Case Study: Panera Bread achieves expanded contactless service and greater guest choice with Twilio

Panera Bread extends contactless service and increases guest choice with SMS messaging

Panera Bread, a fast‑casual bakery‑cafe known for blending cozy in‑store experiences with digital convenience, accelerated digital services during the pandemic by rolling out curbside pickup nationwide in two weeks. However, geofencing and app‑based notifications only reached customers who had the app and permissions enabled, and Panera wanted a broader, two‑way communication channel to remove friction and better meet guest expectations.

Panera adopted Twilio Programmable Messaging to send SMS order and status updates across web and app orders, enabling contactless dine‑in alerts and two‑way curbside communication. The integration was quick to implement, drove strong guest adoption (about a third opted into SMS in the contactless dine‑in channel), improved satisfaction and associate efficiency, and opened new use cases like shift scheduling, marketing, and conversational commerce.

Panera Bread

Raj Anbalagan

SVP of Digital Technology and Innovation