Since the onset of COVID-19, online food ordering has become the hope of the restaurant industry.
60% of consumers today at least order once online a week.
And well, I am proudly one of them đ Â 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 thatđ 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 todayâs 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 theyâre 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 theyâre the most likely to buy.
- The right data helps you identify new innovative opportunities before your competitors. Â
- 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?
âLetâs learn from Mad Over Donuts:
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, MODâs 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 customerâs behavior will be the key to learn, iterate and improve. In todayâs competitive market, customer understanding & personalizing marketing communication is no more a âcherry on the topâ 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. Hereâs how:
This process was driven by 3 key factors:
đ 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 Xenoâs Data Collection report which was made accessible from store managers to the higher management.
đ„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 outletâs performance & take necessary measures for further improvement accordingly.
đRight 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.
đ„łïžAll of this led to an increase in Data Collection by 18% in just 6 monthsđ„łïž
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.
Itâs very simple, the more data you get from your consumers, the more personalized your marketing can be which eventually leads to better results.
So letâs #OwnOurCustomers