Consumer technology supporting strategy

Changing consumer technology remains a key driver in the restaurant industry. Consumers are looking for convenient ways to order food, dine and pay. Famous Brands seeks to capitalise on new technology to improve the overall experience for consumers and franchise partners. This includes mobile access, self-service options, personalised customer engagement, rewards, and contactless payments.

A cross-functional working group comprising senior management from different brands and disciplines manages technology projects across Famous Brands. With input from executive leadership and driven by technology leadership, this working group allocates the budget and ensures that projects are aligned with the overarching corporate strategy.

Capitalising on our own delivery capabilities

We were a pioneer of the delivery channel in South Africa. We have invested in ordering and delivery technology solutions in the Quick Service Restaurant space for several years. We work with a technology partner that provides driver and route-tracking software to ensure that our deliveries are completed efficiently and on time.

Ordering for collect or delivery is enabled through various channels, including call centres, websites and mobile applications. Customers use the most convenient platform at the time and use different platforms at different times. We continue to enhance our brands’ mobile applications and websites to offer a seamless ordering experience.

In 2023, we successfully trialled the delivery hub model in South Africa, where one franchise partner takes on the deliveries for several other restaurants within a certain radius. This makes doing the deliveries for multiple restaurants a viable business proposition for the selected franchise partner while streamlining the expense of deliveries across multiple restaurants. There are also significant savings in expenses such as fuel and wages.

This model has heightened the efficiencies of franchise partners who own multiple stores and has led to vast improvements in delivery times, consumer experience and increased driver productivity.

This trial was successful, and in 2023, we rolled out 25 delivery hubs in South Africa to service 134 restaurants and improve our efficiency in own home delivery. The hubs deliver an average on-time delivery rate of 82%, a significant improvement from the previous model, where franchise partners handled their own deliveries.

Currently, our delivery hubs are spread out across six regions and service all our Leading Brands.

The delivery hubs in key nodes have experienced an increase in the number of successful deliveries and overall positive consumer reviews. We believe this is a key differentiator in attracting consumers to our own delivery channels compared to third-party aggregator delivery.

Our delivery hubs are enabled by the latest technology. Drivers are equipped with Android devices that provide ongoing communication, maps their delivery route and can accept payments. This significantly reduces costs for franchise partners on speed point machine rentals.

In 2023, our first delivery hub outside South African borders opened in Botswana and has boosted the efficiency and performance in that market. This hub services six high-volume restaurants and boasts an on-time delivery rate of 85%. In 2025, we plan to launch additional delivery hubs in South Africa, Zambia and Botswana.

The delivery hub business model has been completed, and we will roll it out in nodes with strong potential for future growth. This model has also allowed more flexibility in how driver salaries are managed, resulting in additional savings. The flexibility in driver remuneration has also driven KPIs and efficiencies, as the drivers are incentivised to deliver on time.

Our four inbound call centres within South Africa are key consumer touchpoints in ensuring consumer ordering calls are answered on time and the expected consumer experience is delivered. The success of this solution is measured in our call order rates, orders abandoned rates, and sales per minute stats. Over 80% of our Leading Brands network are onboarded on one of our 4 outsourced call centres. In 2024 we introduced a quarterly business review for each call centre to evaluate the upselling capabilities, handling times, business continuity planning and people development.

Other key technology projects

According to the 2023 Mobile Economy Report, there will be over 1.2 billion smartphone connections in sub-Saharan Africa by 2030. Famous Brands adopts a mobile-first approach for its consumer-facing interfaces as consumers increasingly use smartphones to interact with our brands. All Leading Brands have a mobile application, and this channel is promoted in-store, on product packaging and through advertising activities.

We continue to review all our payment systems across the Group, including credit card machines and online payment methods. This helps us reduce costs for franchise partners by reviewing merchant and transaction fees and negotiating better pricing where possible. The review also ensures payment systems are properly integrated into our POS systems. This unlocks restaurant efficiencies, and franchise partners can spend less time completing recons and daily cash-up procedures.

Introducing cloud-based POS systems is a key part of our strategy going forward. Our partnership with Munch Software will simplify payment processes and explore new payment and rewards technologies. This partnership will also enable us to integrate our technology ecosystem and have a single touchpoint. We have commenced converting our Casual Dining Restaurants from several third-party POS systems to Munch Software’s offering.

We continued our multi-year project to formalise our database infrastructure in the cloud. While the infrastructure has been built, the migration to the cloud will take a phased approach. This migration will allow us to analyse and utilise data quicker and better. We have made progress in consolidating data, reporting, and extracting value from the data. In 2024, we plan to implement a new consumer engagement platform to improve personalised communication with consumers.

We aim to communicate the right message using the right channel to reach the right consumer. In 2023, we sent out approximately 66 million pieces of communication to our consumers, including SMS, push notifications, and email.

Customer loyalty programmes, especially at Casual Dining Restaurants, have been proven to boost revenues by increasing customer frequency and providing upselling opportunities. Customers seek out reward programmes in tough economic times. Our loyalty programmes have proven popular with Casual Dining customers. The ease of use via mobile applications ensures a convenient experience.

We have formalised our reward systems within Mugg & Bean and Wimpy. We have seen growing transactions from consumers using the loyalty programmes and redeeming value.

Our e-vouchering capabilities allow brands to replace plastic card-based vouchers with a simple digital alternative that can be purchased, issued, and applied to all brands within our ecosystem.

According to Juniper Research¹, global contactless payment transactions are expected to exceed $10 trillion by 2027 and increase by 221% between 2022 and 2026. This supports the need for our franchise partners to embrace evolving consumer technology to create a seamless experience for their consumers.

The payments space in South Africa and other markets continues to develop. We offer a growing range of contactless payment options. This allows consumers to pay using their preferred method while reducing the need for physical contact between them and employees.

Order-and-pay-at-table technology remains popular, especially where customers seek a quick dining experience. This technology allows customers to order and pay for the meal from their devices, improving table turn times and hospitality while providing valuable data to better understand customers.

We continue to roll out our self-service terminals in our Quick Service and Casual Dining Restaurants. These provide an intuitive digital experience, give customers more control over the ordering process, and allow for order customisation while eliminating errors. The self-service terminals have helped restaurants to improve efficiencies, adding to the profitability of the franchisees. We have introduced the self-service terminals in over 370 restaurants. Advantages for franchise partners include increased transaction sizes through upselling prompts, increased order volumes and shorter queues. These also reduce the number of cashiers required.

Signature Brands uses online reservation software to receive and manage bookings. This allows customers to book online or cancel their reservations. Automatic reminders are sent to the customer via SMS. This software also allows restaurants to build an opted-in database to send newsletters or promotional offers.

About 73% of our Quick Service Restaurants have digital menu boards that present menu offerings in an engaging manner. The boards include animations and enticing visuals. Digital menu boards provide a visually attractive food offering, an opportunity to highlight time and/or weather-based content and enable agility on promotions and special offers.

We work with a leading consultancy to monitor our online reputation. This consultancy tracks all reviews across our brands on several platforms, including Google, TripAdvisor and Facebook. They assist our brand managers in ensuring that our restaurants are visible on these platforms and that all restaurant details are updated.

We manage social media activity for all brands for our franchise partners. Franchise partners have social media pages linked to our brand’s main page, allowing for localised content, with national support. We have social media policies in place to guide franchise partners appropriately.