Harness Customer Feedback
White tablecloth restaurants are reviewed in newspapers and Michelin guides, but for quick-service restaurants there is
only one group of critics that matters: the customers—and they are always right.
Harnessing customer feedback is the best way to find out what a restaurant is doing right, what it's doing wrong, and how
it can improve. But while some opinionated guests freely offer their remarks to managers or through in-store comment cards,
many aren't as forthcoming with their praise or criticism. In this edition of QSR's Best Practices E-Newsletter, we'll see
how take-and-bake pizza chain Papa Murphy's is using a customer experience monitoring solution from Mindshare to solicit
feedback and improve its business.
The Problem:
Vancouver, Washington-based Papa Murphy's Take 'N' Bake Pizza has always been proud of its business, but about four years
ago the chain's executives decided they wanted to hear first-hand how customers felt about the brand.
"We really wanted to find out in real time how we were delivering on our promise," says Al Randazzo, senior director of
business services. "It's great to be able to say in our marketing that we've got wonderful food, great prices, and good
service, but we wanted to be able to verify that from what customers say."
With 11,000 stores in 30 states across the U.S., however, it is no small task to solicit and manage the opinions of Papa
Murphy's guests.
"We had tried to do it internally through our own corporate visits as well as by using independent shoppers, but that
stopped being cost effective," Randazzo says.
There had to be a better way.
The Solution:
The chain began looking for a customer relations management provider to take over the task of soliciting feedback from
guests. After conducting a study of different companies, one player rose to the top of the list.
Mindshare provides business-monitoring tools to clients in more than 25 industries ranging from foodservice and
hospitality to financial and automotive. Clients of all sizes, from small regional chains to large multinational
corporations in 67 countries and 14 languages, trust Mindshare to help them gauge the opinions of their customers.
The company's proprietary survey technology allows users to hear what their customers have to say in real time and turns
those opinions into actionable intelligence with reports tailored for each operation's individual needs. With Mindshare's
hosted solution, companies can decide what information they need to solicit, who can access it, and how it is reported. The
information gathered is accessible 24 hours per day, seven days per week on the web and can also be scheduled to arrive by
e-mail.
Papa Murphy's chose Mindshare for a number of reasons.
"We really liked their flexibility and the attention to detail they had in their reports," Randazzo says. "They were just
extremely easy people to work with, and we have the same goals and objectives."
The chain tested Mindshare's solution in 2005, began rolling it out to all stores in 2006, and has been using it systemwide
since 2007.
Here's how it works: When a customer picks up a take-and-bake pizza from any Papa Murphy's location, the baking
instructions include an invitation to participate in either a phone or e-mail survey through Mindshare. The chain offers
incentives—anything from a dollar off the next purchase to a free appetizer—to customers who participate.
"The customer fills out the surveys online or by phone," Randazzo explains. "If there is a problem and we rate low in any
number of areas, an alert gets sent out to the franchisee or supervisor immediately."
Users can also view customized reports that show survey results from an individual store, a group of stores, or the entire
company.
"They can see at a glance how their stores are doing compared to neighboring stores as well as the company overall,"
Randazzo says. "We literally have more reports than you can count. There are so many different ways to combine them."
The Results:
Around four years into Papa Murphy's partnership with Mindshare, Randazzo says he's pleased with the results. Last year
the company's customers completed more than a million surveys, and over 30 days this past September, 120,000 were completed.
"The numbers are just mind-boggling," Randazzo says.
Most of the comments the company receives are positive, he says, and the responses have helped Papa Murphy's do a
better job of recognizing crew members for good performance. When bad reviews do come in, they aren't used punitively.
Instead, stores shown to be underperforming in certain categories are coached so that they can improve.
"The most effective thing to do is to use it to salvage guests," Randazzo says. "If we lose a customer through whatever
the situation might be, we can get that customer to stay with us by showing we cared enough to call back or change what we
were doing."
Best of all, it's done at a fraction of the cost of using mystery shoppers.
"You can't even really compare it," Randazzo says. "I'd recommend this to large companies as well as small. If you care
about what your customers are thinking and how you can improve, this provides you with a very clear roadmap on what you
need to do to exceed expectations."
