Laying the Digital Groundwork for Gong cha 2.0 with First Fan Program
Date Published：2 SEPTEMBER 2025
- Three separate sales systems were not integrated, preventing a full view of customer insights.
- Two separate loyalty programs, paper and digital, led to poor user experience and reduced convenience.
- Lack of cross-channel tracking prevented effective marketing and long-term customer engagement.
- Connected three sales systems via APIs to integrate customer data and uncover new insights.
- Introduced a new point system with digital membership, improving store operations and customer experience.
- Implemented a LINE Mini App to engage existing customers and create a scalable platform for continuous improvement and expansion across 400+ stores.
Originating in Taiwan, Gong cha has grown into a global tea café brand with over 2,000 stores in countries. Since entering Japan in 2015, it has expanded to over 205 locations nationwide (as of August 2025). With carefully selected tea leaves, precise brewing, and lively in-store experiences, Gong cha delivers what it calls “an exceptional tea experience.” In May 2025, the company launched its new fan program, My Gong cha. Three previously separate sales systems, POS registers, self-service kiosks, and mobile ordering via the LINE Mini App, were integrated through APIs, enabling full data connectivity. We enquired about this project, which now serves as the foundation of Gong cha’s digital transformation.
Fan Passion Without Data Insight
Gong cha Japan is targeting nationwide growth to 400 stores by 2028. Mr. Eiichi Kurita, Head of the Gong cha 2.0 Promotion Division, describes the brand’s unique customer structure. “More than 30 million customers visit our stores each year, comparable to the scale of a major theme park. Among them, about 30% visit at least once a month, and this core group actually accounts for 90% of our business,” explains Mr. Kurita.
These figures clearly demonstrate that Gong cha is a brand truly supported by its fans. The company’s main customers are young females, posing the challenge of losing them as their life stages change.
“Our research revealed that when customers graduate and become working professionals, or when they get married and start families, their opportunities to visit cafés tend to decrease. Once we’ve had the chance to build a relationship and someone has become a fan, we want to value that connection and continue it over the long term. That thinking led us to develop our fan program. While many of our core customers are teenage females and females in their twenties, our strategy is not to expand by targeting older generations. Instead, we want to be a brand that grows together with the fans we already have.”
For Gong cha, building long‑term relationships was essential to ensuring sustainable growth. But strengthening this customer connection also exposed technical roadblocks within its IT environment.
To ensure sustainable growth, the brand needed to focus on building long‑term relationships with its customers. While this goal served as the foundation of the project, it also uncovered significant challenges on the IT systems side. Gong cha has a strong culture of embracing challenges without fear of failure, which over the years has encouraged the team to experiment with a variety of initiatives. As a result, three different sales systems (POS registers, self‑service kiosks, and mobile ordering through LINE Mini App) were introduced from separate vendors. However, because these systems were not connected, data could not be integrated across channels.
The lack of integration between systems created serious problems. While mobile ordering provided visibility into both customer profiles and purchase data, in‑store transactions relied entirely on paper point cards,meaning no customer information was recorded. As a result, it was impossible to deliver precise, personalized marketing initiatives. “For example, we might send a coupon to customers who haven’t used mobile ordering for more than three months to encourage them to return. But in reality, all we can see is their mobile ordering purchase information. Some of these customers may still be visiting our stores and purchasing at the register or kiosk.” explains Mr. Kurita.
Loyalty management posed another issue. “We were running two different point card systems, a paper version for POS and self‑service kiosks, and a digital version for mobile orders. The way points were accumulated and rewards were earned differed depending on the channel, which made the experience inconvenient for customers. And when we tried to increase the share of mobile ordering, the paper card actually became a bottleneck.”
Fast‑Track Development Project Completed in Just 18 Months
In late 2023, Gong cha responded to these challenges by initiating plans for a new fan program and its supporting systems. For this initiative, the company partnered with Classmethod’s Business Consulting Team and Prismatix, a Classmethod Group company and provider of the “fannaly” platform for managing memberships, coupons, and points.
Mr. Kurita explains why Classmethod was selected, “It wasn’t just about having access to ‘fannaly,’ a SaaS platform for membership, coupon, and point management. What we really valued was Classmethod’s ability to support us from the program design phase, while at the same time advancing system development. That combination was a decisive factor in choosing them as our partner.”
