Operations
Church's Chicken: A lesson in what happens when leaders listen
Listen and learn is a familiar term to most of us, but Church's CEO Joe Christina has truly internalized that maxim by making it a guiding principle of his leadership. In this report, Christina relays the success that approach can yield as demonstrated in the brand's performance in recent years.
February 9, 2021
As far back as 300 B.C., the wisest among us were extolling the virtues of listening, as when the philosopher, Zeno, of the current-day isle of Cyprus, said, "We have two ears and one mouth, so we should listen more than we say."
It's little wonder then that when Church's Chicken CEO Joe Christina first took the reins at the Atlanta-based QSR back in November 2016, intensive listening was one of his first and most important activities. In fact, Christina spent most of 2017 "rounding" like a physician with patients — visiting franchisees across the brand's system and following Zeno's credo of listening "more than we say."
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| Church's Chicken CEO Joe Christina. (Photo provided) |
After realizing the value of that listening effort, Church's launched the first Conversation Tour in 2018 and has continued the yearly tradition, completing the latest round last month.
Although the tours have morphed into more of a group-centered forum to allow for maximum participation from franchisees and team members, leaders took the same approach of listening to what the Church's team had to say. The difference this time, however, was that they were virtual — via the Microsoft Teams platform — due to the physical contact restrictions of the pandemic.
This meetings, which consisted of four individual meeting times on Dec. 15 and Dec. 17, allowed all employee ranks — from franchisees and GMS to market leaders and franchisee association board members — to provide feedback across an array of operational topics.
Next, the company will share what it learned with leadership across the system, as well as the company's Excellence Advisory Council and Independent Franchisee Association board to recommend actions that association members vote on and, if passed, make happen.
Yes, it's all a lot of work, but Christina said it was worth the effort, considering both Church's and sister brand, Texas Chicken, have reported solid financial improvement since the tours began across the company's 1,500 global locations.
We'll take a deeper look at those results shortly, but we first wanted to hear more from Joe Christina about the whole idea of a "listening tour" and how it's developed over the years at Church's, beginning with a one-on-one interview with the veteran restaurateur.
Q: How has Church's so-called "Conversation Tour" changed over the years in practice and attributable results for the company?
A: The first two years of the Conversation Tour were literally that — a tour of multiple cities, each selected for their central location within a given region (East, Central/Midwest, West Coast, etc.). A core team of Church's executives visited each destination with attendance open to market leaders, regional general managers and franchisees.
Advance notice of the tour is shared system-wide, and team members are encouraged to share questions via email, or through their market leaders, or bring those questions with them to the tour event. After a presentation recapping goals and progress to date, the floor is opened up to questions and comments. We want to hear from as many people as possible — and from as many different roles and responsibilities as possible — so we can get a complete picture of what's happening in restaurants today, and what we need to start thinking of for tomorrow.
"We enter 2021 with great momentum, but we're not slowing down. We're a different brand today than ever before. We are well on our way to next-level growth."
-Joe Christina
At the close of the tour, we review all feedback internally, and we also share it with our franchise board — Church's International Franchise Association (CIFA) — and with our Excellence Advisory Council (EAC), which is made up of around a dozen franchisees and general managers working alongside executive leadership to enact new initiatives and serve as an additional liaison between corporate and CIFA. Those multiple layers of checks and balances ensures that important feedback doesn't just sit on anyone's desk — it becomes part of a plan to improve that piece of business, or take advantage of an untapped opportunity.
This year, the tour changed in multiple ways. Obviously, with the pandemic, in-person gatherings simply weren't a viable option this year. Instead, we took the Conversation Tour virtual. This not only allowed us to keep the Tour on our yearly calendar, it also yielded the surprising benefit of increasing attendance since more people could make the time for a digital meeting without the need for travel. We held four sessions in 2020, and we'll use those conversations to help further guide and shape our decision making in 2021 and beyond.
Q: How do you ensure that franchisees are also "listening" during these tours and afterward when results are released, so that they truly do pass along the learnings?
A: Because we have a close relationship with the CIFA board and our Excellence Advisory Council, we come prepared to the Conversation Tour with the information that is of most interest to our franchisees and other stakeholders. They're the ones that drive what the topics of conversation will be, which we've found creates a very active dialogue.
Besides that, we also make sure to segment the presentation to allow adequate time for relevant Q&A throughout the event. At times, we'll share insights provided prior to the event and ask participation-oriented questions like agree/disagree with a show of hands, or inviting others to share similar experiences.
Q: But it's also a given that some of those with the most valuable ideas are often too reticent to give feedback in such forums that could help the brand as a whole, so how do you draw those hesitant-to-respond participants out, too?
A:The fact that attendance at the Conversation Tour is not mandatory means we have to do a little extra leg work at times to make sure everyone is getting heard. It's for this reason that we've strengthened ties with our CIFA board over the past few years – because some franchisees feel more comfortable sharing in that forum than they do in the tour.
