Doug Benham, who was recently named Executive Chair at Bob Evans Farms, Inc., wants to heighten the customer experience at the company through a new technology system and a new loyalty program
Benham, former President and CEO of Arby’s Restaurant Group, Inc., plans to focus on operational execution and menu innovation. Part of that operational execution will be tied to a new technology system set to launch during the current fiscal year.
“Last quarter, we announced we will begin implementing a new restaurant technology package in fiscal 2016, replacing our legacy POS system first implemented more than a decade ago,” Benham said during the Sept. 2 first-quarter earnings conference call, according to Seeking Alpha. “The newest system provides improved table management, including server tablet ordering and payer table capabilities, as well as tools to better support carry out and catering in the front of the house and new kitchen technology to assure accuracy and speed of guest orders and better stability allowing us to support a guest loyalty program. The platform will also provide our managers with improved tools for managing labor and food costs. These tools will supplement changes in manager compensation programs begun in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2015, to create an ownership mentality among restaurants and our managers to achieve greater profitability.”
Benham said the benefits of the restaurant technology platform will also sharpen the company’s focus on improving both the dining room and carryout customer experience. The Bob Evans Farms chain has grown to nearly 600 locations in 19 states, primarily in the Mid-Atlantic, Midwestern, and upper Southern states. All locations are corporately owned.
“Today, we have launched a pilot of the new restaurant technology platform in two restaurants near our support center here in New Albany with plans to add seven additional locations in October, before initiating a full system rollout beginning in January of 2016,” Benham said. “Early results have been encouraging, particularly with speed of service. And we’ll use the next phase of our testing to optimize the technology package we ultimately rollout during system wide implementation. Guests continued to respond positively to our increasingly breakfast-centric menu, product offerings and marketing strategy, as we leverage our strength and heritage with higher margin breakfast items, which represent 40% of total sales mix and deemphasize the lower margin items such as three-course dinners on our lunch and dinner menus.”
The decline in in-store sales is certainly not new for this quarter, Benham said.
“That’s been going on for the past several years,” he explained. “So, clearly our focus is improving in-store dining. We spent $125 million renovating our restaurants and frankly didn’t get a whole lot of pop out of it. We still have some work to do there. We need to improve our branding in our restaurants; we need to improve the experience that our guests are having. I would tell you, I think that the energy level that we have in our restaurants today is extraordinarily high from our team members. The empowerment of the manager of the ownership mentality, philosophy, creating a bonus program that backs that up, the team members seeing improved training, hours that we’re spending that the pride that they’re having in the product that they’re selling today, this is something has a very renewed energy, which we get comments from our guests all the time. The next step of that is going to be the POS system and order system that we have. The order at the table with tablets is going very, very well for us, is increasing our speed of service. And so on busy weekend days we have better table turns et cetera. It also improves the guest experience by pay at the table.”
Benham said company officials made a strategic decision to invest in their restaurant level staff from both the training and incentive standpoint during fiscal 2016 to retain and attract talent and ensure a full staffing complement.
“Elevating our guest dining and off-premise experience is critical to turning around Bob Evans Restaurants’ performance and our investments in labor have been designed to support that objective,” he explained. “So, we’re not only catching up technologically, but we think we’re taking the next step ahead. We’re absolutely going the right way.”