As a result, the development timeline was significantly shortened. The project began in January 2024, and just 16 months later, in May 2025, the new fan program My Gong cha successfully launched. Another major factor, Mr. Kurita notes, was the stance Classmethod took as a committed partner. “Classmethod’s role went beyond simply delivering SaaS. They took the time to deeply understand the business challenges we were facing, proposed functional improvements to address them, and worked alongside us with a genuine sense of ownership as part of the project team.
Revolutionizing the Customer Experience Through Unified Systems
The launch of the My Gong cha program in May 2025 was a major milestone, not only for marketing but also for the IT systems behind it.
The challenge was to connect three separate sales systems via API integration, enabling seamless data sharing and full visibility of customer information and purchase history across channels. This achievement made it possible to establish a comprehensive CRM covering the entire customer base and to execute data‑driven initiatives tailored to customer needs.
One of the standout initiatives was the “ENJOY U22 Discount” campaign for customers aged 22 and under. What had originally been a student discount requiring a physical student ID was redesigned as an age‑based service. With the new system, eligibility was verified automatically by referencing the customer’s date of birth whenever their membership barcode was scanned. A process that once required staff to manually check IDs was now fully automated, making age verification possible not only at staffed registers but also at self‑service kiosks and through mobile ordering. This change streamlined operations and significantly improved the customer experience.
“The student discount had not been available through mobile ordering. Customers who typically used the app had to complete their purchase at a POS register or self‑service kiosk to receive the discount, which led to inconsistencies in point accumulation. By integrating all of our sales systems with fannaly via API, we removed these barriers and established a single, centrally managed point program.”
On its own, modifying existing systems and connecting them through APIs may not seem like an especially complex project. The bigger challenge in this project was managing five different parties: Gong cha Japan, Classmethod, and the vendors responsible for the POS registers, self‑service kiosks, and mobile ordering systems.
Rather than developing each component sequentially, everything had to move forward simultaneously. The reason was simple, for customers to truly feel the benefits of the My Gong cha fan program and enjoy a seamless experience, it needed to function consistently across every sales channel.
Mr. Kurita gives high praise to Classmethod for taking on not only the development of the My Gong cha systems using fannaly, but also the overall project management. Their leadership kept the effort moving smoothly despite its complexity.
“We held weekly meetings with all five parties, with Classmethod taking the lead in facilitating discussions and directly communicating with each vendor. This allowed the project to move forward very smoothly. By using the project management tool Backlog, we were able not only to clarify tasks for each vendor but also to track progress in real time. When delays occurred, Gong cha was able to notify the relevant vendor directly, ensuring that roles and responsibilities across all parties functioned exactly as intended.”
Speed and Success Driven by Company Culture
The success of such a large‑scale project was also due to Gong cha Japan’s organizational structure. The Gong cha 2.0 Promotion Division sits directly under Corporate Planning and has a unique structure that brings together Business Development and the IT Division within the same department, an uncommon but highly effective configuration.
“Our IT managers are extremely capable. In addition to handling system development and maintenance, they place strong emphasis on the underlying business issues, always asking ‘What are we doing this for?’. Because of this perspective, we have been able to build a relationship where the typical conflicts between business and IT divisions rarely occur, which allowed the project to progress smoothly.”
Additionally, Gong cha’s corporate culture of “not fearing failure and embracing challenges” supported fast decision‑making. With this foundation, Gong cha Japan demonstrated clear ownership of the project, maintained smooth communication with vendor partners, and kept the initiative on schedule.
Evolving into a Next‑Generation Brand
The My Gong cha program marked an important step in the company’s long‑term growth strategy. As Mr. Kurita emphasizes, “Digitizing is only a means. What comes first is how the customer experience will change, and we are utilizing digital tools to make that happen.”
With this focus on enhancing and transforming the customer experience, My Gong cha exceeded expectations immediately after launch, acquiring more than one million new members within its first month. Membership continued to grow steadily, surpassing 1.5 million within three months and far exceeding the company’s initial annual target.
They were also able to uncover customer insights that had not been apparent before, including the identification of high‑frequency customers who visited several dozen times a month, a segment the business had never previously recognized.
“Once the foundation is in place, you can simply update it as circumstances change. The important first step was transitioning to a digital platform.”
As Gong cha works toward doubling its store count from 200 to 400 by 2028, the digital infrastructure created through this project will serve as the core of its growth strategy.
Classmethod will continue to support Gong cha’s business growth, while expanding our expertise more widely by supporting other companies design, adopt or upgrade fan programs, coupon, point, and ID platforms built on “fannaly”.