ANATOMY OF A BRAND
We equip In 2013 , Arby ’ s instituted “ Brand Champ ” training for all of our team members , and this past year more than 70,000 employees ( company and franchise ) across the system experienced this key training initiative . Brand Champ is a half-day interactive learning and sharing experience where entire restaurant teams get together offsite . Our teams discuss thoughtful and creative ways to bring the brand to life and to “ own ” their role as brand ambassadors . In the spirit of personal development , we also spend significant time teaching them to be “ Champions of their Lives ” through the power of goal-setting while focusing on an important Arby ’ s core value : Dream Big .
We empower Empowering our team members has brought big wins to Arby ’ s . For example , the idea behind a recent limited-time offer , the King ’ s Hawaiian Fish Deluxe sandwich , came directly from a front-line crew member in a franchised restaurant . The employee submitted his recipe for the sandwich through our “ Hey Chef Neville !” internal sourcing program for culinary ideas . He was recognized on stage at our Worldwide Franchise Convention and received a scholarship award for his passion and creativity .
The centerpiece of our empowerment strategy is our new “ We Make It Right ” guest experience program where every team member can honor a guest request or address an issue without having to ask their manager . We ’ ve coupled that with a new guest experience measurement program to help us quickly identify areas of opportunity or reach out to our guests … often before they return home . This approach has been adopted throughout the entire system and is already helping to raise service levels by providing team members with the power and courage to “ make it right .”
We engage When CEO Paul Brown took the helm in 2013 , he immediately went on a crosscountry listening tour with franchisees and team members . His first objective was to find out what and how we felt about ourselves . The information gleaned from those meetings helped identify some short- and long-term priorities and set the direction for moving forward .
Shortly thereafter , we fielded our first detailed and system-wide franchisee satisfaction survey to pinpoint our op-
portunities . The results were humbling , but we built a plan to systematically address all of the major issues . In three short years we significantly improved those satisfaction scores and earned the prestigious designation of “ World Class Franchise ” by the Franchise Research Institute .
To turn a sharp ear to our guests , Arby ’ s invested in state-of-the-art social media monitoring technology to help us respond to guests in real time . This has allowed us to not only join the social media conversation but often to be the focus of the conversation … in a very unapologetic but authentic way . Helping to identify issues and provide consumer outreach , our social media team acts as yet another ambassador for our guests and for our brand .
Equip … Empower … Engage . The results speak for themselves . We are very proud to have achieved 21 consecutive quarters of same-store sales growth and 12 consecutive quarters of QSR industry outperformance .
We will continue to press forward and to redefine our brand . With new products , great advertising , and new restaurants , we are on track to generate $ 4 billion in sales by 2018 . But most critically , we will never lose focus on our most important asset : our people , and the outstanding service our guests have come to know and expect . n
John Bowie is chief operating officer of Arby ’ s Restaurant Group
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