, Starbird needed solutions that could scale across locations while improving both the customer experience and operational metrics.

The Solution

Starbird partnered with both Bite and Attentive to create a seamless, integrated approach to customer engagement:

Bite Kiosks: Starting with a pilot program in 2019, Starbird deployed Bite’s kiosk solution across their restaurant footprint. When COVID-19 hit six months after the initial pilot, they accelerated the rollout, placing kiosks outside restaurants as a contactless ordering solution. Today, Starbird operates 3-4 kiosks in each of their 15 locations and is designing new restaurants with kiosks as a primary ordering method.

Attentive SMS Integration: Starbird integrated Attentive’s SMS and email platform directly with their Bite kiosks, creating a frictionless opt-in experience. The key to their success was implementing an opt-in process at the kiosk, where guests simply check a clearly marked box during their kiosk ordering experience to join Starbird’s SMS program.

Strategic Segmentation: Beyond collecting opt-ins, Starbird leverages kiosk data to segment its SMS campaigns by market (e.g., LA versus the Bay Area), enabling it to deliver hyper-relevant promotions and communications to specific geographic audiences.

The Results

The integration of Bite kiosks and Attentive SMS has delivered exceptional results across multiple metrics:

Explosive SMS Growth: Starbird grew their SMS subscriber list 6X in just six months following the kiosk integration. They now have over 108,000 SMS opt-ins from kiosks out of a total of 136,000 subscribers—meaning nearly 80% of their SMS audience has opted in via in-store kiosk.

Industry-Leading Kiosk Adoption: 60-70% of in-store orders are now placed through Bite kiosks, demonstrating strong customer acceptance and preference for the self-service experience. The kiosks have consistently driven improvements in average check size and customer retention metrics.

Campaign Performance: SMS campaigns targeted to kiosk-acquired subscribers have significantly outperformed previous efforts. A recent “Salad Monday” promotion in the LA market achieved:

• Nearly 50,000 message deliveries
• 6.5% click-through rate
• The highest success rate ever seen for this recurring promotion

“The most success we’ve ever seen from that promotion was the first time we had used SMS since the integration happened,” noted Casey Hilder, Director of Marketing at Starbird. “Integrating Bite’s kiosk technology with Attentive has been a game-changer for us. It’s allowed us to build a stronger connection with our customers, delivering timely, personalized messages that enhance their experience and keep them engaged with the Starbird brand.”

---

About Bite

Bite is the leading kiosk ordering software trusted by fast-casual, quick-serve restaurants and convenience stores. With our patented Artificial Intelligence technology, Bite Lift, we revolutionize the customer experience by analyzing each transaction in real-time and providing upsell recommendations that consistently yield an impressive 20% increase in check averages.

Our software is designed to be highly customizable, allowing brands to effortlessly tailor the design to align with their unique identity. It is user-friendly, making it easy to manage, and can be quickly deployed to enhance operational efficiency. By seamlessly integrating into existing tech stacks, Bite ensures improved order accuracy, higher average check sizes, increased throughput, and enhanced customer satisfaction for our valued clients. To learn more, visit us at getbite.com.

---

About Attentive

Attentive® is the AI-powered mobile marketing platform transforming the way brands personalize consumer engagement. Attentive enables marketers to craft tailored journeys for every subscriber, driving higher recurring revenue and maximizing campaign performance. Activating real-time data from multiple channels and advanced AI, the platform personalizes content, tone, and timing to help brands deliver 1:1 messages that truly resonate.

With a top-rated customer success team recognized on G2, Attentive partners with marketers to provide strategic guidance and optimize SMS and email campaigns. Trusted by leading global restaurant brands like Blaze Pizza, Jason’s Deli, and Luna Grill, Attentive ensures enterprise-grade compliance and deliverability, supporting trillions of interactions across more than 70 industries. To learn more or request a demo, visit www.attentive.com or follow us on LinkedIn, X (formerly Twitter), or Instagram.