Consumers' Choice in Chains: Leaders of the Pack - Chick-fil-A

Twelve-time R&I Consumers’ Choice in Chains winner Chick-fil-A has just about as many ways to connect with customers as it does to serve its much-heralded fried chicken.

By Staff -- Restaurants & Institutions, 9/1/2006

Twelve-time R&I Consumers’ Choice in Chains winner Chick-fil-A has just about as many ways to connect with customers as it does to serve its much-heralded fried chicken.

One of the most publicized is the Atlanta-based company’s 3-year-old tradition of executives camping out overnight with customers as part of its “First 100 Fans” giveaways at new locations. But Chick-fil-A’s efforts to track guests’ preferences and opinions extend far beyond these seemingly casual encounters.

Besides standard research methods such as focus groups, Web comments and a toll-free telephone hotline, the chain completes “attitudinal studies” three times each year, handing out more than 500 survey cards to customers at every store on undisclosed dates, spanning dayparts and demographics. The goal is for a minimum of 100 respondents per unit to call the number provided and answer questions on food quality, cleanliness and service.

“We are a 60-year-old family business, and it would be so easy to slip into a haphazard, lackadaisical attitude. But it’s the little nuances you have to be on guard for that can eventually roll into the kiss of death,” says President and Chief Operating Officer Dan Cathy.

The company’s responses range from delivering waffle fries to a customer whose drive-thru order was incomplete to adding fruit cups to the menu for diners who seek more fresh choices. To get the big-picture view inside guests’ minds, though, in-person interaction remains high on Cathy’s list. Of the 60-plus restaurants Chick-fil-A has opened so far this year, he visited about 45 in their first week of operation and the rest within a month. Recently, he took his top leadership team to Richmond, Va., for a two-day, 14-store sweep of the area.

“You need to have an intuitive feel for things the customer doesn’t overtly tell you. That’s why you have to be there, to get the inferences and nuances of what they’re saying,” Cathy says. “And great businesses go beyond that; they try to anticipate where the customer might be headed next. That almost-intuitive sense has to come from the culmination of many sources of feedback.”