For Wendy’s CEO Emil J. Brolick, offering a unique customer experience in this day and age revolves around technology innovation.
“We understand that differentiation must extend beyond our food and include a unique consumer-facing technology experience,” Brolick said during the company’s fiscal third-quarter conference call late in 2015, according to Seeking Alpha. “Our customer self-order kiosks and new mobile ordering app in rollout markets allow customers to choose and order their meals at their leisure. However, rather than asking our customers to try to predict their arrival time as most brands do, we use the customer’s phone as the trigger that tells us that they have arrived, so we can prepare their food fresh.”
Brolick added: “With our unique to the industry beacon technology, our customers do not even need to take their phones out of their pockets to pay. In addition, we are in trials with the payment method CurrentC, which uses similar technology. This lets customers pay using their mobile phone inside the restaurant and integrates offers and coupons directly into the process. And at the pickup window, it doesn't require our customers to hand over their phone and multiple customers in the same car can each pay separately.”
Brolick continues to have “high confidence” in Wendy’s balanced approach to its marketing calendar, comprised of core products, limited time offers, and price value messages.
“Speaking of our 4 for $4 promotion, we are very happy with the early results, and we are meeting a consumer need for compelling value with a high-quality unique offering,” he said. “Our goal with this promotion is to complement our high-end messages with a program that will drive profitable customer count growth and we are very encouraged by the customer count growth we are experiencing. We expect that this will be the first of several value bundles that you will see us use in concert with high-end core and LTO messages. We continue to believe in and remain committed to our cut-above brand position. It’s the natural position for The Wendy’s brand, leverages our quality and innovation heritage and, most importantly, it’s not a position that our traditional quick-serve restaurants can claim.”
Since Day 1, Brolick said, Wendy’s has stood for fresh, great tasting food.
“When Dave Thomas founded Wendy’s, he served hamburgers made fresh with never-frozen beef and he wanted all sandwiches made fresh when customers order them,” Brolick said. “As we have evolved and strengthened our brand position, so too have we evolved and strengthened our business model. A key benefit of our system optimization initiative is the enhanced quality of earnings we have generated by producing a more stable earnings stream.”