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Consumer Insights
Success in the restaurant business often depends on being able to tap into consumers' attitudes and preferences—those often not-so-apparent insights that are so unique to our industry. We provide definitive answers to the questions your team has been asking among yourselves. Strategic direction is now based on facts. And executive business decisions gain support, minimizing second-guessing in the boardroom or franchise advisory council meetings.
Ultimately, our consumer research services make your decision-making process so much easier. Specifically, we can help you:
- Understand consumer preferences and brand selection drivers when choosing restaurants.
- Learn what is most important to consumers—and how your concept performs in these areas.
- Uncover which other restaurants are in the consideration set and where consumers are going when not visiting you.
- Understand perceptions held by non-users regarding your brand.
- Measure consumer awareness of attributes you consider to be essential to your brand.
- Pinpoint your concept's strengths, weaknesses and opportunities for improvement.
- Identify key attributes/themes for marketing communications.
Much more than standard consumer research
With over 40 years of expertise in the foodservice channel, we don't just compile data. We put everything in the context of YOUR business. We understand how to effectively design and execute research for you, making sure you ask the right questions and employ the right methodologies, including both quantitative and qualitative approaches. We analyze the data in the context of the foodservice industry at large and your segment in particular. We identify the "so-what's" and help you gain specific implications for your concept performance.
Examples of how we have helped other foodservice clients
An international quick-casual chicken chain was entering the U.S. market and wanted to test all elements of their brand collateral, including signage, menus, dcor, etc. to ensure they were hitting the mark with U.S. consumers. Additionally, they wanted to test a new product category for possible inclusion on their menu. They retained Technomic to conduct 68 focus groups in each location, to evaluate both geographic and ethnic perspectives on their branding options. In separate research, Technomic culinary specialists ran a test kitchen to evaluate the new product category, conducting complete sensory testing on the new offering, along with comparisons to competitors' products.
Results? Based on the focus group research, the chain developed a new brand positioning that broadened its appeal by explaining the ethnic/product attributes of its brand in a way that resonated with consumers. They also implemented the new product offering—sales have been quite strong, running at 15 percent of their product mix.
A regional neighborhood pub chain was struggling to maintain profitability in the face of a substantial increase in their cost of goods sold. To address the problem, they wanted to determine their customer satisfaction ratings on key brand attributes and explore customer price sensitivity in order to craft a new menu price strategy. Their operating markets were distinctly different, adding to the complexity of the challenge. They retained Technomic to conduct a statistically-valid online consumer survey in order to have legitimate feedback on how to enhance customer perceptions and usage relative to their competitive set in their unique markets. The survey also addressed consumer price sensitivity at both the brand and menu-item level.
Results? Technomic's strategic recommendations led to a new menu pricing strategy which improved the chain's cost-to-price margins by 5 points.
A leading limited-service restaurant chain had changed ownership. The new management team wanted a fact-based understanding of the current brand positioning and how the brand could and should evolve for sustained system and same-store sales growth. In addition to seeking insights regarding the current concept and menu offering, the executive team wanted to ensure their plans aligned with current consumer dynamics and trends, to understand how, where, and why customers are using their restaurants and to assess where they had "permission" to make changes to the concept and menu offering. They retained Technomic to embark on a multi-faceted research program, which included quantitative consumer research, competitive benchmarking and a menu opportunity and cost analysis.
Results? The company gained actionable insights and definitive direction for developing their five-year strategic plan and is testing a new positioning platform which evolved from this research. The parent company has retained Technomic to provide similar insights for their newest chain acquisition.