H2NO

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Satisfying Your Customers with Beverage Choices

Water. It's necessary to sustain life, but to many Casual Dining restaurant chains it contributes to a dull dining experience for the customer. Many customers choose tap water not because they enjoy it, but because it is what they always have drunk in the past. In response, some restaurant chains are implementing programs to help train crews to sell alternative choices to tap water, like soft drinks and non-carbonated beverages, with the goal of increasing overall guest satisfaction. Because of its own successful campaign against water, The Olive Garden® has recently sent a powerful message to the entire restaurant industry - less water and more beverage choices mean happier customers.

Olive Garden restaurants, like many other Casual Dining locations, were facing a high water incidence rate. They wanted their restaurant crews to emphasize the broad array of alternative beverage selections available, with the hope of reducing tap water incidence. Olive Garden's goal was to influence customers to abandon their default choice of tap water and experience other beverage choices to improve their dining experience.

The Olive Garden asked Coca-Cola USA-Fountain (CCUSA-Fountain) to help them create their beverage plan. CCUSA-Fountain stepped up to the plate and suggested a tap water reduction program named H2NO.

H2NO is a crew education kit containing information about beverage suggestive selling techniques (a technique used when a server suggests a profitable beverage in place of water to the customer during the ordering process). It matched perfectly with what Olive Garden had envisioned. Restaurant managers and servers use the kit to emphasize the wide range of beverage selections available, including soft drinks, non-carbonated beverages and alcohol. As a side effect, overall check averages should increase, and remember, increased check averages mean higher profits for the restaurant and more cash in servers' pockets.

Olive Garden restaurants embraced the program and even took it to a higher level. H2NO was incorporated into the restaurant chain's schedule of monthly skill sessions where sales managers (store managers) led the crew through training exercises. In addition, The Olive Garden developed an employee incentive contest linked to H2NO with CCUSA-Fountain called "Just Say No to H2O."

Olive Garden sales managers set beverage sale store goals and server goals in connection with the contest. All restaurants that reached the combined goal had a chance to win an all-expense paid trip for servers and the management team to Atlanta, Georgia. Other prize packages containing Coca-Cola merchandise were awarded.

When the contest was completed, almost all participating restaurants realized significant increases in beverage sales and reduced levels of tap water incidence - a strong indication that Olive Garden restaurants succeeded in enhancing the customer's dining experience. And perhaps most importantly, Olive Garden expects to see this trend continue as the skills learned become part of the crew's everyday interaction with restaurant customers.