How to make a memorable mess

By Jerry Bellune

Panera Bread had a mess on its hands.
Customers waited up to eight minutes to place an order.
Then they had to stand and wait for their food.
And their orders were wrong 10% of the time.
The industry lost $3.2 billion in lunch orders last year.
People ate 433 million less restaurant lunches.

This frustrated Panera Chairman Ron Shaich.
It took him 30 minutes to get food in his own stores.
“I’d as soon go to my fridge for leftovers,” he thought.
He hired Blaine Hurst, a former Papa John’s executive.
What could they do? Technology came to the rescue.
Panera found online ordering was an answer.
They tried self-order kiosks, delivery and digital ordering.
They even started bringing food to customers’ tables.
They spent 100 hours a week seeing what would work.

Taking orders online wasn’t enough.
The kitchens had to be able to handle the volume.
They revamped the way employees process orders.
They made the kitchen display systems simpler.
That added speed and cut down on mistakes.
It took more than six years to get the process right
Online orders now are 25% of sales.
Customer waiting time has shrunk to one minute.
Hundreds of these little things made a difference.

Hurst also used his Papa John’s experience.
He started delivery from 24% of his total locations.
He expects that to grow to as much as 40% this year.
Panera is using 4,000 drivers and will add 10,000 more.
And Hurst has moved up as Panera’s CEO.
Panera is one of the top U.S. chains in the industry.

Now here’s what’s you need to ask yourself:
• How long do your customers have to wait for anything?
• How do you know and what are you doing about it?
• Who on your team may have the digital smarts to help?
• What might they and you do to fix these problems?
• And can you do it without just throwing money at it?

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Next: Cut your costs, not your throat.
Copyright 2017 The Bellune Co. Inc.