Photo courtesy of Burger King
While QSRs often solicit feedback from customers, Burger King is providing the phone number of Tom Curtis -- president, Burger King U.S. and Canada -- to the public to support both marketing and feedback-gathering.
According to articles from Restaurant Business and Nation’s Restaurant News, Curtis will spend the first two weeks of the program spending four hours every day -- including nights and weekends -- taking unfiltered calls and texts from guests on his work phone.
The calls during the first two weeks will be recorded and are expected to be used in digital marketing. After the two weeks, the initiative will continue with shorter daily windows and include additional members of the leadership team answering and responding to calls and texts. Every message received will be reviewed and responded to.
Despite the public relations and potential marketing benefit, Burger King said the campaign particularly builds on efforts to leverage customer feedback in recent years to “help drive meaningful change” in modernizing restaurants and updating its menu to support its $400 million “Reclaim the Flame” turnaround. Those efforts included the launch of the Million Dollar Whopper Contest, which invites Burger King enthusiasts to dream up their own Whopper creations.
"As the home of Have It Your Way, guests are our most important advisors. We're grateful that they provide the feedback that is shaping our brand today and in the future," said Curtis in statement. "There's nothing like hearing from guests firsthand, so I'm excited to have an even greater opportunity to have live open and honest conversations, ask questions, and see how we can create an even better Burger King together.”
Burger King's Curtis Speaks on the Unique Marketing, Comms Effort
In an interview with Nation’s Restaurant News, Curtis said he hopes the initial two weeks will “get a pipeline going” to establish a perpetual loop of customer feedback. He said, “This will become a sustainable routine as long as I’m here. It won’t be four hours a day, but a couple days a week, and we’ll rotate.”
Later this year, franchisees and other Burger King team members will engage directly with customers to hear and act on feedback.
Criticism is expected. He told Nation’s Restaurant News, “I don’t expect it to be a love fest. People are going to tell me what we can do better, or about an experience at their local restaurant. The best gift I can get is real, honest feedback. Maybe the food isn’t hot or the cashier is distracted, or a restaurant isn’t as clean as we’d like it to be. We have to understand anything that may make a customer think twice about not coming back.”
He further told Restaurant Business that while many retail and restaurant executives routinely visit locations to secure insights from customers, encouraging phone calls and texts extends his reach to customers. He said, “You know, there’s 7,000 restaurants out there, and I know this is going to shock you, but I don’t get to 7,000 restaurants in a year. It’s just not practical. I’m going to get people. Calling me from who knows where, New York, Pennsylvania, Tucson, Arizona, and they’re going to talk with me about their specific experiences.”
In the retail space, J.Crew’s former CEO Mickey Drexler in 2016 gave out his work e-mail to encourage feedback -- but it’s rare for any executive across industries to provide either direct e-mails or phone numbers.