Case Study

Improving on Success

The Problem

A national restaurant chain was doing well—reporting strong returns for stakeholders and a growing and loyal customer base. In fact, they were growing so fast that they had outgrown their current structure and their current ways of getting work done. They realized that their work processes and how they were organized was slowing down their ability to grow.

To stay relevant as a brand in their highly-competitive industry, they needed to sharpen their understanding about what made them different and strengthen the way they executed their competitive advantage.

The Solution

RBL was asked to help design and implement the new roles, relationships, and work needed to make this vision a reality.

Over the next few months, a design team of restaurant and RBL experts looked at every function of the business and determined how it contributed to creating the experience their customers were expecting when they came to the restaurant. They identified the work that had the greatest impact on their competitive advantage in light of the new business model and capabilities.

Next, they designed a new structure to prioritize competitive advantage work, implementing new roles in restaurants, a change in the management structure for corporate and each restaurant, and several new teams in the corporate office dedicated to innovating the customer experience.

The Outcome

While it took some effort and perseverance to change the way people worked, the processes that created better focus on customer experience started paying off right away.

Within the first 90 days, the pilot restaurant saw a 25% growth in sales. Since the implementation of the new organization model, restaurants that have fully implemented the new model have seen 28% higher sales over other restaurants, improved customer loyalty, and are significantly outperforming the industry.