The Digital Transformative Journey of Saudi Arabia’s Leading QSR Brand

With advancing competition, evolving technology, and digitization, attaining customer satisfaction while maintaining the time frame of deliveries is no easy feat for the digitalization of QSR brands in Saudi Arabia. Ordering food online is an on-the-go task both for Gen Z and millennials. In Saudi Arabia, serving customers across all the accessible channels was tricky, even for established digital solutions for Saudi Arabia restaurants. When GenZ contributes to more than 30% of the global population, it’s no mystery why the popularity of Quick Service Restaurant (QSR) brands is growing.

Leader in Saudi Arabia’s fast food chain, with more than 300 stores across the Kingdom, bakery & gourmet manufacturer for nearly four decades now! Besides that, it also stands out as Kingdom’s first fully-integrated food service company with its bakery chains & meat processing plants. Though this fast food brand has been serving customers flawlessly with its wide range of delicious food items in-store for years, it faced tough times delivering the same online experience. This blog will take you on the phygital transformation journey of Saudi’s renowned fast food chain to meet customer preferences in this digital era.

Building an Omnipresent Fast Food Chain

Saudi Arabia is the leading GCC QSR market with a 43.8% market share. When the scorching heat of Saudi keeps consumers indoors, their strong urge for gourmet food pushes them to visit fast food serving restaurants. Even a decade ago, people in Saudi adored the online food ordering system. In fact, 2022’s Middle East PRIME Report unfolds various reasons for low footfall in the Post-COVID era & highlights an urgent need for QSRs to go online when adapting to the ‘new normal.’ The Full-Service Restaurants (FSRs) were the largest channel in Saudi Arabia’s food service sector, with a 45% revenue share of total sector revenue in 2020. With 28.5% of revenue share, QSR was the second most prominent channel.

With an enthralling journey of over 37 years, the brand has been a world-class food brand people adored in Saudi Arabia. They had a significant offline presence throughout their journey. They knew digitalization would help them serve more customers & the brand eventually went digital with an e-commerce website. But, ensuring smooth ordering experiences, timely deliveries & management of in-store & online orders were proving to be challenging. Moreover, they were struggling with their food delivery app experience, running the risk of losing a large chunk of mobile users. When restaurants were forced to shut down during the COVID-19 pandemic, it was ironic that they witnessed a significant increase in the number of orders across digital platforms. And that made the brand think of undertaking a digital transformation exercise that would:

• Strengthen their digital infrastructure
• Enable an omnichannel approach
• Provide a seamless customer experience

Reimagining Digital Experiences

At a time like this, deploying Capillary’s Anywhere Commerce+ to revamp their digital commerce infrastructure, drive performance & conversions, and ultimately reimagine their consumers’ digital experience was the need of the hour. The brand’s requirements included providing a super fast app experience to consumers, seamless experience across offline & online customer journeys, tight integration with loyalty and e-commerce platforms enabling a 360-degree view of the customer, and a superlative pre and post-sales experience.

That’s precisely where Capillary’s Anywhere Commerce+, CRM & loyalty platforms, leveraging Web storefront, Mobile PWA, and iOS App powered the brand’s iconic digital transformation. Seamless Menu and POS integration, roll-out of promotions, coupons and loyalty points across offline stores and e-commerce, and flexible ordering & delivery options helped the brand serve and engage more customers while delivering a true omnichannel experience. Deploying Anywhere Commerce+ simplified this complicated implementation of multiple tech solutions for the brand. Some of them include:

1. Omnichannel order system: They had an e-commerce website and mobile app for both Android & iOS users for seamless ordering. Consumers can select the stores in their vicinity & choose from the entire menu available online in just a few seconds.
2. Flexibility to choose the delivery option: Deliveries for the brands’ consumers are solely at their discretion. They can order online & get it quickly delivered at their location or drive through and pick it up from the nearest stores.
3. Boosting in-store experience: Implementation of QR scan ordering simplified customers’ in-store experiences. Instant digital pay options simplified billing & minimized the hassles of ordering, especially during the peak season of Ramadan or weekends.
4. Rewarding customer behaviors: The system was installed not only to collect customer orders but to increase customer engagement as well. This was enhanced by creating personalized promotions to convert first-time shoppers to the brand’s regular customers. The promo engine manages promotion configurations across all outlets and e-commerce stores seamlessly. It adds to customer engagement & improves customer loyalty.

Further, Deepen Customer Engagement with Festive Campaigns

One of the most popular initiatives in the Middle East region is the Ramadan campaign. When people globally long for festive discounts & shop more on holidays, the Middle East is no exception. A recent survey by a leading global payment solutions provider says nearly 30% of Saudi & UAE consumers purchase either daily or weekly online. In Ramadan 2022, 55% of respondents from the MENA (the Middle East & North Africa) region planned to shop/order food for gathering in the month. 

Customer preferences do change within seconds when they shop online. In such situations, static cart-level discounts may not serve the purpose well. In contrast, dynamic offers can bring better ROI by focusing on up-selling, cross-selling, and instant discounts for abandoned carts to increase the conversion rate. People get enticed with personalized vouchers more than mere discount coupons. Deploying a Dynamic Voucher System (DVS) powers marketers to send personalized vouchers to their customers in real-time. With personalized, targeted offers, we’ve helped leading brands in the QSR sector to assure instant customer gratification for repeat visits & optimize their marketing budget. The brand has seen 5 – 10% higher conversion rates with DVS in sync with Capillary’s AI-powered promo engine. Moreover, Order Management System (OMS) and console helped the brand in both order & promotion management, especially during festivities.

And, an Appetizing Growth Story Continues…

Creating a seamless experience across offline stores & online channels, the brand witnessed an 1150% increase in average sales since the partnership in October 2021. Brands’ fans can check menus across channels, order online or opt to dine in, get deliveries per their preferences, opt for the best promo offers, & earn loyalty as well. Moreover, order cancellation, instant refund automation, and OMS let everything be managed centrally. The omnipresent leading QSR brand is now serving 25,000 orders daily on average, an approximately 25X increase in daily orders. On the weekends & festive occasions, the brand happily serves over 40,000 customers in a day with zero technical challenges. The food brand is now gearing up to serve more than 100,00 customers in a day, leveraging the in-built ‘auto scalability’ of Anywhere Commerce+.

Want to emulate the success story of this four-decade-old food service business? Book a free demo with our experts to understand how Anywhere Commerce+ can grow your e-commerce business at least 10X.

Share

Arun leads the marketing division for Anywhere Commerce+, the full-stack e-commerce solution from Capillary Technologies. He is a passionate marketer and a student of human behavior. Arun has helped many leading brands to drive sales, customer engagement, digital commerce, and loyalty.