Top 5 Restaurant Brands
Food
Service
Intent to Return
Year-over-Year Trends
Food
Service
Intent to Return
During January, year-over-year positive guest sentiment increased regarding the food and service attributes of the restaurant experience. Service was the attribute with the biggest positive jump in sentiment. This should be good news for restaurant brands, since TDn2K research has shown that service is the attribute that most distinguished top and bottom performing brands over the last 3 years. However, when guests directly addressed their intent to return to specific brands, sentiment became more negative than it was a year ago during January. In the current environment of falling year-over-year guest counts, the fact that fewer people are saying they'll return is not surprising.
Connecting the Dots on Performance
Management turnover has been found to be a key metric of restaurant performance. In a recent study, TDn2K's White Box Social Intelligence established that the effect of improved management retention has a positive effect throughout the restaurant that seems to be impacting execution and increasing guest satisfaction regarding food quality. Over the last few years, breakfast has been the day part that has offered the most same-store sales growth opportunities for restaurants. The data shows that those brands with the highest positive guest satisfaction scores tend to outperform the rest of the industry based on breakfast sales growth.
Top DMAS
-
Food
orlando, fl -
Service
philadelphia, pa -
Intent to Return
los angeles, ca -
Beverage
chicago, il -
Ambiance
chicago, il -
Value
indianapolis, in
Bottom DMAS
-
Food
chicago, il -
Service
chicago, il -
Intent to Return
detroit, mi -
Beverages
minneapolis-st paul, mn -
Ambiance
st louis, mo -
Value
atlanta, ga
Restaurant guests in Chicago had very extreme views when it came to their restaurant experiences during January. The city had the most positive guest sentiment regarding satisfaction with beverages and restaurant ambiance. At the same time, Chicago had the most negative sentiment related to food and service. Philadelphia seems to be delivering a superior service experience and also on strong same-store sales performance. It had the most positive service sentiment and the second highest same-store sales growth during January out of the biggest 25 markets in the country. Value was found to be correlated to sales performance during the first quarter of 2017 and Atlanta appears to be proof of this relationship. It had the most negative guest sentiment in relation to value and was the fourth worst market during January based on same-store sales growth.
Best & Worst Regions
- mountain plains48.1% Positive
- western45.8% Positive
- florida43.3% Positive
- mid-atlantic39.9% Positive
- southwest39.7% Positive
- ny-nj38.4% Positive
For the eleven regions of the country, on average only 42 percent of all online restaurant mentions reflected a positive sentiment. However, guests in the Mountain Plains region had a significantly more positive sentiment during January. Guests in the New York/New Jersey region were tough on restaurants during the month: only 38 percent of all online guest mentions during January expressed a positive sentiment towards the restaurant brand.
RGS Snapshot Archive
The Restaurant Guest Satisfaction Snapshot is produced by White Box Social Intelligence™, a TDn2K Product™. WBSI is tracking over 192 brands to benchmark customer satisfaction and is the only online tool that integrates with operational performance data to validate the impact on financial performance. The algorithm determining ranking brands is based on sentiment and determined by White Box Social Intelligence. Brands included in this monthly snapshot must have a total of at least 250 mentions for the month. Restaurants must have a minimum number of units to be eligible as well. DMA rankings consider only the largest 25 areas.