CASE STUDY: Rosa Mexicano

Overview

In 2019, Rosa Mexicano implemented BBI Survey Studio – the next-generation customer experience management platform – to gain deeper insight into how guests feel about their brand. Black Box Intelligence’s actionable insights helped them to develop their menus more effectively, and control the cost of their products, leading to a higher NPS and more happy guests.

“BBI allows us to develop our menu more dynamically by testing dishes and getting real-time feedback before we launch a dish across all of our locations.” – Chris Westcott, CEO, Rosa Mexicano.

Challenges:

• Lack of visibility into menu performance
• Reliance only on sales data and customer reviews for menu insight
• An absence of insights when making menu and pricing decisions

Measuring and Managing Menu Performance

Prior to partnering with BBI, Rosa Mexicano relied on sales data and online customer reviews to gauge how each menu item was performing. But these methods were reactive, and added unnecessary complexity to any attempt to map customer satisfaction to sales growth.

Consequently, the traditional methods of tracking menu performance weren’t telling the full story. Even though a dish may be consistently selling well, it can still score poorly in an NPS survey for a number of reasons, whether it’s an under-seasoned entree or an overly sweet dessert. And it’s even worse if the menu item in question is supposed to be your most noteworthy offering!

The Rosa Mexicano team puts their heart and soul into every menu offering, with every ingredient carefully selected and complemented by the next. And for any restaurant with a craft menu and locally sourced ingredients, assessing menu, and dish performance is integral to building the culinary experience they set out to deliver.

But for the northeast brand, without the right data, it was difficult to identify which dishes were top performers and which ones needed to be addressed and improved upon – and why.

A New Way to Assess Menu and Dish Performance

As their business began to scale, the Rosa Mexicano team wanted a solution that could help them drive operational consistency across locations as well as identify areas for innovation – backed by true data.

After selecting BBI Survey Studio for its unmatched product-level insights — every menu item, every restaurant, every shift— the team had the data necessary to direct their culinary-led operations.

With BBI’s multi-touch, multi-channel methods for collecting operational performance insights, the Rosa Mexicano team was able to immediately leverage the culinary performance data for look, taste, portion, and value of every menu item.

That first focus on quality and value perceptions built a foundation upon which The Rosa Mexicano team fortified their margins while ensuring continued excellence in service and hospitality.

Testing Menu Adjustments with Real-Time Feedback

BBI’s customer experience management platform also helped Rosa Mexicano move regular dish assessment out of the development kitchen and into the hands of guests, at the moment of truth. These insights provided development and management teams with the confidence to make changes without the jarring feeling of high-risk decision-making.

When it comes to a restaurant’s menu, an active approach based on regular measurement and evaluation is vital. It enables incremental changes that, over time, lead to massive improvements in overall performance, helping them deliver more happy guests.

“BBI allows us to develop our menu more dynamically by testing dishes and getting real-time feedback before we launch a dish across all of our locations. Our NPS scores rose dramatically after a recent seasonal menu change and it’s great to know the changes we are making are landing well with our guests.”  – Chris Westcott, CEO.

Adding Customer Insights to COGS Equation

Too often, menu decisions are based solely on sales and cost of goods sold (COGS) rather than a balanced approach where guest perceptions are weighted along with margins. Rosa Mexicano added customer scores into their COGS equation to identify products for deletion, improvement, or promotion.

For example, menu items with strong passion scores were re-conceived to improve their financial contributions while retaining their quality metrics. Conversely, dishes with lower velocity or higher costs were assessed relative to their likelihood to recommend, then deleted when guest scores were lacking.

Data on the customer experience is the difference-maker for a brand committed to authentic hospitality. As an industry, restaurants have relied on what managers observe to bolster their extensive metrics on costs, margins and sales.

That financial equation was balanced by what Rosa Mexicano’s customers thought about the overall value of their experience. A full view of value now sets a foundation upon which they can build.

This project took place between January 2019 and March 2020.