
Pace yourself
Understanding the customer journey and service style preferences in Casual Dining
When eating out we have different needs around how quickly we want our food to appear in front of us, often dependent on the location, occasion and circumstances. There’s an increasing appetite for a ‘fast-casual’ dining approach where customers have more control over the speed and style of service they receive, but typically they have to do a bit more of the work themselves eg. leaving the table to order as well as serve themselves for certain elements of the meal. Our client was keen to understand the relevance of a fast-casual approach to its existing full-service customers and set up a trial in some of its restaurants. Through a series of qual Accompanied Dining Trips and quant on-site interviews we were able to compare the two service styles directly in terms of relevance, revisit intention and overall brand impact . The insights generated gave the business a clear idea of whether to, and where to, roll out the fast-casual approach along with granular feedback around improvements needed at each key touchpoint across the customer journey.