Leger presents its series “There is a little bit of Leger in the success of…”: a collection of exceptional client case studies revealing the hidden side of market research.
Since 2015, Leger has been working in partnership with Chocolats Favoris in order to assess and improve the in-store experience of Chocolats Favoris customers across Canada.
The story of Chocolats Favoris is one of a kind. Founded in 1979, some thirty years later (in 2013 to be exact), the company implemented an expansion strategy by progressively opening several points of sale across Quebec, and more recently, the rest of Canada. Now, nearly fifty stores are operating across Canada, from one end of the country to the other. It’s Quebec chocolate’s turn to conquer the world!
Before embarking on such a challenge, the first step is to manage growth and ensure the quality of the service provided to customers. This is the challenge of all growing companies: how to offer the same service quality, while increasing service volume. In addition to marketing, you need to think about training personnel, maintaining consistency in the service offered, inventory management and passing on corporate values. All this at the same time…
The customer does not care whether a company is growing or not. No matter where they are, they expect the same service quality and a similar customer experience.
Measuring to Improve and Grow Successfully
To address this challenge, Chocolats Favoris collaborated with Leger to measure real-time customer satisfaction with all the chocolate shop’s stores and points of service.
How do you measure overall customer satisfaction? How do you ensure that clients are always satisfied with their experience, regardless of the point of contact? How do you have a direct link with customer service? To answer these important questions for Chocolats Favoris, Leger implemented a VoC (Voice of the Customer) program. Since the program was implemented, all customers have had the opportunity to comment on their last in-store experience through an invitation on their sales receipt.
For Audrey Boisvert, Sales Director at Chocolats Favoris, Leger’s VoC tool certainly helps to understand customer appreciation, but it also takes a real-time pulse when a new product is launched.
If we have learned anything at Leger, it’s that Quebecers really love to give their opinion on their customer experience, whether positive or negative. It’s no accident that Chocolats Favoris’ products are adopted so quickly by their clientele, since the company takes the time to read all their customers’ comments. This summer, a product was changed on their summer menu after a few weeks, in part due to customer feedback from surveys. This is called having business agility.
An Evolving Approach
Leger and Chocolats Favoris worked to develop a questionnaire assessing important indicators for the in-store customer experience. In the case of a company that offers a fresh and edible product, indicators inevitably include satisfaction with wait times, service efficiency, employee courtesy, product quality, store cleanliness, in-store ambiance, etc. These important indicators in the Chocolats Favoris niche are not likely to change over time, since consumers have similar expectations in terms of customer service.
By contrast, the measurement used to compare performance between points of service tends to evolve over time. An index named ChocoFav was created based on the above indicators. This index enables Chocolats Favoris to know which stores are performing well and which ones are underperforming in real time. It allows them to more easily target the stores with the poorest performance while recognizing those whose performance is outstanding. For Charles Auger, Vice-President of Operations at the company, this tool provides a global perspective on the customer experience and sorts through the data overload that all companies are currently facing. It’s Chocolats Favoris’ job to identify opportunities for improvement and implement a more specific and effective call to action based on the results obtained.
In short, Leger is proud to be able to collaborate with a local company and support it in its international expansion. For any company, remaining attentive to customers will always be a challenge. It takes time, attention and resources, which is well-understood by Chocolats Favoris.
