Nation's Restaurant News
To help streamline customer feedback and ensure accuracy more operators are turning to Web-based solutions.
While some restaurateurs still use paper-based comment cards, socalled mystery shoppers and third-party tracking studies, those datagathering methods often are inefficient, not timely and not based on actual customer experiences. As a result more chains increasingly are employing online solutions — self-built and self-maintained or delivered through a service bureau to ensure unit-level consistency — to monitor guest experiences.
Such a transformation occurred this past spring at IHOP Corp., operator and franchisor of some 1,280 namesake family-dining eateries around the country. Under the direction of Patrick Piccininno, vice president of information technology, the company erected a Web-browserbased customer relationship management solution from Oracle that includes the full functionality of a customer call center.
IHOP customers may send e-mail or dial a toll-free number in order to answer a short series of questions. Feedback immediately is routed to the IHOP franchisee and unit-level general manager and also is kept in a multidimensional database at IHOP's restaurant support-center hub in Glendale, Calif.
'In the past we neither had an idea about what guests were saying and whether a guest complaint was handled appropriately nor had the ability to track the types of issues [customers] were calling about,' Piccininno stated. 'Now a guest with a question, complaint or even a compliment gets an answer in about three days.'
Piccininno added that the solution has become a great 'touch point' for guests and provides a consolidated view of customers, which also will fortify relationships between IHOP and its franchisees. Storing the data in a knowledge base allows the company to use it as leverage for other customer-centered applications.
For years, Irvine, Calif.-based El Pollo Loco used a blend of mystery shopping and tracking studies to gauge various in-store service metrics. But earlier this year the fast-food Mexican chain tapped an automated service bureau to gain actual customer insights by using a program that allows El Pollo Loco to say 'adios' to mystery shoppers.
'Mystery shops reflect an opinion at one point in time that doesn't necessary reflect what the customer's perspective would be,' said Karen Eadon, El Pollo Loco's chief marketing officer. 'In this business, perception can be different from reality. Whether or not we measure up is not dependent on what we say but what the customer says.'
Through the services of Tell Us About Us Inc., El Pollo Loco customers are encouraged to fill out a survey at a Web site or through a toll-free number — an action that awards them with a $1 coupon on their next visit. Minutes after a customer calls or clicks the survey is faxed directly to the store's general manager, area leader and franchisee.
Eadon, who joined El Pollo Loco two years ago after successful stints at McDonald's Corp., Applebee's International Inc. and CKE Restaurants Inc., said customer participation has exceeded expectations, with the ongoing minimum benchmark being 50 responses per restaurant per month.
Eadon added that the resulting data provide the specific feedback each store needs and has become a permanent part of a scorecard for all 300-plus El Pollo Loco units. The new survey system costs about the same as two mystery shops per store per month, she said.
'We now have a large sample size and an ongoing pulse of what's going on, [and we use] that systemwide data to perform further data analysis,' Eadon explained.
For example, recent comments generated from open-ended questions posed to carryout customers indicated that El Pollo Loco would better serve them by making packaging more portable.
Taking the Tell Us About Us data even further, El Pollo Loco has been able to use slices of customer feedback to perform tactical decision-support applications. 'We recently used the data to pull onethird of the list for a separate survey related to menu items and satisfaction levels. Now we can truly identify which products are stellar performers, which ones need improving and even which ones to eliminate,' she added.
By Ed Rubinstein