Quick-Service Customerville League Submitted by: Patrick Yearout, FMP, CHT, Director of Innovation, Recruiting, and Training, Ivar's and Kidd Valley Restaurants
Objective
From 4,000 to 14,000+ customer feedback surveys
To increase the amount of guest feedback so our teams can provide higher quality dining experiences.
How it Works
This customer feedback competition is internally called Ivar’s Quick-Service Customerville League since it involves our QSR locations, we use a vendor called Customerville to host our online guest feedback, and it is based on the National Football League. The competition begins every year just after Labor Day and runs through Super Bowl Sunday. As sales slow down following our busy summer season, this activity helps to keep our teams motivated through the fall. Each week, each restaurant competes head-to-head against another restaurant to see who can achieve the highest overall guest score in the Customerville system. The team with the higher score receives a Win, and the team with the lower score tallies a Loss. Each team also needs to receive a minimum number of surveys each week to qualify for the game. The season starts with a low number of surveys required, and increases as the season progresses, which encourages the team members to get as much
feedback as they can from their guests. At the end of the 17 weeks of regular season play (same as the NFL), there are three rounds of playoffs in which the 16 teams with the highest Win percentages begin competing against one another. Once we are down to two teams, these conference winners compete in our Quick-Service Hospitality Super Bowl, a two-week competition that ends on the same day as the NFL Super Bowl. The winning team is announced at our year-end Awards Banquet, and the staff receives some prizes and a trophy that is displayed in their restaurant for a year after winning.
Results
This contest, which we started back in 2012 and continues to this day, had an immediate impact on our guest survey totals because it was so popular with our team members. We generated 5,000 surveys during that first four-month contest, which was more than we had received in the previous year, and the feedback provided by customers helps the managers see the areas in which their teams have excelled and the areas they need improvement. This contest also helps measure the strength of the whole team, rather than highlighting only the front-of-house staff, because everyone must work together to serve the guests well. The contest is very inexpensive to run and requires minimal administrative oversight from managers.
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