2006 Applied Technology Stars
QSR Magazine | Issue 91 | July 2006 |
page 1
If you're not seriously looking at cashless payment at the drive-thru, online
ordering, self-service kiosks, or tech-based training, you're going to fall
behind. That's a promise.
Today your customers can order a carnitas burrito plus a side of guacamole
and bottle of Nantucket Nectar online at
www.chipotle.com or a Spinach Alfredo
Chicken and Tomato pizza with a side of Chipotle BBQ wings and a Dr. Pepper
at
www.papajohns.com. Your teenaged crew is downloading music videos to their
cell phones and using a web language called Leet to socialize with people thousands
of miles away. Your customers and crews are increasingly embracing the 21st
century's technological revolution. To keep up with both groups, you will have
to do the same.
It was with that thought in mind that QSR decided to bring back the Applied
Technology Awards. By acknowledging those who are using technology to make
life easier for their crews and customers, we hope to encourage others to do
the same. Congratulations to the innovators highlighted here.
Quality Control
User: Subway’s Independent Purchasing Cooperative (ipc)
Technology: QUALITYnet
Provider: Instill Corporation
IPC’s QUALITYnet system might be the first of its kind in the industry.
The internet-based system collects and warehouses quality assurance data, including
complaints from operators in the field. The system’s real-time database
allows IPC to monitor and quickly act on any quality-related issues at any
of its 200-plus suppliers or the 21,000 North American Subway stores it serves.
Because information is uploaded directly to the system’s web host on
a weekly basis quality, issues can be identified before they become a real
problem.
The system works like this: Operators report grievances to a dedicated call
center. Each issue is logged into QUALITYnet, which then sends a confirmation
e-mail to the complainant. The automatic notifications give operators specific
details on how their complaint is being handled—from the initial call
to resolution. In addition, the system ensures product quality credits are
properly invoiced and credited if merited and reduced the time it takes to
recover a credit from four to six weeks to ten days.
After QUALITYnet’s rollout, franchisee quality complaints to IPC dropped
25 percent in early 2006 as compared with the same period a year ago. The IPC
directly attributes the reduction to the new system. And QUALITYnet continues
to drive down the average time it takes for a supplier or distributor to respond
to quality control issues.
Experience Management
User: Raving Brands
Technology: MAXtrack Research System
Provider: Alexander Babbage, Inc.
The days of sending crews with clipboards to survey customers is over at
Raving Brands. The company is now using MAXtrack, a hand-held electronic retail
survey tool to cut survey times in half and improve accuracy. Now, when Raving
Brands considers changing a menu item or adding a new one, it can quickly query
customers and easily analyze the resulting data. The polls are self-administered,
thus reducing researcher bias and error.
MAXtrack makes it possible for Raving Brands to conduct ongoing research
and implement changes as quickly as the next day in some cases. Insight garned
from MAXtrack surveys has directly influenced marketing, branding, and menu
development decisions at Moe’s Southwest Grill and Boneheads, two of
Raving Brands’s nine concepts.
At Moe’s MAXtrack data was used to determine whether or not customers
would support a fish taco. The answer was yes, particularly among women and
during the dinner daypart. The Fresh-Mex chain will be rolling out a new fish
taco product systemwide this fall. MAXtrack also told Moe’s its customers “slightly
preferred” guacamole made from a pre-peeled avocado pulp product over
a version made from whole avocados. As result, the chain was able to tell franchisees
that not only did the pre-peeled product offer better quality and consistency
over whole avocados but customers actually liked it better.
Boneheads used the program to test its demographics and found the group skewed
toward highly educated, older clientele. This information prompted Boneheads
to review its “whimsical” image and, ultimately, revise. Menu,
uniforms, even restroom signs were impacted. Initial research showed approximately
20-percent customer satisfaction with Boneheads’s in-store music program.
Once the music changed, that number almost doubled.
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