Curbside pickup. Online ordering. Cell-phone coupons. Interactive Web sites. All these have been successful innovations at chain restaurants—and you can tell even without looking at the sales figures behind them.
How? The copycat factor. All four innovations, rolled in the last two years or so, are on the brink of being commonplace in the industry.
As will, we predict, the innovations we’ve gathered for this story. Whether they’re new menu items, service enhancements or online offerings, all innovations serve the same purpose: to bond customers closer to the brand. That bonding is essential not only in this slack economy, but to keep a brand a growing concern.
“Every brand has to keep ahead of the competition by continually recreating those points of difference,” says Frank Steed, president and chief executive officer of The Steed Consultancy, a chain-restaurant consulting firm based in Kerens, Texas. “With the wealth of talent and the speed of the Internet, everybody’s ability to copy is split second.”
