Case Study: O’Charley’s Uncovering Deep Emotional Insights Through 360 Degree Ethnography
THE CHALLENGE
O’Charley’s, a 50-year-old casual-dining chain, offers comfort food with a Southern accent in a homey, welcoming atmosphere. However, as the casual dining category became more competitive and their guest’s expectations evolved, O’Charley’s lost market share and sales. They needed to outline a path to restore market share and increase sales by identifying the most important current and future customer jobs-to-be-done that would revitalize the brand and create new value.
THE SOLUTION
Interrogate the entire customer experience and the associated perceptions of the brand at each stage of the experience.
THE GOAL
Understand and document the current state of brand equity, messaging, and experience strengths and weaknesses. Then define a new brand purpose, value proposition, and experience that would differentiate O’Charley’s from other casual dining offerings. In addition, O’Charley’s expanded the original project to include reimagining the dining experience post-COVID-19.
THE PROCESS: A 360 Degree Ethnographic Study
The custom-designed methodology included the following activities:
Internal Stakeholder Interviews • Store Teammate Interviews
Dining Tag-Alongs • Zoom In-Depth Interviews
In-Store Observations/Customer Intercepts
Store Teammate Interviews
Zoom In-Depth Interviews
THE RESULTS:
New Brand Experience Concept Testing
The customer experience research findings provided O’Charley’s with a prioritized list of experience concepts to test. O’Charley’s began testing small-scale pilots of experiences at individual locations to gain guest input and determine the return on investment for a broader rollout.
New Brand Communications
O’Charley’s used the brand strategy to redesign their messaging and communications to their guests and employees. They also began the longer-term process of creating the internal structure and protocols required to support their new brand essence and purpose.
