Zaxby's:
Building a Customer-Obsessed Digital Platform
It starts with purpose.
Zaxby's, a fried chicken QSR, was feeling the pressure emerging from the pandemic. Goodwill was lost, customers weren't returning, and more than having a deliciously crispy chicken sandwich was needed.
Zaxby's needed more than a refresh. They needed an evolution.
Iris needed an individual to lead the team by defining the foundation of goal measurement through customer experience practice and ensuring that the strategic ideal was manifested and maintained through the arduous design process.
Fortunately, Iris had me.
Highlights
13 months
From kick-off to launch. Admittedly, much fewer weekends than any of us expected,
Scale from the start
Although we started with an MVP-to-launch mindset, we made the framework for scale part of that MVP.
47 people
From C-Suite to Copy, everyone had a say. And they were all heard.
Industry acclaim
It's not just us that were happy. The customers and the industry loved the new design.
Journey + Purpose
Defining the experience
An exploration of the digital experiences starting with awareness, driving to loyalty. This was the foundation for understanding the peaks, the valleys, and the moments of transformation that provided white space opportunity for the brand to evolve. Through extensive desk and customer research across both Zaxby's and the QSR industry, an online customer journey was built - no longer trapped in InDesign or PDF format to be filed and forgotten. It is now a live document for continuous referral and validation.
A version of the interactive journey can be found here.
What can Zaxby's be to the customer?
Once we understood what the customer was going through, it became an opportunity to reframe the business. A way for them to look at themselves in service to the customer. Through a series of workshops, both in person and virtual, we worked with members across the business, from Finance to Operations to Marketing, to craft a purpose for the digital expression of the business. We ended up aligning the company with the idea of "Digital Hospitality," how do we bring the warmth in-person to our experiential touchpoint?
That was our next challenge.
Making + Delivering
Prototyping and buy-in.
The experience can't just start. We had to achieve solid buy-in from the organization. While that was earned on purpose, design is an entirely different challenge to address. It had to be dynamic. It had to be customer-focused. It had to sell to the franchisees. After a review process with a newly-embedded CDO, we set off to create something exciting. Something that could sell.
We then set off to begin a scalable solution.
The solution was built based on the customer's unique needs, emphasizing Zaxby's personality.
Before starting the design, we consulted with the Development and IT teams to ensure their agreement on building for Zaxby's future experience instead of only for the customer's current needs.
Our goal within our new app and .com is to build a constant feeling of Digital Hospitality.
When walking into a brick-and-mortar, Zaxby's welcomes guests with a hearty "Hello!" To mirror this experience, we personalize each moment with the guest's name - allowing them that same sense of open-armed warmth and one-ness.
We learned that guests within the app typically repeat the same order. Not only did we surface this feature on the homepage, we built in the ability for the guests to personalize the name of the meal - quickly discerning what was "lunch," "dinner," or simply a "cheat snack."
And while the focus was on a new app, we realized we couldn't leave the .com experience out in the cold. We carried over the best of the app but built a responsive framework to make new feature development structurally similar across all environments.
Industry Recognition
Results in numbers
Increase in digital transactions.
New active users within the first two weeks of launch.
New registrants within the first two weeks of launch.
Migrated user accounts were activated during launch week.