Successful Service Recovery in Restaurants: Keep them Coming Back

In a tight economy, consumers are willing to "trade down" on their dining options, but not on their expectations. They expect great service and high quality menu items.

With so much emphasis on promotions, too many concepts/organizations have not resolved the challenge of effectively dealing with customer service interactions - particularly those that involve a negative experience at a particular store. For survival-minded concepts, this is a critical juncture with the customer, the brand, corporate and franchise owners.

There is a pervasive "service disconnect" between corporate (that typically oversees customer service channels [phone, email, web inquiries] while controlling and protecting the brand) and franchise owners (who control store operations). As a result:

• Customer frustration escalates because the corporate-based service representative often times cannot provide them with a firm answer, definitive action or resolution timeframe.
• Complaint routing is typically delayed, inconsistent and ineffective. Without a streamlined process in place there are unacceptable delays between when the customer issues the complaint and when the franchise owner reaches out to rectify the situation/repair the relationship.
• Furthermore, many organizations lack granular reporting capabilities, so when the franchisee reviews his/her weekly/monthly/semi annual complaint summary, they do not get a level of detail necessary to respond with world-class service. Often times, the customer has to walk through the scenario again - increasing the negative impact of the situation.
• In today's social networking world where word-of-mouth has an exponential reach, the ramifications of not addressing this disconnect are huge. Survival-focused organizations must evaluate their customer interaction solution/capabilities and processes to mitigate risk, build loyalty and gain the valuable voice of the customer insights the drive a competitive edge.

Best-in-class concepts view superior customer service and recovery programs as a key competitive advantage - vital to the strength and quality of their brand. As part of these programs:

• They have well defined policies and procedures that are easily executed.
• They have technology and processes in place that
• enables agents to effectively address the issues reported by the guest
• enables the contact center to communicate issues to the field in real-time
• effectively handles both franchise and corporate locations.
• enables highly detailed reporting - throughout the enterprise - to analyze and guide executive management, influence R&D, assist marketing and a host of other functions.

Investing in a CRM solution capable of handling the distinct demands of the customer/corporate/franchisee relationship is a critical step toward strengthening the brand and its longevity through world-class service.  Our restaurant customers, which include McDonald's, Olive Garden/Darden Restaurants, Dunkin' Brands, and Domino's have leveraged our CRM solution (ePowerCenter) to enable a truly consumer-centric approach to operations. With ePowerCenter in place, the customer experience during the service recovery process is enhanced in the following manner:

• Information is collected in the true voice of the customer and routed to the franchise owner in real time. (They are also given the option of listening to the actual call.) They gain the benefit of getting accurate feedback.
• In turn, they are now able to take action in real-time by following up locally with the customer.
• The customer is pleased with the responsiveness and has (in most cases) an immediate resolution.
• When all is said and done...corporate has protected the brand the best they can, the franchise owner was able to re-build the relationship on a very personal level, and the odds of recovering the customer increase significantly.
  

In addition, the solution enables them to:

• Mitigate risk/deal with the multitude of inquiries surrounding food allergies, etc.
• Easily replace manuals to streamline operational processes. Store managers, franchise owners, corporate departments all have access to vital company and product information as well as customer interaction data.
• Provide a help desk for managers - answering, on average, 98 percent of the questions a manager could ask.
• Train their employees.  HR can utilize the system for training - increasing performance while reducing expenses.
• Utilize customer feedback to make key changes to in-store operations as well as products for greater efficiency, cost savings and increased customer satisfaction.

I felt that the results of the Brand Keys consumer survey helped to drive home the impact of these organizations' customer focus:

"The casual-dining chain Olive Garden, coffee player Dunkin' Donuts, pizza delivery leader Domino's, and quick-service giant McDonald's each topped their respective industry categories for customer loyalty in Brand Keys Inc. latest annual consumer survey." -Nation's Restaurant News, March, 2009.