With the emergence and pervasiveness of third-party delivery apps, pizza restaurants now have more competition than ever and need to find innovative ways to maintain market share. At the Pizza Leadership Virtual Summit 2022, we learned about the three major areas that are currently top-of-mind for leaders in the pizza space: labor, supply chain, and customer loyalty. Below you’ll find our key takeaways, plus tips for how to leverage VDX.tv to addresses some of the restaurant industry’s biggest challenges.
Attracting and retaining workers
Restaurants now have fewer workers per square foot, with a shrinking 16-24 year old labor force over the next few years. Restaurants are striving to make their staff feel valued in various ways. Mandy Shaw of Blaze Pizza talked about the brand’s “free-to-be-you” motto and philosophy, which allows workers to listen to their music and wear what they want. Additionally, something unique that Mike Rao of Romeo’s Pizza mentioned is a fleet partnership through Enterprise, where the company provides drivers with a company branded vehicle and pays for gas and insurance. This initiative has significantly helped attract and retain younger delivery drivers who may have not considered the job otherwise.
Tip: VDX.tv offers added value display impressions aimed at recruiting for your brand in geos facing labor shortages.
Managing customer expectations against supply chain challenges
Another challenge that restaurants face is the supply chain issue impacting menu availability and even products like to-go boxes. For example, Kelley Crawford of Pizza Ranch touched on the need to balance distribution so that all units have the most popular menu items available to customers. Unequal distribution of supplies can easily lead to loss of revenue or poor perception amongst diners. Brands that can leverage technology to update customers about product availability in real-time will be better positioned to manage consumer expectations as supply chain issues persist.
Tip: VDX.tv’s advertising solution is flexible and able to leverage an API menu gallery to remove low-inventory and out-of-stock items.
Digitalization & customer loyalty
Over the last two years, pizza restaurants have invested a lot of time, effort, and money into digitalization, mobile apps, and loyalty programs. Chris Lybeer of Revel Systems noted that “digital transactions on average are 7-10% higher than non-digital transactions, and loyalty members transactions are double that increase.” And according to Hollie Matthys of Happy Joe’s Pizza & Ice Cream, a loyalty ticket is 21% higher than the average ticket at her restaurants. This goes to show that in a competitive marketplace for quick-serve diners, investments in loyalty and digitalization are more important than ever and owners would be wise to recognize that the benefits often outweigh the costs.
Tip: VDX.tv’s video-driven experiences provide options for consumers to link directly to “Order Now” pages from desktop and mobile devices. Video-driven experiences can also showcase exclusive mobile app and loyalty rewards offers to incentivize membership.
We were grateful for the opportunity to participate in the Pizza Leadership Virtual Summit and hear all the inspiring remarks and insights from this year’s speakers. Our specialized Restaurants Vertical Team has taken away no shortage of knowledge to inform the future of our solutions and partnerships with our QSR and Fast Casual clients. Please reach out to us at restaurants@vdx.tv to learn more about our solutions and the impact we’ve had on restaurant chains globally.
