Dairy Queen + GoSpotCheck by FORM
Dairy Queen Reduces Time
Collecting Data by 80%
Significantly reduced time spent collecting and submitting photos and data to corporate.
About the Company
The Dairy Queen® system is one of the most recognizable brands in the restaurant space, famously known for classic American food and tasty frozen desserts, like Blizzard® Treats. Since the Dairy Queen® brand opened its first store in 1940, the brand has steadily grown to become one of the largest chains in the world. Today, there are more than 6,800 Dairy Queen® restaurants stretched across the United States, Canada, and more than 25 other countries.
Like other major chains, the Dairy Queen® brand’s footprint consists mostly of independently owned and operated franchises, placing critical emphasis on the importance of quality and consistency. John Scheid, American Dairy Queen® (ADQ) Corporation’s Director of Concept Support Services, understands the inherent challenges of monitoring a network of independent franchises. Scheid sought out an execution management solution to provide deeper insight into store operations and brand compliance.
It’s important to dig into the flow of how product moves through our restaurants and what systems are in place to make sure that we are offering the same product experience from one location on one side of the country to another location on the other side of the country.
JOHN SCHEID
ADQ Director of Concept Support Services
The Challenge
As with any restaurant, there is the chance that the customer experience will vary from store to store. An unreliable customer experience reflects poorly on the Dairy Queen® brand, so it was of utmost importance that field teams routinely reviewed store processes and checked that promotional materials met brand guidelines.
As Scheid explained, any deviation from product standards could result in a poor customer experience, necessitating consistency across all stores regardless of location.
Before implementing GoSpotCheck, ADQ’s data collection was unstructured. The flexibility of this approach – and lack of a mobile solution – prevented brand stakeholders from achieving a more comprehensive understanding of franchise trends.
Similarly, another pain point affecting field operations was the use of pen and paper to document store conditions and processes.
Handwritten reports inevitably slow down reporting and delay the retrieval of valuable insights. As with any restaurant, there is the chance that the customer experience will vary from store to store. An unreliable customer experience reflects poorly on the Dairy Queen® brand, so it was of utmost importance that field teams routinely reviewed store processes and checked that promotional materials met brand guidelines.
GoSpotCheck helped us understand where our opportunities are.
JOHN SCHEID
ADQ Director of Concept Support Services
The Solution
GoSpotCheck’s extensive list of features made it a clear solution for ADQ’s field execution management pain points. Within GoSpotCheck, frontline employees can provide updates, upload reports, and send store data in real time to administrators and other relevant parties. Real-time communication enables immediate changes to forms and surveys, and updated surveys power the collection of critical intelligence.
GoSpotCheck offers customizable reporting to increase responsiveness and engagement at all levels of field operations. Field teams can easily create a formal documentation of their findings, which makes it easier for brand representatives to work with franchisees on improving restaurant operations.
“It’s helped us to record business consultants’ findings, build discussions with franchisees, and have a track record of execution for business consultants,” Scheid stated.
GoSpotCheck makes real-time changes into real-time data which is absolutely amazing for us. For me as an administrator — that’s my favorite feature.
JOHN SCHEID
ADQ Director of Concept Support Services
Business Impact
Since implementing GoSpotCheck, ADQ can access valuable store data from any location, providing quantitative evidence to address execution gaps and improve franchise performance.
“[GoSpotCheck] helped us understand where our opportunities are,” said Scheid. “In some cases, it’s reinforcing with numbers and facts — the sort of knowledge that we hold as being intuitive.
With opportunities that we already have some understanding of from other sources, it has helped pinpoint how common those opportunities are.”
One of the benefits of moving beyond ADQ’s old reporting structure is that the company leadership now has a much better sense of when and where issues arise. As such, teams can prioritize execution gaps that are common across the entire franchise chain.
“For me, it’s as important with the operations team as it is working with franchisees to reinforce ‘Here are the things we need to work on,’” Scheid said. “But it’s just as important to understand, ‘OK, well, these other things aren’t as important.’ GoSpotCheck has really helped prioritize our resources… We’re confident in the ROI from the GoSpotCheck platform.”
GoSpotCheck has also given key personnel time back that was previously allotted to complete tedious reporting. Across the board from field teams to administrators, ADQ employees spend far less time compiling and filing reports by hand.
ADQ also uses the field data displayed in GoSpotCheck to generate comprehensive, end of year reports. With this information in hand, company decisionmakers have more insight into franchise trends and can more readily identify courses of action that will bring real strategic value to the brand.
labor hours savings
Before GoSpotCheck, ADQ’s Franchise Business Consultants (FBCs) spent an hour at each restaurant aggregating and submitting both data and photos to corporate. In contrast, using GoSpotCheck to collect the same data — surrounding marketing execution, signage, and more — takes only 10 minutes. By equipping FBCs with GoSpotCheck, DairyQueen has decreased the amount of time needed to gather and analyze restaurant brand standards data by 80%.
ADQ’s transition from handwritten notes to an execution management solution was painless. GoSpotCheck removes the complexity, confusion, manual workflows, and consistent delays that plague so many field teams.
Brands that possess a large market footprint or oversee a complex network of independent franchises will run into obstacles preventing them from gaining more insight into individual store operations. GoSpotCheck effortlessly clears away those hurdles, empowering the capture of structured, impactful, invaluable field data.
I can tell you that our field team loves it. I used to walk around and take notes with a notepad, put my notes in another format before distributing them, attach pictures to the notes…and everything else. Now it’s all in just one place.
JOHN SCHEID
ADQ Director of Concept Support Services
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