Darden's Red Lobster, Olive Garden Tops in Nunwood Customer Experience 100

NEW YORK, NY 5/19/11 - The world’s largest full-service restaurant group, DARDEN, excels for value and service in America’s multi-billion dollar dining industry, as surveyed in the inaugural Nunwood Customer Experience 100, a national study by global customer experience specialist Nunwood.

The Orlando, Florida-based company’s RED LOBSTER and OLIVE GARDEN brands were ranked first and second in the search for the best places to dine out, with customer experience scores of 8.19 and 8.02 (out of 10) respectively. Impressively, they finished in third and fifth place overall out of the top 100 brands in all sectors with two other fast food chains – KRISPY KREME (7.90) and SUBWAY (7.87) – making the Nunwood top 10. 

Methodology

Nunwood’s in-depth study of 4,853 customers across the US discovered exactly WHY the top performers provide an exceptional customer experience – and what their competitors need to do to catch up. In March 2011, Nunwood surveyed customers about their experiences with more than 250 of America’s best-known brands.

Customers rated four factors on a scale of 0 to 10: Would they recommend them, how did they meet their needs, were they easy or difficult to deal with, and how did each company meet their expectations?

The highlights showed that top performers…

 0. Offer low prices AND high quality

 0. Provide a consistently branded experience.

 0. Listen to their customers – and swiftly rectify issues

 0. Consistently OVER-exceed customer expectations.

Darden has put great value at the core of its business. Olive Garden, for example, offers free breadsticks and unlimited pasta to its customers. One customer told the interviewer, “Olive Garden always has great food and something new to try.”

Nunwood’s chief strategy officer, DAVID CONWAY, who supervised the study, explains, “Americans love dining out. Customers know what they like and don’t like. The top performers deliver excellent service and react quickly to changing tastes. Four restaurants finished in the top ten brands in the US. That says it all. 

“RED LOBSTER simply offers an outstanding dining experience. The food is fresh, served consistently well by a wait staff that understands their menu and genuinely cares about their customers. It’s a strong combo. In OLIVE GARDEN the experience is pretty much unique, family friendly with unusual entrees and those free breadsticks and unlimited salad. Both epitomize value and quality.

“Elsewhere, KRISPY KREME is also a  great family experience – they love kids. The conveyor belt is a big attraction because people know their donut was baked just a few seconds ago. And SUBWAY is customer focused, with great value, fresh and healthy products, customized to one’s taste.

“All have an ingrained customer satisfaction culture in which the customer is ALWAYS right, and they all have the ability deliver on their customers’ expectations. They have that wonderful, and extremely important, ability to stand in their customers’ shoes.”

Restaurants proved big winners in the Nunwood study; 20 finished in the top 100 US brands. Other high performers, finishing in the top 30, were APPLEBEE’S, IHOP, CHILI’S, DUNKIN’ DONUTS and WENDY’S.

Elsewhere in the Nunwood 100, more than 40 of the top 100 brands were retailers, while financial services companies made up a fifth of the list. In travel and tourism, just four airlines and seven hotels were featured.

END

For interview requests and additional information please contact Nunwood’s Head of Communications, Jem Maidment:

p:  +1 212-880-1530

c: +44 (0) 7720 275194 

e: [email protected] 

ABOUT NUNWOOD 

Nunwood has been uniquely designed to help our partners deliver exceptional Branded Customer Experiences. This means more than great customer Insight, but matching employee, brand, technology, change management and service experts to your total set of business challenges.  By doing so we help create inspirational outcomes, not just interesting suggestions.

We do this by starting with business and customer Insight, couple it with financially predictive Analytics and deploy the corporate know-how and technology to Activate change. Operating from offices in the US, APAC and Europe, Nunwood runs the global customer experience management programs for some of the world’s most effective brands.

“Excellence Delivered: The US Customer Experience Top 100” is the 2011 edition of our global resource kit for Chief Customer Officers & Customer Directors.  Please get in touch to learn more about how our analysis of the strategies of the nation’s winning firms can help your business.

DISCLAIMER 

All data and claims are based on an independently conducted online survey, carried out with a total sample of 4.853 US adults between 24/3/2011 and 30/3/2011. This sample was selected and weighted to resemble the age and gender profile of the US population as a whole. Individual number of consumers rating for individual brands will vary depending on usage. As such, all claims and data may differ from other surveys, conducted at other times with different sample designs. Common with all sample-based data, claims should be assumed to be specific to the sample & survey in question and not of the population in general. As such, any claims may not be an appropriate basis for making investment or financial decisions.

This work was commissioned and designed independently by Nunwood Inc (“Nunwood”). Sample was provided and routed to Nunwood’s survey by Survey Sampling International, LLC (“SSI”), and an online panel provider. For formal details of SSI’s approach to sampling, please see www.surveysampling.com in conjunction with the overview in this document: http://www.nunwood.com/SSI_Esomar/SSI_Esomar_26.pdf

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