“We shaved our guest’s wait time by more than a minute. That’s huge! That’s simply from implementing the Table Tracker.”
Austin-based Mighty Fine Burgers is a counter-service fast casual restaurant unlike any ordinary burger joint. As a winner of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, Mighty Fine Burgers strives for excellence beyond speedy service and just serving any regular burger. Their mission is to guarantee that each guest is delighted from the minute they walk in the door until the time they leave. And they mean it.
Director of Team Member Engagement, Gini Quiroz, said the company’s philosophy is based on their seven key business drivers: speed of service, food quality, Texas hospitality, cleanliness, team members, accuracy and value of the entire experience. Any decisions proposed to change operations are matched up with these key business goals to determine if they compromise or support them. Initially seeking to improve ambiance and overall guest satisfaction, Mighty Fine Burgers decided to put LRS’ Table Tracker to the test.
Since Mighty Fine Burgers is a counter-service restaurant, customers would place their order and then go wait for their names to be called to pick up their food. Before implementing Table Tracker, Mighty Fine Burgers simply called out the names of customers to alert them that their food was ready. In conjunction with loud music, name shouting and microphones, customers were complaining about the noise level and the overall stressful environment while waiting for their food.
“As a result, food quality was sacrificed because guests weren’t getting their meals as quickly as they should have. Guests would have to return to the counter to get their food, congesting the already-high traffic area instead of relaxing and enjoying the wait,” said Quiroz.
After listening to customer feedback, Mighty Fine Burgers installed Table Tracker to streamline the order process for the guest and deliver food to the table, eliminating name shouting and food pick up. Quiroz mentioned that they were able to see immediate and measurable results. “We shaved our guest’s wait time by more than a minute. That’s huge! That’s simply from implementing the Table Tracker,” said Quiroz.
Quiroz also noted another significant difference in customer satisfaction after installing Table Tracker. Instead of complaining about the loud noise, Quiroz said customers were actually able to enjoy the bustling and high-energy atmosphere that Mighty Fine Burgers had originally intended to create.
Tying back to the seven key business drivers Mighty Fine Burgers uses to measure success, they were able to see their customer satisfaction and speed of service scores increase.
Serving over 750 burgers a day, food delivery times decreased from 4-5 minutes down to 3-4 minutes; goal times associated with QSRs rather than typical fast casual restaurants.
“Table Tracker is so much a part of our culture now. People are no longer complaining about the noise, waiting for their meal or their food becoming cold. And that’s a direct result of bringing in the Table Tracker,” said Quiroz.
With Table Tracker, Mighty Fine Burgers were able to shave a full minute of the average wait time and accurately measure food delivery goals. Prior to Table Tracker, Quiroz said that orders were manually counted and timed, making data from the day’s food orders more of an “educated guess.” The metrics provided by Table Tracker took all of the guess work out and Mighty Fine Burgers is now confident in the analytics.
Mighty Fine Burgers created a brand new position to maximize the effectiveness of Table Tracker called The Lobby. Since guests no longer needed to pick up their food, The Lobby’s main focus is to expedite the food and deliver it to the guests’ tables as quickly as possible. Quiroz said that the advantage of delivering food to the table also supported their mission to provide more “Texas hospitality.”
“The servers are able to greet the guest and hand the food directly to them, which we see as an opportunity to have more face-to-face time with our guests. We find that having that extra touchpoint increases our level of Texas hospitality within our dining room,” said Quiroz.
Creating the new Lobby position also helped the kitchen staff become more efficient and accurate when expo-ing orders. Kitchen staff were able to focus more on meal prep and field questions to The Lobby. This decreased errors made during food prep.
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