Unlocking Success: How Top Restaurant Brands Utilize Social Data to Boost Sales and Retain Talent
Average Performance Is No Longer Good Enough
Black Box Intelligence (formerly TDn2K) data has shown a widening gap between restaurant brands performing at the top and the bottom concerning sales. Average performance simply isn’t good enough in today’s fiercely competitive marketplace. To move into the top quartile of performance, social data provides key insights into many key areas of operations.
Top-performing brands are identified as those in the top quartile of brands in the Financial Intelligence (formerly Black Box Intelligence) Index, which tracks same-store sales for the rolling year. These restaurants are also in the top half of brands for the year before showing they are not only a strong performer in the most recent year, but consistently over time. These brands also have at least ten locations.
Research by Black Box Intelligence (formerly TDn2K) consistently shows that top-performing restaurants do not share the same characteristics such as type of cuisine, location, or even dining segment. Rather, the best-performing brands show similarities in that they can grow same-store traffic, retain their management as well as hourly staff, and provide consistent quality service.
How Top Brands Achieve Superior Sales And Traffic Performance
To help restaurant operators focus their efforts based on what the consumer is saying, Guest Intelligence (formerly Guest Intelligence (formerly White Box Social Intelligence)), a guest satisfaction performance measurement tool, tracks six restaurant attributes: food, beverage, service, ambiance, value, and intent to return. In an industry with a major focus on cuisine, surprisingly, guest sentiment around food showed the lowest spread between top and bottom performers. Service is consistently shown as the key differentiator between the strongest and weaker brands, with top performers revealing dramatically higher scores than competitors. Additionally, ambiance guest sentiment is emerging as a key element of top performer success.
In terms of ambiance, the costs related to restaurant redesigns and renovations often set off alarm bells. However, the importance of it cannot be ignored, as this sentiment is most often related to cleanliness and order. Instead of pouring costs into redesigning a restaurant, the ambiance can be improved with training and better management of staff. The addition of social and customer feedback data eliminates the guessing game for decision-makers and reduces potential expenditures.
The trend of service as the biggest differentiator between top and bottom performers continues regardless of service style. Training plays a big role in maintaining service standards, but the retention of managers is also key. Workforce Intelligence (formerly People Report), which tracks human capital performance, consistently shows that manager retention is a key driver of performance. To remain competitive and keep managers employed, operators are looking at ways to set their brands apart. According to Black Box Intelligence (formerly TDn2K) research, top-performing companies pay higher salaries than their peers, set higher target bonuses, and provide more training and development opportunities for their managers.
Cross-Channel, Cross-Departmental
Successful restaurant operators know the importance of monitoring multiple channels to keep a pulse on customer satisfaction. Ideally, this can be done in a single dashboard to streamline the process. When social data lives in one centralized location that can be accessed from multiple departments it can be leveraged to make improvements across the business.
The social media landscape may already be familiar ground for marketers, but finance and HR have plenty of insight to gain from it as well. Ultimately, sales and traffic performance, employee retention, and guest satisfaction are all inextricably linked.
When all is said and done, the restaurant industry is centered around people. The top performers are set apart by how they deliver on their brand promise. To do this, operators need the tools and resources in place to make sure they are accurately reflecting the needs and wants of their customers. Social data provides need-to-know insights, and the ability to track it in real-time gives restaurant operators a competitive edge.
This article originally appeared as a guest blog for MomentFeed. You can read the original post here.