Get it right the first time with new store openings

Removing the risk and unknowns of new venue launches by introducing an optimized route to success.

When it comes to bringing in a customer feedback solution, you might think purely about collecting data on venues that have been up and running for some time and have a loyal customer base. But there’s just as much, if not more, value to be had with using a guest sentiment platform from day 1.

Many of our conversations with customers are about getting that opening day feedback and making sure the brand is delivering its promise at the new location from the start. You want your NPS to be high within the first couple of months, rather than having to fight to build it in the second quarter of trading.
We work across hundreds of venues with our customers and there are always several common factors that come up and prove useful to measure when opening a new venue.

The right approach, first time.

Despite all the best preparation and effort it can take weeks and months to bring a new venue up to your brand standards. Meanwhile any negative experiences are affecting the online reviews and word of mouth feedback that are so important to get your brand established in a new market.
The sooner you get your guest sentiment surveys in-place and collect data, the quicker you can identify issues and stop customers from spreading negative comments online.

The metrics you should be tracking to keep the brand promise.

Below are some questions to ask yourself (and metrics you should be tracking) during the first few days of launching a new venue. It’s also a reminder that keeping a customer-centric view is critical to success. Something that can get lost in those first few days of opening when there are so many elements to be managed.

Is the food delivering your brand promise?

Ensuring your food and drink is prepared to brand standards is key. The best way to measure this is guest satisfaction by menu item. By tracking the new location to your brand benchmarks you quickly ensure your menu items are prepared effectively from the opening night.

How to use dish-level sentiment feedback

– Provide rapid feedback to the back of house teams to ensure dishes are prepared correctly through the opening phase.
– Narrow down your team’s training needs to specific dishes. This gets them trained quicker and provides essential motivation when building a new team, while the kitchen is under the most pressure.
– Consistency of delivery over the opening weeks can be hugely variable, so being able to monitor and adjust quickly can rapidly improve your product.
– Sometimes launching into a new area you will find that guest expectations are just different (they may be more price sensitive), and it’s key to be able to separate this type of factor from the delivery of your product.

Is it the service?

How effectively you deliver your experience is the other major hurdle anyone opening a new venue experiences. Measuring guest satisfaction closely during this period enables you to rapidly adjust and improve.

How to use service feedback

– Speed of service is a key concern for guests. By matching performance against brand benchmarks you help your team focus on where their efforts will have the biggest impact.
– Track how well teams are following the steps of service (including upselling), and see if they’re able to consistently deliver against your service benchmarks. This helps you provide rapid feedback for more effective training follow-up.
– Dish-level feedback can be used by the team to provide recommendations in these early stages to enhance the service you deliver out of the box.

Or is it marketing?

Get the above steps wrong and you are going to struggle with guest retention and acquisition.

Delivering your product (food and beverage) and your service out of the gate is key to building guest loyalty and delivering advocates of your new venue who will share positive online reviews and deliver essential word of mouth marketing.

Beyond the delivery of your brand promises, Yumpingo can also enhance other aspects of your marketing strategy around a new site launch.
Our 1-minute smart surveys can be used to ask specific market research questions in the new venue.

How to use Yumpingo for marketing strategies

You can start to understand factors like;

– Differences in the market, guest expectations, how far guests are traveling, their familiarity with your brand and what marketing tactics are working.
– Our Reputation Management service can be used to build your online profile and your public reviews to increase acquisition further.

Optimizing soft openings

The established method to open a new location is soft openings – trial nights to iron out all the service kinks, which is great at highlighting some of the major issues, but it’s often not clear what to prioritize next.

Sales numbers alone can’t tell you what is happening.

What to expect of your sales numbers

– Are the numbers a good indication of continued success?
– If early sales are good, is it just good marketing/location and are there issues on the way?
– If the sales are not as expected, why?

Summary

Launching a new store is a huge investment of time and money and getting it right has a lasting impact on the success of the venue and your margins. Restaurants save $1000’s dollars by using Yumpingo to ‘get it right the first time’ on store lunches.

To find out more about how to make Yumpingo part of your new store openings process – get in touch with us today!