Driving QSR customer loyalty with data centralization

Over 80 percent of restaurants are turning to technology — everything from online payments to reservation and inventory apps to in-store ordering systems. But few quick-service operators are successfully harnessing the power of the massive amounts of data they collect through these channels.  

As new data pours into restaurants from all directions, QSRs need to recognize the value of data centralization. When customer data is collected, consolidated, and cleaned in a unified platform, it yields meaningful insights that lead to more informed, more precise decision making — decisions that set the stage for the products and promotions that build lifelong customer loyalty, the Holy Grail of the restaurant business.  

Still, many quick-service operators continue to let their data languish in silos, spread haphazardly across systems and locations. These QSRs run the risk of falling behind big chains like Chipotle Mexican Grill, which is deploying a comprehensive customer insights platform to organize, analyze, and enrich its data to better engage its millions of customers, or Jack-in-the-Box, which is taking the next step in its digital transformation by upgrading its customer data platform.

Let’s take a look at some of the ways unifying your data transforms your business — and why the future of your brand depends on it.

From Alexa to news reading apps, today’s consumers experience personalization across every aspect of their lives — and they expect no less from their favorite quick-service restaurants. 

By combining transactional data in your restaurants’ POS systems with online and offline customer information (e.g. loyalty program info, location data, consumptive behaviors, and more), QSRs begin to establish a 360-degree view of each individual patron. This perspective provides the clear, nuanced understanding of customer preferences (such as favorite menu items and times of day they like to visit) that enables you to create stickier, more seamless, and more personalized experiences across channels. 

Data that is fully centralized, accessible, and primed for personalization translates to customers who are more likely to:

Getting personal is a huge boon for your bottom line. A McKinsey study found brands that create personalized experiences are seeing revenue increases of 5 to 15 percent, as well as 10 to 30 percent boosts in marketing-spend efficiency.

Centralized data means your entire team is on the same page. When silos are dismantled and all data is accessible, teams can share, collaborate, and create together, work toward common goals, and more easily meet and exceed the high expectations of today’s QSR customers. 

Oh, and all those trends and changes in your data? With everything in one place, you can stay on top of new information, and respond more quickly and decisively — you can even leverage data insights to proactively predict your customer needs and wants.

Of course, discovering deep, valuable customer insights is impossible if you don’t have the tools and technologies to look at all of your customer data as a whole, on an ongoing basis. 

Whether you’re a small, mid-sized, or emerging quick-service chain, a customer data platform is not just something you should consider: it’s something you absolutely need to implement.