Service Management Group Partners with CKE Restaurants

by Katie Lee

Kansas City, Mo. — CKE Restaurants Holdings, Inc. has selected Service Management Group (SMG) to measure the customer experience for 3,000 Hardee’s® and Carl’s Jr.® locations in North America. In 2018, the program will expand to include an additional 800 international locations across 41 countries. SMG is a global leader in customer experience (CX) measurement, helping more than 450 brands around the globe to listen, understand and act on feedback and behavioral data.

“CKE was very specific about where they’ve been and where they’re headed,” says Chris Egan, SMG’s president and COO. “They’re hungry to learn more from their customers in an effort to give them an even better dining experience. We’re excited about the level of engagement from the CKE senior leadership team. From day one it’s been a real partnership, and we’re extremely optimistic about the impact this program will have on their business.” 

To identify key areas of focus for innovation, CKE is launching an SMG VisitView survey to measure and improve customer experiences at the location level. The program identifies and measures key drivers and includes built-in text analytics to uncover themes for operational success. The resulting customer data is available at the corporate, field and location levels via the smg360® reporting dashboard and mobile reporting app.

While the dashboard gives corporate users 24/7 access to insights that drive business decisions, the reporting app makes it quick and easy for location managers to see where to focus and to take fast action via push alerts.

Additionally, CKE takes advantage of SMG’s BrandGeek® data to access branded benchmarks. SMG is a leader in the hamburger QSR space, and branded benchmarks will prove particularly helpful as CKE makes strategic decisions about future innovations.

“Now is the right time for us to move from an internally-managed model, to partnering with a full-service, global technology and insight leader like SMG,” says Ryan Hanawalt, CKE’s vice president of operations support. “We put the customer first in everything we do, so detailed consumer insights are critical to our success. We expect this new partnership to make significant changes in the way we connect with and learn from our customers around the world.”

For more information, visit http://www.smg.com/solutions/customer-experience.

CKE Restaurants Holdings, Inc. (CKE) is a privately held company headquartered in Franklin, Tenn.  Carl’s Jr. Restaurants LLC and Hardee’s Restaurants LLC own, operate and franchise the Carl’s Jr., Hardee’s, Green Burrito® and Red Burrito® concepts. After recent international openings in Chile, Cambodia and Kenya, Carl’s Jr. Restaurants LLC and Hardee’s Restaurants LLC now have over 3,800 franchised or company-operated restaurants in 44 states and 41 foreign countries and U.S. territories. The Carl’s Jr./Hardee’s system is now 94% franchised. For more information, visit www.ckr.com or www.carlsjr.com and www.hardees.com.  

Service Management Group
(SMG) partners with more than 450 brands around the globe to create better customer and employee experiences, which drive loyalty and performance. For more information, visit www.smg.com.

SOURCE: Service Management Group

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