ESP SYSTEMS™ CASE STUDY

THE CHALLENGE

Over the past several months, ESP Systems™ has partnered with two reputable chains – one leading regional chain and one leading national chain – to analyze their existing service models in order to better understand what service gaps and inefficiencies exist. The ultimate goals of the partnerships were to determine whether ESP could solve those service problems  and enhance the guest experience while also increasing the productivity of their respective operations.

THE PROCESS

ESP Systems (the “Company”) partnered individually with both a “Top 50 Powerhouse” regional restaurant chain as well as with one of the largest national restaurant chains (the “Partners”).  In order to identify the breakdowns and gaps in the current service model, ESP Systems and its Partners conducted a thorough service audit of a test store for each chain.  This operational audit, a proprietary process ESP Systems calls “Flow-Mapping,” was completed through detailed observations and analyses of how the guests and employees naturally behaved without ESP, and how that natural behavior positively or negatively affected the guest experience and productivity of the operation. 

Once the Partners confirmed that the Flow-Mapping data was an accurate representation of normal operations without ESP, the Company deployed its new, patented wireless system into the two test stores for a 30-day period.  Detailed data was collected through a statistically significant number of guest surveys, a set of server surveys, host surveys, management interviews, and time-stamped segments of table turns were recorded and analyzed.  This data was used to determine ESP’s ability to impact the guest dining experience, impact the productivity and satisfaction levels of employees, and collapse the incumbent service gaps.

THE RESULTS

Guest Results

• Enhancing the Guest Experience: 88% of guests said ESP enhanced their dining experience and would like to see it permanently in that establishment as well as in other casual-dining restaurants.
• Preventing Guest “Loyalty Killers”: 91% of guests concluded ESP would have prevented past “loyalty killer” service experiences – that have led them to never return to a restaurant – ultimately saving their loyalty to that restaurant and ensuring future business.
• Attracting New Guests: 94% of guests said that they were going to tell their friends and family about their positive ESP experience, increasing the mind-share and ultimately attracting new guests that would have otherwise not visited the restaurants.
• Increasing Guest Frequency and Future Dining Decisions: 63% of guests remarked that in the future they were more likely to frequent those restaurants that had ESP over other concepts that did not when deciding where to dine.

Employee Results

• Servers Want It: 86% of servers said they would rather work at a restaurant with ESP versus at a restaurant without it, ultimately having positive implications on a restaurant’s recruiting, training, and retention efforts.  (Only 2% of servers said they would prefer not to work at a restaurant with ESP, with the balance being neutral.)
• Servers Are Making More Money: 83% of servers indicated that ESP enables them to make more money, positively affecting a restaurant’s recruiting, training, and retention efforts.
• Servers Have A Lower Stress Job: 84% of servers said ESP lowers their overall stress levels and makes their job easier, ultimately having positive implications on a restaurant’s recruiting, training, and retention efforts.
• Servers Have Happier Guests: 91% of servers felt like ESP made their guests happier, positively affecting their level of satisfaction and earnings.
• Hosts Want It: 100% of hosts said they would rather work at a restaurant with ESP versus at a restaurant without it.
• Managers Want It: 100% of managers said they would rather work at a restaurant with ESP versus at a restaurant without it.

Efficiency Results

• Accelerated Table Turn Times: ESP accelerated table turn times by 10%+.
• Labor-Savings Opportunities: 93% of servers believed ESP enabled them to handle more tables without sacrificing guest satisfaction, thereby streamlining operations.

THE PROFIT IMPACT

Revenue Increase
The financial implications behind the ESP Partner deployments are significant.  By enhancing the guest experience, revenues should be driven higher by positively impacting both existing guests as well as new guests.  For existing guests, ESP not only leads them to come back more often but it also prevents the all too common “loyalty killer” service scenarios where the restaurant would have forever lost their guests. 

For new guests, ESP creates an exciting, guest-empowered experience that inspires guests to encourage their friends (who had not previously frequented that establishment) to go to those restaurants that offer ESP.  Therefore, this case study suggests that ESP is a unique solution in that it not only creates incremental demand (i.e. guest traffic) for a restaurant, but also creates incremental capacity to service that demand by accelerating the speed of turning tables.

Cost Reduction
In addition to driving revenue higher, this case study suggests that ESP has the ability to simultaneously cut unnecessary costs out of a restaurant’s operation.  Data suggests that fewer servers can handle more tables, having a positive impact on labor costs, which often represent the largest cost component on a restaurant’s income statement.