3 Customer Retention Strategies Learned from Arby’s

What do roast beef sandwiches and customer retention strategies have in common? Everything.

This year marks the 50^th anniversary of Arby’s, maker of tasty roast beef sandwiches. (Arby's was originally established in Youngstown, Ohio, by brothers Forrest and LeRoy Raffel.)

In an industry truly based on customer satisfaction, the iconic restaurant chain must be doing something right to have lasted this long and still be thriving. What is it? Is it just one thing or a bunch of strategies combined?

Applying more than one growth/retention strategy

You probably know that most successful business and customer retention strategies depend on more than just one tactic. For example, if you own a restaurant and have terrific food it won’t matter if you have terrible customer service. You have to have both – quality food and excellent service – to gain loyal customers.

At the local anniversary celebration yesterday (and reported in a story in yesterday's Business Journal), Arby’s CEO Paul Brown specifically thanked the local residents of the Mahoning Valley, the company’s first enthusiastic customers. So loyal were these original customers that even though they could have had a hamburger for just 15 cents from McDonald's, they chose instead to pay 69 cents for a roast beef sandwich from Arby's, said Brown.

Applying a formula for success, having a vision

So what made these hungry people willing to pay four times more for a sandwich back in 1964? Brown praised following three aspects of the Raffel brothers’ business approach, tactics that I believe are responsible for the restaurant’s long-standing success:

1. Their vision of an innovative, quality product
2. Their appreciation for the theater of food
3. Their warm, friendly customer service

These three strategies were apparently the perfect formula for success: Arby’s now has 3,400 stores around the world and more than 70,000 employees who served more than 600 million people in 2013. (You could also say that the Raffel brothers produced a winning strategy for customer retention.)

Let’s explore these three tactics in a bit more detail because you can use them in your business, too.

#1 - Having a vision for an innovative, quality product

The Business Journal article reports that in the 1960s, the variety of fast-food choices basically boiled down to hamburgers and milkshakes. Instead of sticking with the status quo, the Raffels decided to make and sell a roast beef sandwich instead. An innovative gamble that paid off.

Of course, it wasn’t just enough to innovate – the product had to be good, too. Enthusiasm for this new sandwich would have quickly disappeared if it didn’t taste good. Innovation and quality go hand-in-hand.

According to Brown, one of Arby’s strengths has been their creative ability to take a familiar food and give it a little twist, like with the standard French Fry. That’s how the famous curly fries were born.

• Applying it right now: You too can apply this vision to your current business. Think about the products and services you sell. Is there a better way you can put an innovative twist on them? Are they familiar items that would benefit from a redesign and spark new interest? If you’ve been doing the same thing for years without success, maybe it’s time for some new brainstorming.

#2 Having an appreciation for the theater of food

The theater of what?

If you’ve ever been to a movie theater or a stage play, then you know that more goes into the overall experience than just the performance. The ticket-collectors, the venue, the scenery, the lights, the way the seats feel – each of these are the ingredients that make up the entire experience, good or bad. The performance is just one small part of it.

Or think about the last time you had a great experience at a restaurant. Chances are it wasn’t just the food that made the experience nice. The atmosphere, servers, comfort of the seats, the view, the service – all of these things determine if you have a good dining experience or not. It’s not all about the way the food tastes.

It seems the Raffel brothers must have understood this, too. Lots of elements combine together to give consumers the best possible food experience. Food needs a “showcase.”

• Applying it right now: How about you in your business? Are you mostly focused just on the quality of the product and not on anything else? Your product won’t shine unless you support it with all the other aspects of good business: excellent customer service, accurate billing, a good reputation, hard-working employees, etc. Your product is just one piece in the bigger puzzle of your business, one actor in the theater of your company.

#3 – Having warm, friendly customer service

I don’t think I need to go in depth with this one. Everyone knows when they’ve experienced good, quality assistance and when they haven’t. Yet, not everyone naturally knows how to politely help people, which is where good employee training comes in. Whether you use traditional training methods or choose to be more creative, do whatever it takes to establish or improve your company’s outstanding customer service reputation.

Implementing the lessons learned from the roast beef sandwich

After fifty years in business, Arby’s is still going strong. This once-locally-owned-now-worldwide-chain plans to increase its success with proactive marketing initiatives and customer retention strategies, like remodeling stores and retraining current employees. We can all learn from the Raffel brothers’ success and put their vision to good use right now.

What are a few of the customer retention tactics/programs you currently use or plan to use in your business? Feel free to leave a comment below.

Source: Arby's Charts Its Future at Celebration of 50 Years

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