The Southern Guild — Loyalty & Growth for Independent C-Stores

About us

We're in the business of relationships — yours, with your customers.

The Southern Guild exists for one kind of business: the small, independent store that wants a real, lasting relationship with the people who walk through its door. Not foot traffic. Not transactions. Regulars — the customer who's greeted by name, comes back twice a week, and tells their neighbors about you.

That relationship has always been the independent store's greatest strength. You know your neighborhood in a way no regional manager ever will. What you haven't had is the machinery to act on it — to remember every customer, reach them at the right moment, and bring them back when they drift.

We built that machinery, priced it for an independent's budget, and wrapped it in something no software company offers: a real person, in your store, every month. We're not a vendor. We're the partner whose only job is making your customers yours for good.

The gap

The chains didn't out-friendly you. They out-systemed you.

Walk into a 7-Eleven, a Circle K, a Wawa. The clerk doesn't know anyone's name — and it doesn't matter, because the system does. Their app knows every customer, every visit, every purchase. It texts the right offer at the right moment, rewards the birthday, and wins back the regular who hasn't shown in a month. That's not friendliness. That's infrastructure — and they spend millions on it because it works.

What every chain runs

The national playbook

A loyalty app capturing every customer's name, phone, and habits
Points and rewards engineered to make the next visit automatic
Personalized offers and birthday perks sent at the perfect moment
Win-back campaigns that catch a lapsed regular before they're gone
Corporate teams managing every online review and photo
Dashboards that tell them exactly what's working

What The Southern Guild gives you

The same playbook — plus a handshake

Every chain capability above, running automatically for your store
No app for customers to download — a QR scan and a text thread
Your customer list belongs to you, not a franchise
A real person walking your store every single month
One flat price an independent can actually plan around

0

of consumers read online reviews for local businesses — your Google rating is your storefront. (BrightLocal)

0

what it costs to win a brand-new customer vs. keeping the one you already have. (Bain & Co.)

0

profit lift from improving customer retention just 5%. Retention is the whole game. (Bain & Co.)

What we do

Every tool the chains have. Built for your counter.

One setup visit, and all of it runs in the background while you run your store. Here's everything, in detail.

01 — THE LOYALTY ENGINE

Turn walk-ins into regulars you can actually reach.

A small QR sign at your register. Customers scan it, enter their name, phone number, and birthday, and they're a member — in about 20 seconds, with no app to download. A welcome text fires instantly, with their digital loyalty card ready to add to Apple or Google Wallet.

Their rewards card saves straight to Apple or Google Wallet, living right next to their credit cards — points update in real time after every visit
Every visit earns points toward free rewards you decide — coffee, fountain drinks, snacks, whatever makes sense for your store
Automatic birthday texts bring members in on a day they're already celebrating — personalized to your store
Signup works in English or Spanish
Every name, number, and birthday belongs to your store — your customer list, your asset, from day one

Riverside Quick StopMEMBER

Reward points

720 / 1,000

280 points to your free 12-pack

THE SOUTHERN GUILD●●● 4417

02 — SMS MARKETING THAT GETS READ

The one inbox nobody ignores.

Email gets deleted. Texts get read — about 98% of them. Your members hear from your store the same way they hear from their friends.

Every store gets its own calendar — built around your customers, your neighborhood, your slow days and busy ones
We build it together during the monthly visit: you bring the local knowledge, we bring the data — what worked, what didn't, what's next
Automatic lottery jackpot alerts when the Powerball climbs, birthday texts, win-back messages — all fire on their own without you touching anything
Guardrails built in: messages are planned and spaced so customers never feel spammed — every text is a reason to come in, not noise to ignore

This monthCampaign calendar

1234567 891011121314 15161718192021 22232425262728

11th — Jackpot alert · Powerball $740M 14th — Game day cooler special 28th — Payday weekend promo

03 — REPUTATION, HANDLED

More 5-star reviews. Fewer public complaints.

96% of consumers read reviews before trying a local business. Your Google rating is deciding who walks in — whether you manage it or not.

After a visit, happy customers get a friendly nudge toward Google — five stars, captured at the moment they're happiest
Unhappy customers get routed to you privately, so you can fix it before it becomes a one-star review
AI drafts a personal reply to every review — responding boosts your local search ranking, and you'll never leave one hanging
Your dashboard shows the full story: where your rating was on day one, where it is today, and every review earned since joining the Guild — proof the program is working
Fresh photos of your store post to your Google profile every month from the audit visit, so searchers see your best — not a blurry photo from 2017

How the review flow works

✉

"How was your visit today?"

😊 →straight to your Google reviews

😠 →privately to your phone — never public

★

AI drafts your reply. You tap approve.

04 — THE WIN-BACK ENGINE

Most stores never notice a lost regular. Yours will win them back automatically.

