How Can You Own & Improve Your Data Collection Process as a F&B Brand?

Since the onset of COVID-19, online food ordering has become the hope of the restaurant industry.

60% of consumers today atleast order once online a week.

And well, I am proudly one of them. Moreover, whenever I feel hungry, I end up opening Zomato or Swiggy just to explore what all options I have. I am sure I am not the only one who does that. The app tells me what and what not to order, which outlet offers the maximum discounts, which one offers the quick delivery, and which one is the newly opened up in the area.

On the other hand, it educates a restauranteur as to what cuisines, dishes to invest in, where to open a restaurant and how to create an even more personalized experience on the app. So essentially these aggregators today own the customers. Using the data they create even better customer experiences.

Today, the majority of the F&B brands depend on third-party aggregators. Third-party aggregators might seem like a boon as they expand the horizon for businesses to deliver across the city and increase the audience attraction but they also manipulate the market. They do not disclose the customer data with the organizations, the importance of which is not realized by the organizations at that moment but in the long run.

Why Data Collection is important in the first place?

In today’s competitive industry, it is very important to understand your customer. By understanding how customers think, feel and decide, one can determine how best to market their products and services.
But to make this plan fall into action the first and most important step is having relevant & consolidated customer data.

52% of marketers still struggle to consolidate their data. Only 13% of organizations say they’re making the most of their available customer data.

Having relevant data & making the most of it is what makes a business to survive in the market easier, the following points imply the same: If you have the relevant data you can attract more customers by knowing their expectations Reduces the pressure by knowing what the customers will expect and what will be their purchase behavior in advance & increase your conversions. The more you know about the kinds of products/services your customers are interested in, the more likely you are to pitch them products they’re the most likely to buy. The right data helps you identify new innovative opportunities before your competitors. De-risk yourself by having full control of your adding & eventually adding more channels of selling via that. So now, what can you do as a restaurant to win the data game? What can you do to own your customer? Let’s learn from Mad Over Donuts & Tacobell:

How MOD improved its Data Collection process with Xeno

ABOUT THE BRAND: Mad Over Donuts (MOD) is a Singapore-based company that made its way to India in 2008. The brand is known for its fresh, gourmet donuts that are available in over 20 irresistible flavors. The brand currently has 50+ stores in India and plans to grow to 200 stores in the next 5 years.

When & Why did MOD choose to improve their Data Collection

Like every other F&B brand, MOD’s data collection count was really low as they were also heavily dependent on third-party aggregators. Moreover, the existing data collection system did not provide a clear understanding of the data, as the data collection report fetched from Posist presented a combined report for direct and aggregate orders.

To scale fast, the team at MOD knew that understanding their customer’s behavior will be the key to learn, iterate and improve. In today’s competitive market, customer understanding & personalizing marketing communication is no more a “cherry on the top” but a necessity for brands to enable. To begin with all of this, Data collection became a priority for them.

Setting up an ecosystem for data collection

MOD designed a custom data collection process along with Xeno that enabled them to improve their data collection by 18% in just 6 months. Here’s how:

This process was driven by 3 key factors:

Incentive Program:

MOD understood that owning strong customer data was the key to better customer understanding and hence decided to focus on building a strong database with Xeno.

To overcome this problem Xeno introduced an incentive program for store managers to ensure that data was collected properly. The incentive program was implemented with the help of Xeno’s Data Collection report which was made accessible from store managers to the higher management.

Transparency to the management

The data reports were sent to the management as well as the store managers to maintain transparency and healthy competition amongst the stores to receive the highest incentives.

The real-time reporting helped MOD to understand and assess each outlet’s performance & take necessary measures for further improvement accordingly.

Right tagging of orders in POS

Before onboarding Xeno, MOD data collections methods were not streamlined due to which the team could not derive any insights from the same. They followed a combined reporting structure for both direct and aggregated orders which made data understanding difficult.

MOD along with Xeno worked together to improve their data collection setup with POSist in a way that helped them track, analyze & gain insights from the data in a simple & effective manner.

All of this led to an increase in Data Collection by 18% in just 6 months

How Tacobell went from 0% data capture to 40% data capture at their outlets in just 3 months

ABOUT THE BRAND: Taco Bell has become one of India’s most loved fast-food chains in a short span of time. Burman Hospitality which runs Taco Bell in India has already set up over 50 outlets in India and plans to scale to over 600 Taco Bell outlets in the next 10 years. Taco Bell is known for serving a variety of Mexican snacks essentials and value menu items.

Taco Bell’s CRM journey started with Xeno from day 1

To scale so fast, Taco Bell knew that understanding their customer’s behavior will be key to learn, iterate and improve. Taco Bell knew that in today’s competitive market, personalizing marketing communication is no more a “cherry on the top” but a necessity for brands to enable. Customers don’t want to be bombarded with communication irrelevant to them.

With that vision in mind to create personalized experiences for each customer, Taco Bell’s CRM journey in India started and we were lucky to partner with Taco Bell on this journey from day 1.

Watch Taco Bell’s Associate Vice President of Marketing Tushar Mehta talk with our co-founder Pranav Ahuja, sharing his journey of kickstarting Taco Bell’s CRM program & building a partnership with Xeno.

“If you need the right partner if you need a partner who understands your business if you need a partner who understands how the whole CRM thing comes about from how the integration happens, how the personas are built & how the customer bucketing happens. All that has to be done with the know-how of a partner who has done this consistently for brands and most importantly treats this entire journey as their own”
says Tushar Mehta, AVP- Marketing at Taco Bell.

Setting up an ecosystem for data collection

Despite all the talk about personalization, 52% of marketers still struggle to consolidate their data (source: State of CRM Report).

Initially, Taco Bell heavily depended on customer data from the third-party aggregators which only constituted 20% of the total customer data that should be available. But once Taco Bell understood that owning their customer data is the key to a strong CRM program, Taco Bell shifted from being a company that didn’t focus much on customer data collection to becoming a company that was keen to set up a robust data management system. This is when Xeno came into the picture and with Taco Bell’s strong focus the program kicked off.

Taco Bell increased its customer base multi-folds in just 3 months

Taco Bell designed a custom data collection process along with Xeno that would allow them to capture data without reliance on the POS system. In just 3 months, Taco Bell went from 0% data capture for dine-in/ takeaway to 40% data capture at their outlets.

This progress was driven by 3 key factors:

1) Daily data collection reports which were sent to the management as well as the area managers that enabled the marketing & operations teams to keep the outlet staff on their toes.

2) Focus on training – Extensive training materials were created including videos and training sessions were provided to help ease out the ongoing process.

3) Constant checks – On-ground observation and anonymous store visits were also done to ensure the quality of data collected.

The restaurant industry is in the digital 2.0 era, how can your brand make the best out of it?

Owning your customer data is the starting point to building a scalable restaurant business and becoming the leading food joint globally.

It’s very simple, the more data you get from your consumers, the more personalized your marketing can be which eventually leads to better results.

So let’s #OwnOurCustomers