CASE STUDY. Growing Restaurant Chain

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1 KEYWEST TECHNOLOGY Want Want to learn to learn more? more? Call: Call: Outside Outside the U.S.: the U.S.: Copyright Copyright Keywest Keywest Technology, Technology, Inc. All Inc. Rights All Rights Reserved Reserved Growing Restaurant Chain Improves Customer Communications With Digital Signage In 1988 the founder of Jose Pepper s opened his first restaurant in a suburb of Kansas City with a $6,000 loan from his father, and since then, the familyfriendly border grill & cantina has expanded to 14 locations in both Kansas and Missouri. In addition to being a favorite local restaurant, Jose Pepper s has expanded its product and service offerings beyond the local grill and cantina. For example, not only can hungry hombres bring home the bacon, but also tasty Jose Pepper s-branded products purchased from nationwide grocery store chains. Additionally, diners can experience their favorite Tex-Mex dishes anywhere they choose by ordering on-site, full-service catering for either private or business events. Brent Sullivan, Food Strategist for Jose Pepper s, manages key food and communication decisions. He is an active board member of the Kansas Department of Agriculture, advocating food quality, freshness, and sustainability. Besides being a promoter for quality food products, Sullivan is also an advocate of consistent branding, which ultimately led him to the decision to employ Keywest Technology s managednetwork services using the Breeze Digital Signage solution, a.k.a., JPTV (Jose Pepper s TV). Sullivan s expertise in restaurant marketing provides many useful insights into the ways digital signage is enhancing the communication to both customers and employees. He backs up his experiences with practical advice that is partly attributed to his collaboration with Keywest Technology. THE CHALLENGES Faced with diverse customer demographics and hard-to-forecast service demands, Jose Pepper s has the on-going challenge of maintaining communication channels that reach full circle, from Baby Boomers to Gen-Y. These channels of communication must engage and entertain patrons waiting for service, present useful information to service staff that prefer to be busy on their feet instead of KEYWEST TECHNOLOGY

2 sitting in boring meetings, and just as importantly, help mitigate food price volatility. It s a tall order to be sure, but growing restaurant chains like Jose Pepper s are not afraid to try new things. THE SOLUTION Sullivan commented that digital signage allows him to put his best food forward. It helps create a service attitude that puts the customer first and goes so far as to build a community around the experience. Additionally, when it comes to digital communications to build community, he champions the use of multiple digital channels, including the extensive use of social media, a Belly rewards program that includes an in-store kiosk and smartphone app, and of course, the ubiquitous website. Working in conjunction with friendly and helpful service staff, communication on food choices and cross promotions is greatly enhanced with digital signage. With little doubt, the centerpiece of this multifaceted communication effort is JPTV. Reflecting on the digital sign installed in each restaurant s waiting area, Sullivan remarks, The daily ebb and flow of hungry patrons is not always predictable, so addressing waittime anxiety is a big priority. Communicating directly with customers in the service area is a chief concern for quality restaurants that provide a service that is highly optional and personal. And since mass communication is not personal communication and social media is most effective outside the restaurant, Sullivan considered the question, How can we better communicate to customers inside the restaurant in real-time? To tackle this problem of personalization first and foremost, he decided the digital sign in the waiting area must not only promote food items, but also offer infotainment in the form of local trivia among other engaging media. According to customer feedback received by service staff and restaurant managers, this tactic has proven to be highly effective at reducing wait-time anxieties. Sullivan explains, When the high school band decides to come to Jose Pepper s on a busy night, that creates an interruption in the service flow, and the last thing we want to say is, I m sorry, I m sorry, over and over while the wait times increase dramatically. By using local trivia questions in the waiting area, we successfully reduce wait-time anxiety. By using local trivia questions in the waiting area, we successfully reduce wait-time anxiety. KEYWEST TECHNOLOGY

3 What may be a minute wait time during peak demands can be perceived to be less by presenting local trivia on the screen that gets patrons guessing answers and sharing stories while they wait. This simple but effective approach fits well with the smartphone-toting demographic that frequents Jose Pepper s. But local trivia is only part of the story to reducing wait-time anxieties. As part of the network-managed services offered by Keywest Technology, Keywest Creative was engaged to develop monthly campaigns based on a media planner provided by Sullivan. Of course, some things you can put on a schedule and some things you can t. However, with the ability to change the Breeze digital signs near real-time for By constantly displaying to staff photos of new menu items including long-time favorites, everyone from the janitor to the servers knows what a particular food serving is supposed to look like. local events, it became possible for the first time to acknowledge a local high school football victory as part of the media playlist at a specific location. This keep it local effort also includes the acknowledgement and personalization of many other school events, birthdays, holidays, fundraisers, etc., simply depending on what the community is doing and engaged in at any moment. Even though the digital sign in customer waiting areas gets all the glory, another major and as important communication effort is not so apparent the back-of-house system. Sullivan explains that young service crews do not read instructional memos very well. Being raised with digital media instead of print media, they are inclined to treat a paper memo more like tissue paper Jose Pepper s has found that communicating visually with the younger generation via the back-of-house digital sign is far more effective than any printed announcements. Sullivan says, If it s not visual, they are probably not paying attention to it. Setting the brand standard for the service staff is another major benefit to back-of-house communications. By constantly displaying to staff photos of new menu items including longtime favorites, everyone from the janitor to the servers knows what a particular food serving is supposed to look like. In this way, everyone manages the food standard that helps establish expectations in quality. Finally, the Breeze Digital Signage system addresses a problem that every business has to some degree, price fluctuation. Sullivan quips, I need to control the unknowable, which is the cost of wholesale food in the commodity markets. From season to season the cost of food fluctuates widely, battered by weather conditions, market demands, political influence, etc. So, with food being a major commodity, there is price volatility in the marketplace that makes some menu items not so Noting that the back-of-house digital sign is far more effective than printed announcements, Sullivan says, If it s not visual, they are probably not paying attention to it. KEYWEST TECHNOLOGY

