Popeyes Chicken & Biscuits restaurants are encouraging diners to talk back. And about six thousand of them are doing that every month.

QSR Magazine

What they have to say is of special interest to Jim Haayen, Popeyes’ project manager for Cajun hospitality-the company’s equivalent to customer service director. That’s why Popeyes implemented cutting-edge telephone and web-based feedback systems in the chain’s 121 corporate-owned stores last year.

“It is in our best interest to understand what our customers want and handle their issues quickly,” says Haayen. “It makes a difference to customers when you get back to them quickly.”

After all, “quick” is the operative word in this industry. But like many other quick-serve chains, Haayen says Popeyes’ traditional methods of gathering customer feedback-using comment cards and reactively responding to customer complaints at the restaurant level-were not as effective as they could be. As a result, the chain was losing valuable opportunities to interact with its customers.

Haayen’s quest for a more proactive solution to gather, process, and analyze feedback led him to Tell Us About Us, Inc., a customer feedback program developed in Winnipeg, Manitoba. The Canadian company is one of a growing number of companies targeting quick-service chains with proprietary technology-based tools. “Quick-service restaurant operators work in a rapidly changing environment,” says Tyler Gompf, President of Tell Us About Us. “Our tools give management a quick glance at how they are performing from the customer’s point of view at any given time.”

These types of proactive feedback programs are vital to improving customer service in the quick-serve industry, says Dennis Lombardi, executive vice president of Technomic, Inc., a food service consulting firm based in Chicago, because the most harmful complaint is the silent complaint. “You are likely to hear from the extremes-customers with egregious issues or customers who were thrilled-but it’s those quiet, disgruntled customers that are the worst because you don’t get a chance to fix the problem,” he says. “Any type of feedback system that gets you a bigger spectrum of response gives the restaurant a chance to understand where they did not execute against the concept, make amends, and fix the concept.”

With studies showing that acquiring a new customer takes ten times the resources as keeping an existing one, quick-service companies are looking for new tools to help keep their regulars coming back again and again. Popeyes, Arby’s and Dairy Queen are subscribing to this theory, using technology-based tools and real-time data reporting software developed by Tell Us About Us to help improve customer service and boost customer retention rates.

Tell us About Us offers three solutions that can be purchased and implemented together or separately: a call center, and interactive voice response, or IVR, System and a web-based feedback system. Haayen says there are advantages to each. So far, the phone based systems are gathering the most responses from Popeyes patrons.

“If you are using a system that is automated with regard to customer comment or customer complaints, it’s difficult,” he says. “You need a live person there to deal with those issues. Our customers like the fact that they are speaking with a live operator.”

The beauty of the system, says Haayen, is it’s ability to classify the calls when they come in-whether it’s a product or service issue-and automatically distribute the call to the appropriate area supervisors and general managers. The same information is also distributed in e-mail form to management staff through Popeyes internal computer network.

The most popular service at Tell Us About Us is the IVR system. Popeyes depends on both the IVR and web-based systems to gather what Haayen calls “extra feedback” about new products, building design, and other marketing issues. Haayen characterizes the e-mail feature of the web-based system as an invaluable tool. “The e-mail feature gives the ability for area supervisors and restaurant managers to send e-mail responses to customers if we weren’t able to get them quickly on the phone,” he says. “Also, the e-mail responses that we get are something I can offer to the marketing department down the road for sending out promotional materials.” In addition to providing the technology to gather customer data, Tell Us About Us account managers assist Quick-serves in developing questions that help measure activities in individual restaurants. Programs are designed to measure current or potential customer expectations and marketing campaigns.

“This information allows them to take a larger view of their operations,” says Gompf. “[Quick-serves] can intermix questions related to marketing initiatives or customer demographics to better understand who the customers are and where they are coming from.”

But perhaps the most attractive feature of today’s customer feedback programs is the high-tech reporting systems that come along with them. Tell Us About Us has brought the concept of customer feedback programs to a new level with its real-time Automated Customer Information server, or ACSIS, reporting system. Multi-level reporting is tailored to fit the needs of each quick-serve, including customized measurement and program content, multiple unit trend analysis, and CD-ROM and web-based delivery of customer comments. “The reporting system provides us with real-time statistics on the number and types of calls we’ve had, as well as trending information in regard to where we are seeing issues growing or decreasing,” says Haayen. “That has been a tremendous help.”

The base price for the Tell Us About Us suite of products is $150 per month. Haayen says that while he cannot quantify an exact return on the investment, the service would be worth its cost even at three times that price. “The amount of time it takes us to close out a customer report has decreased dramatically because of the ease of use of this system,” he says. “Since we implemented the web-based system with the e-mail option, I have received much less contact from the public calling the corporate offices directly.”

But are all these high-tech, real-time tools really necessary to gather customer feedback and improve service? Absolutely, says Lombardi. “The easier you make it on a customer, the more likely you are to gather that information. The more timely and the more accurate that information is, the better,” he says. “If [quick-serves] don’t explore these and other types of technology-based programs, they will be left behind in the competitive world of the industry.”

But for all the advantages of these new-fangled systems, experts say there are some challenges involved in getting accurate results. You have to make sure it’s goof-proof for the customer, says Lombardi, and tamper-proof by the employees, especially if customer satisfaction is tied to a compensation program.

Still, experts say the benefits far outweigh the challenges in an industry where repeat business is the recipe for success.

By Jennifer LeClaire