We've also recently rolled out our all-new OPS360 platform — which is a digital OPS tool that lets us see what's going on in restaurants on an up-to-the-minute basis, while also allowing for faster and more convenient feedback from a tablet-enabled system. When we see there's been little response on OPS360, or we notice a restaurant or franchisee that seems to be having trouble, we can reach out with market leaders and other resources in an expeditious manner. Sometimes, those person-to-person connections are where we collect additional insights that we either bring with us to the tour, or we route to the teams working on post-tour initiatives to make sure those thoughts are included.
The most important way we encourage participation and ongoing communication with our franchisees and other stakeholders is by following through on our commitment to take action. We don't promise that we'll be able to fulfill every suggestion, but the ones related to needs that the majority of our franchisees share absolutely get pushed forward and franchisees see that work when new resources, approaches, or plans are announced and rolled out.
Q: How and when do you then collect all you've learned and actually produce some change for the better out of that?
A:As mentioned previously, before and during the tour (or in this past year, the digital events), we record and collect input and responses from stakeholders and attendees. Those thoughts are organized and assigned to an executive team for follow up, and also shared with the EAC and CIFA board to establish goals, benchmarks, timelines, budgets, and other considerations for moving an effort forward.
If it is an initiative we can track for effectiveness, like marketing, we make sure to build in those metrics so we can evaluate success along the way. For other tasks that are more qualitative, we try to survey the appropriate audience to gauge effectiveness. It may be a consumer audience, or it may be our own internal network, but either way, we use survey results to shape and give context to what we see in quantitative data.
Q: How do you track your success with these efforts over the years?
A:Our most important marker for success is increased profitability for our franchisees. If we can help deliver that, everything else has either fallen into place or will in the very near future. So, like many QSR brands, we track same-store sales, traffic, average guest check, and other KPIs. When those are all trending in positive directions, we know we've found something that works. If not, we pivot and move to something that has a chance of working better.
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| Photo: File |
A good example would be how a suggestion from our 2018 Conversation Tour has helped shape our entire strategic focus. Franchisees told us that we were executing too many limited-time offers per year. No sooner would they get up to speed promoting one LTO then they'd have to cut it and start promoting the next. It resulted in wasted media, underutilized product, and a very splintered customer view of what Church's really does.
Franchisees then shared that there were a handful of LTOs that deliver amazing performance every time we bring them back. So, we countered their suggestion with a proposal to run fewer LTOs, but run them each for longer windows of time. We'd also make sure to create stronger, more consistent messaging and awareness around core product year-round, so LTOs weren't the only thing sustaining our business. This meant we were also able to re-allocate marketing dollars rather than simply increasing them – and get more visibility at the same time.
Now, our LTOs are a great opportunity for television exposure we didn't previously have, and the spend makes sense because it's not simply a three- to four-week promotion. We also have been able to expand the media presence for our core offerings under the same kind of thinking.
Q: What kinds of results were realized out of that?
A:The results were almost immediate. We saw big lifts in all KPIs following national media appearances. Intent to purchase, sales, guest satisfaction, you name it – a positive trajectory took hold. Since then, Church's has been on a steady upward track, year after year, and even eclipsed our best performance from more than a decade ago. Even this year, in the midst of a pandemic, we're going to turn in positive numbers. And as QSRweb itself reported, Church's was the 2nd-most-visted chicken chain in the country this year. It's all because of decisions that started with a simple conversation.
2020: The year that was
The proof behind Christina's assertions comes from the brand's last pandemic-stricken year of impressive results, including those positive year-over-year sales for the fourth time. Like the aforementioned optimized uses of television for what is now the second consecutive year, the brand also said its launch of Church's Chicken Sandwich has yielded a positive ROI. Although the brand had to add additional kitchen equipment to produce the sandwich, its sales have covered the expense.
Additionally, the company reported 50% growth in delivery last year, after quadrupling order-and-pay ahead capabilities, Christina said.
2021: The double-down year
The coming year will not be one of rest; Christina is well aware that success only comes with constant, continued effort systemwide.
"Take nothing for granted," Christina told team members recently. "We enter 2021 with great momentum, but we're not slowing down. We're a different brand today than ever before. We are well on our way to next-level growth."
Some of that continuation of the brand's forward movement include the following 2021 goals:
• 100 new restaurants.
• New POS in Q1.
• Revamped, differentiated international and domestic brand positioning.
• Enhanced guest experience through store design, as well as menu and packaging innovations.
• Maximized off-premise services.
• Improved brand awareness with up to 25 weeks of broadcast time locally and nationally, among other initiatives.
"We're firing on all cylinders in terms of a unified franchisee network," Christina said in a recent news release about the company's 2021 goals. "We've reached and surpassed financial benchmarks. We can do this, because in all we do, we believe we can. That is what has always, and will always, set Church's apart."
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