4 profitable in a given season. Restaurant owners cannot dictate what customers demand, but they can persuade guests to buy those more profitable items, which makes good business sense. Influencing the consumer at the point of sale is a key to dealing with this dilemma, and the most cost effective way to do that is with digital signage. THE RESULTS As this case study helps clarify, a good digital signage deployment for full-service restaurants is not just about sales lift because sales lift in itself does not explain the qualitative factors that produce sustainable sales gain. Digital signage can offer a lot more value than just flashy promotions on LCD displays. For successful restaurant chains like Jose Pepper s, digital signage is an integrated part of the marketing mix, where performance is measured at many levels providing a clearer understanding of return-on-objectives (ROO). ROO measures value that is illustrated by customer behavior and attributes, such as, satisfaction, experience, influence, loyalty, and recall among other factors, which are all key components that have a lasting effect on the bottom line of the ledger. Keywest Creative builds high-quality promotions using Jose Pepper s exacting brand standards with skillfully produced food images, projecting an appealing and consistent image in all locations. For instance, let s consider how improved recall of promoted items influences return-on-objectives and ultimately a restaurant owner s bottom line. According to Nielsen s third-quarter (2013) Digital Place-Based Video Report, ad recall for POStype digital signage is typically in the 60% range, which is more than twice the average recall of static signs. This is the reason you can so easily recall the rich color of a creamed latte topped with cinnamon spice at your local McCafe. Such recall makes digital signage a natural choice for promoting those more seasonable and profitable food items at the right time and place, which does translate into sales lift. According to a Networld Media Group report, Digital Menu Boards and ROI, the average sales lift of any digitally promoted item averages around 3-5%. Sullivan says, If you cannot measure it you cannot manage it. Producing even a 3% sales lift of promoted items during its prime season not only makes the business more money but also provides diners the freshest choices. When it comes to return-on-objectives, Sullivan provided the following key points of improvement that digital signage (JPTV) provides the restaurants day in and day out: Improved point-of-sale communication to customers Improved back-of-house communications Increased staff adherence to instructions with visual reminders Labor savings from reduced meeting times Promotional cost savings Reduced wait-time anxieties for customers Sales lift of promoted items KEYWEST TECHNOLOGY

5 To be sure, all of these factors are measured in different ways, but all of them ultimately impact the bottom line while improving customer relations. When asked if customers notice the digital sign campaigns, Sullivan answered, Yes, customers notice everything, from the taste of the cheese to the dynamically promoted menu items on JPTV. We don t leave customer service to second-guessing. We proactively seek comments as part of our quality service cycle. After all, restaurant managers tend to be extroverts. They like to get out in the service area and solicit feedback on the food and service directly from patrons. People will say, I love reading the trivia, but you should change it more often, so we know they are paying attention. When deciding to go with a network-managed digital sign solution, Sullivan related that he had to consider the value proposition of the entire package. Rather than bogging down restaurant operations with another time-consuming marketing task that is not their forte, he enjoys the freedom of guiding Keywest Creative to design and manage campaigns and promotions around his schedule. Keywest Creative builds high-quality promotions using Jose Pepper s exacting brand standards with skillfully produced food images, projecting an appealing and consistent image in all locations. Sam Ruggles (left), Keywest Technology s Solution Manager, and Brent Sullivan, Jose Pepper s Food Strategist, pause at the cantina for a drink. KEYWEST TECHNOLOGY

6 CAMPAIGN HIGHLIGHT Brian Bibler, Chief Designer at Keywest Creative, developed the advertising campaign for the Belly rewards system that included a stand for the Belly tablet. Bibler noted that it was important to place the Belly promotion at the pointof-wait to stimulate awareness and encourage usage of the Belly rewards program. Building loyalty for one s brand has always been a challenge, and it has become even more of a challenge in this instantinformation age where business may rise or fall based on one s social media ranking for service and experience. This could not be truer than in the finicky food service environment where restaurants cater to personal tastes and whim. To help build brand loyalty, Jose Pepper s employs the Belly system, which is a personalized loyalty and reward program. New members can sign up via a small touch screen located in the waiting area. There is also a smartphone app that customers can use to collect and manage reward points. However, for the Belly reward program to be effective, Jose Pepper s customers need to know about it, sign up for it, and then use it. At first, Jose Pepper s promoted the Belly program via social media, table signs at public events, and through an awareness campaign performed by table servers. This effort provided the starter seeds for the reward program, but as Brent Sullivan explains, I ll give [Keywest Creative] most of the credit for the successful campaign message and growth of our rewards program. Since customer signup for the Belly rewards program requires patrons to be physically in the restaurant, Sullivan had Keywest Creative design digital promotions for Belly rewards. Brian Bibler, Chief Designer at Keywest Creative, noted that it was important to place the Belly promotion in the communications mix at the point-of-wait to stimulate awareness and encourage usage of the Belly rewards program. After Jose Pepper s marketing team had approved the promotions, Keywest Creative uploaded the Belly campaign to the cloud-based Breeze server, which instantly distributed the promotions to the digital signs located in each restaurant s waiting area. To say the least, if the digital signage campaign for Belly rewards were fuel, then the daily promotions on the digital sign at the point-of-wait was the needed launch pad for program acceptance that took off like a rocket! From March 2013 through August of 2014, the cross-promotion campaign produced almost 17,500 new users, and with the daily reminders promoted at the point-of-wait, Belly users grew to an average of over 100,000 check-ins monthly. These results were very successful, according to Sullivan. KEYWEST TECHNOLOGY