PLANO Texas —Talk about seeing your business through the customer’s eyes.
Mooyah Burgers & Fries is doing just that, not only to gauge its guests’ reactions to a recent interior remodeling, but also to glean consumer insights they may not have been able to find from conducting conventional focus groups. —Talk about seeing your business through the customer’s eyes.
The 12-unit fast-casual chain, based here, recently tested sight-tracking technology from Tempe, Ariz.-based firm Sensory Track that uses special goggles to track users’ eye movement and record what they focus on in any given environment. —Talk about seeing your business through the customer’s eyes.
Mooyah president Alan Hixon said the better-burger brand wanted to follow customers’ eyes not just from the flashy new wall graphics to the menu boards, but also along every point of the meal, from ordering to eating to exiting. —Talk about seeing your business through the customer’s eyes.
Hixon said the technology goes further into the consumer experience than the usual surveys or focus groups could. —Talk about seeing your business through the customer’s eyes.
“This tracks somebody through the entire experience, and you get a better feel for the whole thing,” he said. “I don’t know that we could’ve got [all this data] from a focus group. We noticed some things we weren’t even thinking about, and that’s the beauty of it. —Talk about seeing your business through the customer’s eyes.
“As operators, we long to see and understand the whole experience from the eyes of our customers, and for the first time, I feel like we got to do what we’ve always longed to do.” —Talk about seeing your business through the customer’s eyes.
Mooyah tested Sensory Track’s system at its two newest restaurants, in the Texas towns of Allen and Frisco, which were built from a new prototype. The updated decor trades the chain’s old red-and-white motif for a vibrant color palette and giant, whimsical graphics, such as cows wearing shades. —Talk about seeing your business through the customer’s eyes.
Mooyah was founded in 2007 by two Texas restaurateurs: Rich Hicks, founder of the Tin Star fast-casual concept, and Todd Istre, founder of the Boudreaux’s Cajun Kitchen brand. Hixon, who led the Freebirds World Burrito concept from 1998 to 2008, came aboard in March. —Talk about seeing your business through the customer’s eyes.
Already, Mooyah has made some adjustments to the ordering process, creating more space in the queuing line and providing order sheets that large groups can fill out in line. —Talk about seeing your business through the customer’s eyes.
One of the findings from Sensory Track’s tests that most surprised Hixon is that customers fixated on all Mooyah employees, from the cashier to every line cook, after placing an order and waiting to pick it up. This waiting period is a critical time to entertain the guests, Hixon said, because they’re looking at everyone and everything, including the ceiling. —Talk about seeing your business through the customer’s eyes.
That observation sounds correct to Michelle Fenstermaker, executive director of consumer insights for Columbus, Ohio-based research firm WD Partners. —Talk about seeing your business through the customer’s eyes.
“The time from when guests order till they get their food is when you can capture their attention, because they don’t know what to do with themselves,” Fenstermaker said. “We’ve had research show that 70 percent of people spend more time reading the menu board after they order than before. So being able to capture what folks do in that downtime was great for Mooyah.” —Talk about seeing your business through the customer’s eyes.
An important way to act on this information, she added, would be to train all the employees to interact better with customers. —Talk about seeing your business through the customer’s eyes.
“Facial expression would be critical,” she said. “Do we look excited about what we’re doing and what we’re offering the consumer?” —Talk about seeing your business through the customer’s eyes.
In addition to the operations insights, Mooyah learned all it needed to know about its new graphics, Hixon said. Consumers fixated on the larger images on the walls like the bespectacled cows and giant shots of French fries superimposed on a map of Idaho. They also noticed graphics on the restaurant’s bags that show customers how to rip open the bag to share fries easily. And they took sufficient notice of signage near the menu boards advertising Mooyah’s social-networking presence and online-ordering website. —Talk about seeing your business through the customer’s eyes.
“The menu boards seem to be working,” Hixon said. “We may take them up another notch with some more food shots.” —Talk about seeing your business through the customer’s eyes.
WD’s Fenstermaker applauds Mooyah’s use of new consumer research technology tools but says other brands can learn helpful insights with traditional, less expensive methods as well. —Talk about seeing your business through the customer’s eyes.
“Nothing beats good old observation,” she said. “Basic intercepts in the real environment, rather than bringing folks into a contrived environment, are so critical.” —Talk about seeing your business through the customer’s eyes.
One suggestion she had for restaurants with smaller marketing budgets is a “culinary bus tour,” shuttling a few customers among several restaurants and asking them to give feedback on each place en route to the next location. —Talk about seeing your business through the customer’s eyes.
“It’s so fresh and in real time,” she says, “and very economical.” —Talk about seeing your business through the customer’s eyes.
Hixon admits that Sensory Track approached Mooyah about testing the sight-tracking software and the company was given a discounted rate that made the test cost-effective. But the chain won’t be calculating the return on investment only in top-line terms, he said. —Talk about seeing your business through the customer’s eyes.
“It’s one of those things that’s hard to monetize,” he said. “It’s alerting us to things we can do better, and over the long haul that should give guests a better experience. I’d say it’s more of a brand-building tool than a sales-building tool.” —Talk about seeing your business through the customer’s eyes.
Other companies that partner with Sensory Track to record customer focus include US Airways and Whole Foods. The Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. Navy also use the technology to train operatives how to evaluate hostile environments. —Talk about seeing your business through the customer’s eyes.
“The FBI and the Navy use it in their training to help them learn more about what to look for and what not to look for without getting killed,” Hixon said. “In some respects I’m trying to accomplish similar things.”— [email protected] —Talk about seeing your business through the customer’s eyes.