A regular who stopped coming doesn't announce it. They just quietly start buying their coffee somewhere else — and it costs 5–7x more to replace them than to bring them back.

The system watches visit patterns for every member, store-wide, every day
At 30 days quiet, a win-back text goes out automatically with a reason to return
You see who came back on your dashboard — recovered regulars, measured in dollars
It never forgets, never gets busy, and never takes a day off

RIVERSIDE QUICK STOP

Day 30 — win-backWe miss you, Dana! Your usual's still here — and your next fountain drink is on us. 🥤

ha! ok ok, coming by after work

Reward unlockedFree drink added to your card. See you soon.

05 — THE OWNER DASHBOARD

Know your store the way the chains know theirs.

One clean screen on your phone. No spreadsheets, no guesswork — just the numbers that tell you whether your regulars are growing.

New members this week, and your total list size
Active vs. lapsed customers — spot trouble before it costs you
Every promotion sent, and the visits it drove
Reviews earned this month, and your rating trend
A monthly AI performance report in plain English, not analyst-speak

Riverside Quick StopTHIS MONTH

0members

0new this month

4.7★Google rating

Member visits — trending up since launch

06 — THE MONTHLY STORE IMAGE AUDIT

The feature no software company on earth offers.

Once a month, we physically walk your store — parking lot to restroom — and photograph exactly what your customers see. Because the person who walks past it every day is the one person who can't see it.

30–50 photos, scored across parking lot, exterior, coolers, restrooms, and signage
AI turns the photos and your month of reviews into a specific, do-this-next report — not vague feedback
Your best photos post to your Google profile, lifting your local search ranking for free
Then we sit down and talk it through — your store, your neighborhood, owner to partner
It's a monthly working session with someone invested in your store. That's the relationship the chains can't buy.

Sample Store Scorecard

Cleanliness

4/5

Signage

5/5

Product Placement

3/5

Staff Friendliness

4/5

Clerk Awareness

2/5

Store Experience

4/5

TOTAL22 / 30

The math

This isn't a cost. It's the highest-margin shelf in your store.

$0

the average c-store basket (NACS)

$0/mo

added sales from just one extra customer visit per day

$0/mo

the whole platform, everything included — one extra daily customer covers it

And the loyalty engine isn't built to bring back one customer — it's built to add a visit a week across hundreds of members, steer five-star reviews to your Google page, and catch every regular who starts to drift. That compounds, month after month.

From the owners

"I sent my first flash deal on a slow Tuesday — 14 people came in that afternoon. I've never had that kind of control before."

Marcus T. · Riverside Quick Stop, Savannah

"The store audit was the thing I didn't know I needed. My cooler doors had been fingerprint-smeared for so long I stopped seeing it."

Sandra K. · Corner Market, Brunswick

"Dana hadn't been in for six weeks. She got the win-back text, came in the next day, and has been back three times since. $250 a month is nothing."

Ray P. · Fuel & Snacks, Statesboro

Before you book

Straight answers to the questions every owner asks.

Isn't $250 a month a lot for a store like mine?

It's a fair number to question. The average c-store sale is $7.80. If this brings back just one extra customer a day, that's about $234 a month — the platform has paid for itself. Everything past one customer is profit. We publish the price because we're comfortable with the math.

Will my customers actually use it?

There's no app to download — that's where the other guys lost everyone. Your customer scans a sign, types their name and phone number, and they're done in 20 seconds. Rewards live in their phone's wallet, offers arrive by text. If they can text their family, they can use this. Works in English and Spanish.

My business is fine. I already know my regulars.

You know the regulars you see. The ones that cost you money are the ones who quietly stopped coming — nobody can name those, because nothing is watching for them. This system notices at 30 days and sends a reason to come back, automatically. It protects the regulars you've already earned.

I tried a loyalty program before. It was a waste of money.

You're probably right — and it probably failed because they shipped a tablet and disappeared. Nobody set it up, trained your clerks, or ever came back. That's exactly why we visit your store every month. If something isn't working, we're standing in your store fixing it — not hiding behind a support line.

I don't have time to run something like this.

That's the point — it runs without you. Setup is one visit. Your clerks just point at the QR sign. Texts, birthday rewards, and win-backs send themselves. The only monthly time it asks of you is the store walkthrough with us, and that's the part that makes you money.

Is there a contract?

Month to month. If we're not earning your $250, you shouldn't be paying it. Your customer list stays with you either way — that data belongs to your store, not to us.

Referral program

Know a store owner who needs this? Send them our way.

We pay $100 cash for every store you refer that signs up. No cap, no expiration — vendors, neighbors, loyalty members, anyone qualifies.

$100

per successful referral

Refer a store →

No contracts. No tiers. No surprises.

See what your customers see.
Book a free store visit.

We'll walk your store, score it, and show you exactly what The Southern Guild would do for it. Free, no strings.

Book my free visit → See pricing — $250/mo