Article

Genghis Grill grows revenue by collecting customer feedback via mobile

The chain used a solution from Improving Restaurants to attract repeat customers.

April 12, 2013 by Cherryh Cansler — Editor, FastCasual.com

Although Genghis Grill started out with only five locations in 1998, it's grown tremendously over the last few years. It now has more than 100 and plans to reach 300 in the next few years. That growth, although exciting, has led to a few challenges, said CEO Al Bhakta, who went on a mission last year to improve customer experience. The only way to do that, he said, was to first figure out what his customers wanted.

"If we don't garner feedback that is current and relevant to our operations, we will fail to deliver on expectations to our fans," Bhakta said. "With today's ever changing, high impulse environment where information is so valuable, guests change their minds very quickly. and it's our job to make sure we are listening."

The challenge
Bhakta set out to not only gain customer insight, but he also needed a way to make sense of the information collected and to capture demographics for future marketing purposes. He said he was able to do both by partnering with Improving Restaurants, a provider of real-time business intelligence tools for the restaurant industry.

Improving Restaurants, said CEO Hamed Mazrouei, designed a survey system to allow Genghis Grill customers to share their feedback, but the solution also provided the restaurant brand with real-time alerts flagging negative customer experiences, automated report cards on each location's status, a coupon verification system and staff performance rankings.

"We developed a way to integrate into any POS system and print a unique QR code on each receipt for each customer," Mazrouei said. "The customer will then be able to scan the QR code to provide feedback and get loyalty points."

The codes also show Genghis how much each customer spent, what location they visited and when and server information. Genghis receives all that info through a robust graphic usage and comprehensive action report.

"We build a profile on every customer — their behavior, their frequency of visits, amount spent each time, (if they have) kids and where their residence is — to better market to them," Mazrouei said. "Lastly, we measure everything with ROI; how does each little change in an organization affect the sales? So we plot everything on a time bar showing sales and all the changes — new store opening, email marketing, SMS marketing, holidays, snow days and whatever else a brand wants to track against sales."

The results
Genghis Grill has been able to increase its annual revenue by $282,798 through returning customers who completed their Customer Satisfaction Survey — an 11.8 percent coupon redemption rate. Customers, who receive a free appetizer for taking the surveys, have completed more than 97,555 surveys in the past 12 months.

"Improving Restaurants has provided a service that has truly been a game changer for Genghis Grill, they know our business inside out, and are committed to understanding how they can help us become better," Bhakta said.

The Cost
Depending on the level of service, restaurants pay between $40 and $110 each month per location, Mazrouei said.

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About Cherryh Cansler

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Cherryh Cansler is VP of Events for Networld Media Group and publisher of FastCasual.com. She has been covering the restaurant industry since 2012. Her byline has appeared in Forbes, The Kansas City Star and American Fitness magazine, among many others.

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