Skift Take
Personalization starts where the consumer is at; in this case sitting at a table eating a sub.
— Kristen Hawley
It’s not all doom and gloom in the restaurant app world. While mass adoption of mobile technology may cause some hiccups as restaurants race to implement fun and functional tech solutions, it’s also helping larger restaurant chains run their businesses, especially those with high turnover.
In a Digiday piece, Quiznos director of interactive and innovation explains how the company uses digital technology — in this case, its app — to capture consumer feedback at the source, implementing changes quickly and addressing concerns. “We are in the fast-food industry, and there’s a lot of employee turnaround. This type of feedback is really helpful for us to make sure our stores are operating at the best level they are,’ he said.
Apparently, after implementing in-app feedback, Quiznos saw three times the volume than it previously received via social channels and customer support phone lines (yep, they still have those). Surprisingly, most of the feedback is positive, according to Quiznos, which says only a “small percentage” of the responses are negative.
These tech-forward initiatives started after Quiznos reduced the amount of stores due to competition (and perhaps that whole we-have-too-many-restaurants problem), and shows the chain’s focus on both perfecting and personalizing the customer experience — a movement that fast-casual chain Cava has recently taken to the next level. We’re still in the early days of this kind of personalization, but it’s going to fuel the success of fast food and fast casual in the future.
