We have partnered up with Tattle, a customer satisfaction platform, to conduct an analysis of one of our mutual clients. The OpsAnalitica Platform is measuring operations and Tattle is measuring customer satisfaction.
We have been monitoring our client’s performance on both platforms for the last several months and a really interesting pattern is starting to arise. OpsAnalitica Compliance predicts Customer Satisfaction!
Description of the OpsAnalitica and Tattle Platforms
OpsAnalitica is used by this client to manage their:
- Food safety
- Food quality
- Restaurant guest readiness checks
- Daily manager open and closing checks
- All of these checks are done on a daily basis at every location
The way the platform is supposed to be used is that these checks are scheduled and the managers and teams are supposed to complete them before meal periods to ensure that the locations are ready for guests.
The reason why these checklists are important is that they guide the team through all of the important tasks at the locations. Also, they act as a reminder to the team on all the details they need to do to be ready for the meal period. When times are stressful, it is easy to forget the little things, in this unprecedented labor market, having guides is imperative to make sure things are getting done correctly.
When people are using the platform as designed they run better operations because they catch their own mistakes and they forget fewer things that affect guests. Also, we can extrapolate out that when these checklists are getting conducted accurately, that management is more focused and organized on how they are managing their locations.
When OpsAnalitica is not being used as diligently, we have to ask ourselves, what other procedures are not being followed and what else is being missed?
Tattle Platform
The Tattle platform measures customer satisfaction through surveys. What makes their platform unique is that they are synced into the POS Systems/Ordering platforms/Apps and they customize their surveys based on the actual type of interaction (dine-in, curbside, delivery). This allows them to ask specific questions about the experience and the items that were ordered.
Gone are the days when you would just put a text box on a survey and ask for what people liked or didn’t like. These guys can dial it in and get really actionable data on each client’s interaction with your brand. That customizability with their surveys increases their response rates because customers feel the surveys are more relevant.
Analysis
We are using the OpsAnalitica Platform to measure the location’s Operations Efficacy, how well the managers are operating their locations, and we are comparing that to how well the customers think the locations are doing as reported through Tattle.
Preliminary Conclusions:
- Operations and Customer Satisfaction are Correlated.
- That Customer Satisfaction actually Lags behind Operations by 1 month
- As their Operations Scores have declined so has their Customer Satisfaction
OpsAnalitica is Predicting other KPI’s
We saw that our client has not been using the OpsAnalitica Platform as much as they had at the beginning of the spring, (left chart below), and as their managers stopped focusing as much on their operations, we saw a similar decline in their customer satisfaction scores, (right chart below).
What was really interesting was that we saw the customer satisfaction trend directly mirrored their operations trends but 1 month later. To sum up, we saw an increase in usage of the OpsAnalitica Platform in March, there was an increase in Customer Satisfaction in April. As the managers used or didn’t use the OpsAnalitica Platform, or weren’t focusing on daily ops as much, you saw that trend show up in their customer satisfaction numbers 1 month later.
Basically, the OpsAnalitica Platform is predicting what is going to happen with customer satisfaction 1 month before it happens. As customer satisfaction goes, so do sales and profits. People using our system have a crystal ball into where there business is going and they can course correct quicker than their competitors and win.
How does this work?
In the case of a restaurant, let’s say you have a really good shift operationally. That isn’t going to show up in your sales, profits, and customer satisfaction numbers the same day. You need to have 100 really good shifts to drive enough word of mouth referrals from current customers and to increase a current customers repeat visit frequency to really start to see those great operations show up in your sales and profits.
The same is true for running bad shifts. It can take months for a restaurant that has been mediocre or bad to start seeing those bad operations show up in their sales, profits, and audits. The reality is that most customers are pretty forgiving and they might have to have several bad experiences over several months before they decide to not come back at their usual repeat visit frequency or to abandon your location all together.
What we are seeing is that the OpsAnalitica Complete %, the percentage of processes completed on schedule, is effectively measuring how well the team is operating the location not just how many checklists they are doing.
That makes sense. A restaurant management team that is focused on the details, using systems and tools, is going to run better operations than the team that is going off of memory. High OpsAnalitica usage translates to better management across the board because those teams tend to be more organized and able to execute.
The teams that have a high OpsAnalitica Complete % are simply running better locations and that is translating to better customer experiences and satisfaction.
I don’t believe that doing checklists in your system is going to increase my customer satisfaction, sales, and profits
The reality is, the sentiment expressed in the above heading; I don’t believe that doing checklists in your platform matters, is not unique. Most businesses have checklists, on paper, and their teams don’t do them. Average checklist compliance for locations where there managers aren’t able to or don’t hold them accountable is in the 20% range.
So, their current sales are achieved with teams that are only operating at a fraction of their potential. Also, leadership doesn’t have a frame of reference because they have nothing to compare their operations to. They don’t have historical data from when their locations were executing at an incredibly high level that they can use to benchmark against how they are operating today. If you have never had this historical data, you simply don’t know what you don’t know.
One last point, we are not saying that you can’t run a business without using our platform. We are saying that you are leaving an incredible amount of money on the table, in the form of unrealized sales, profits, and wages for your teams. We are also saying that your are not operating to your full potential without real time visibility into your operations at the location level and an ability to hold your teams accountable.
The benefits of having a Crystal Ball
Imagine a world where you can look at a dashboard from your phone and predict what is going to happen in that location from sales, profits and customer satisfaction next month. What would you do with that information? Would you allow things to happen and be constantly surprised? Or, would you take pro-active action on a weekly basis vs. a monthly basis. Would you coach your teams more pro-actively and follow-up quicker? Could you stop things from going bad quicker and praise people who are doing great to keep going?
Of course you could and of course you would, being able to see where your business is going and being able to protect your brand without having to be in the location is equivalent to having a location management super power.
Final Conclusion
My final conclusion is this. Using OpsAnalitica in your restaurants is a direct measure of your operations and will allow you to predict what is going to happen with your locations in the future. You can use this information to course correct faster and run better locations which will ultimately translate into higher customer satisfaction, sales, and profits.
If you want to learn more about OpsAnalitica and how we can help your business go to OpsAnalitica.com and schedule a demo.