QSRweb Podcast

Hot chicken + hot deals: 2 ways QSRs are igniting 2020 sales

In this edition of the QSRweb podcast, Dave's Hot Chicken CEO Bill Phelps talks about building a brand on simple, but sizzling chicken sandwiches, while a Publicis Sapient customer experience expert details why value offerings must be a part of QSR menus now.

Dave's Hot Chicken menu features chicken in all levels of heat. (Photo: Dave's Hot Chicken)..

September 11, 2020

Publicis Sapient is a digital transformation partner helping established organizations get to their future, digitally-enabled state, both in the way they work and the way they serve their customers. We help unlock value through a start-up mindset and modern methods, fusing strategy, consulting and customer experience with agile engineering and problem-solving creativity. As digital pioneers with 16,000 people and 53 offices around the globe, our experience spanning technology, data sciences, consulting and customer obsession – combined with our culture of curiosity and relentlessness – enables us to accelerate our clients' businesses through designing the products and services their customers truly value. Publicis Sapient is the digital business transformation hub of Publicis Groupe. For more information, visit publicissapient.com.

Podcast Summary

The fast food chicken wars made it clear: There are few things QSR customers want more this year than chicken.

Bill Phelps (Photo provided)

Now, add a healthy dose of hot spice to that bird and you have something akin to a magical elixir for quick-service sales. For proof of that, look no further than Los Angeles-based limited-service brand, Dave's Hot Chicken.

It's a restaurant that has mastered the sloppy, spicy chicken sandwich of most Americans' dreams these days — a fact proven by the long lines of customers that queue up for a taste of one of the concoctions on the brand's very basic, "just-good-hot-chicken-please" menu.

First up on today's podcast, QSRweb tilts the mic toward Dave's Hot Chicken CEO Bill Phelps, who divulges a few of the ways his company's restaurants are making chicken that's not just searingly spicy, but downright irresistible to poultry- and heat-seeking American diners.

But hot chicken is not the only thing tantalizing pandemic-weary diners these days. In fact, since most economists agree that we are currently in a recession nationally, many experts believe the real way to a QSR diner's heart is through the wallet.

Dan Lubetsky (Photo provided).

On the second half of today's show, Dan Lubetsky, Publicis Sapient's Travel and Hospitality practice's senior director of customer experience and innovation, stops in to detail just why QSRs must answer the call for value offerings from their customers now, lest they learn to live with the sparse sales that a menu brimming with only full-price offerings returns later.

In this show, Lubetsky teaches listeners why brands that build their digital presence around all those value-driven customers' needs will win the sales race in this year's challenging restaurant environment.

Food & Beverage