Multi-Unit Franchisee Magazine Issue IV, 2013 | Page 56

BY EDDY GOLDBERG

Counter Culture
G

athering customer feedback is a
lot easier these days than it used to
be. From register receipts and customer surveys to online sites such
as Yelp, Angie’s List, and more, franchisees
can learn a lot from what their customers
have to say about them. However, training
front-line employees to take this seriously
is an ongoing challenge. And with many of
today’s customers expecting more—even
from fast-food brands—training front-line
employees to treat customers the way the
franchisee or manager would like is more
important than ever… and, when done
right, a competitive advantage, as you’ll
see in the four stories below.
For Judy and Charlie Divita that challenge plays out every day in their six Firehouse Subs restaurants. When we profiled
these MVP Award winners (MUF, 3Q12),
one of their goals was to “systematically
strengthen our customer service culture,
training, and operations.”
“You’ve got to have those things tied
together—the making of a sub and being
timely cannot be separated from the people
part of it,” says Charlie. “The relationship
between customers and employees is critical.”
For example, he says, if you deliver an
average sandwich to a customer and the
customer experience is outstanding, you’ll
probably be okay. The goal, of course, is
to be outstanding on both. That requires
commitment from the front-line employees. When customers come into a store and
employees are authentically valuing those
things, he says, “You’ve got a home run.”
Easier said than done. “To tell the truth
there’s not much you can do to train that,”
he says. And while you can model it, that
doesn’t guarantee the staff will pick up on
it, says Charlie. “When we hire employees,
the focus is on getting them to make a sandwich,” he says. “Teaching that is very easy.
The problem in our business is attention
to detail, paying attention to the customer.
We’re finding increasingly that that’s what
we have to pay attention to.”
One way they’re doing that is by actively
soliciting customer feedback, using an online survey from Firehouse Subs. “We can’t

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Multi-Unit Franchisee Is s ue IV, 2013

How do you
transfer your
culture to the
front line?

get enough of these,” he says. To increase
responses, they offer incentives to both
customers and employees.
Each register receipt asks customers to
respond, positively or negatively, to earn a
free drink and be entered into a sweepstakes.
Managers are given incentives to get as many
responses as possible, good or bad. And cashiers are trained to ask each customer to
respond. And they give away $100 at every
monthly staff meeting, partially based on
the volume of responses. “It’s not a bonus
based on how high the ratings are. We just
want to get the feedback,” says Judy.
They also review the results in monthly
meetings with each of their six store man-

agers and at biweekly meetings with shift
leaders at each store, who feed that back
to employees. And they post the results in
all their stores, benchmarking each store
against the others and against regional and
national numbers.
The survey asks questions about the
food, cleanliness, and the usual restaurant
standards. But it also asks customers about
the crew, such as their sense of urgency,
their friendliness and hospitality, the overall
atmosphere of the restaurant, and “Did a
crew member ask you to take the survey?”
Another part of the survey asks customers how much they agree with statements
such as “Firehouse Subs is a place where
the customer comes first.”
“We’re using the data from the surveys
as a guide,” says Judy. Their goals include
raising their customer satisfaction numbers
and getting more customers to recommend
their stores. “The idea is to make it a focus
every month so it continues to be top of
mind,” she says. That applies to both shift
leaders and front-line staff.
“You can’t take any action constructively unless you have some data. We can

“We’re where the rubber meets the road. We
model, build incentives, train, and now we
have the customers involved.”—Charlie and Judy Divita