Texas Roadhouse-Listens to the Customers.

Texas Roadhouse - Listens to the Customers

     Our First Visit: The Texas Roadhouse in Medford, was the first we had ever been to of the evidently 563 locations in the US. My daughter was recruiting for college softball teams at a tournament and a couple of coaches offered her a spot on their team. To be grateful for the hard work paying off after years of hard work, I said to her, "find a good steakhouse for Dad for Father's Day, with no less than 4 stars and 100 posts and let's go celebrate the good news". We scrolled our thumbs over the 1,000+ comments on Google and people were genuinely happy with the tasty food value and appreciative of the service. I was also impressed that the manager replied to Google comments good or bad and even offered virtual coupons on Yelp and Google as a reward for people who responded! It was possibly the best service we have ever had far surpassing any steak house we have been to.

Father's Day: posing after tourney

    What it's like: For those who have never been to a Texas Roadhouse, it meets all of the requirements of a steakhouse but with a tequila-type, country-kicker music vibe for a lower cost. It's "fun" to just walk in. T.R. is a cool place to be for Gen X,Y,Z and Boomers alike. One might compare Texas Roadhouse (T.R.) to an Australian Outback but without the pretentious tip-focused salesman and higher price tag. Steaks are grilled to good expectations, attractive beverages, with a rustic musical farm atmosphere all with exceptional genuine 22 steps of service. My drink was never more than half empty before they asked me if I wanted another one although the place was packed with a 30 minute wait. All of the employees we met at Texas Roadhouse seemed to genuinely believe in the business, taking care of people and the value of hard work.  .

Comfortable seating, busy with classic rock.

Peanuts and rolls are everywhere. 

    Highly Ranked Nationally with Strong Social Media: Not surprisingly, they are in the top 20 ranked companies that listen to customers in (Forbes 2018, “Companies with the Best Customer Service”) During Covid-19, they had turned a primarily aesthetically pleasing, upbeat steakhouse with great customer service, good food and cool music into a take-out/dine-outside in just weeks. Surprisingly, they were able to keep their stock options up because of their fast thinking and keen social media presence, including giving respect to BLM. Also surprisingly, they didn't lay off employees but rotated vacations and leave to keep people on. According to Wikipedia, "CEO Kent Taylor has announced he will give up his base salary and bonus for the remainder of the calendar year in order to pay "front-line" employees amid the coronavirus pandemic. The amount donated from Taylor will amount to just under $1 million." 

Texas Roadhouse responds to social media posts, good or bad, in a refreshing yet still professional way.

Refreshingly, Texas Roadhouse does not shy away from customer complaints and openly responds with them on social media maintaining a best practices on the platforms on Instagram and Facebook. In this humorous Facebook post, the manager is clearly addressing the top issue but "peep" the complaint below by another person wanting to go back and use her gift card from the manager. Obviously not too bad of an experience. 

    The three most common things people are primarily saying about Texas Roadhouse are great food, great service but long wait times. At first I was a little concerned with the quantity of complaints the Roadhouse management tolerates getting flogged with and thought a few of these complaints I would delete but then I really liked how they maintained integrity by leaving them and letting us see how they deal with them. How they treat others is how I would expect to be treated. 

Complaint customer trying to drum up return visit with friends.

According to Mobile Marketer, “Through the initiative, Texas Roadhouse uncovered a significant difference in engagement on content published to the local Facebook Place pages and content published to the brand page. In fact, the content on Texas Roadhouse's local pages got 71 percent higher engagement than the content on the brand page.” Furthermore, “During the three-month period, Texas Roadhouse generated 21 million Facebook impressions by sharing content to its local restaurant pages and curating customer-generated photos from Instagram and foursquare.”

    Marketed as a Dine-In-So Now What?: Being a heavily marketed primarily dine in restaurant, I was curious as to how they could financially survive during the Coronavirus and what marketing challenges they would face. When looking at their posts on social media and marketing, they made a heavy shift to take out and home delivery like many other restaurants but surprisingly they were doing well.  They had special offers on social media,  good choice of take out food products and a loyal customer base. Albeit their stock options are listed as not great, note the comeback in the below graph. 

   

     To test out if this primarily dine in business has not been changed by the "Rona", I called the Medford restaurant and asked "If I order these menu items to go how do I get all the goodies I normally get when sitting having drinks?" Their response, "You tell us how much you want and we will just add it to the to-go box free of charge. You are welcome to have a drink inside or outside too while you wait. We also have dine in with masks and gloves-just tell us what you are comfortable with-we will even move your table outside if you want us to."

   Furthermore, Texas Roadhouse is acquiring loyalty from its locations all over the US as one of the restaurants with a high loyalty index. 

    Value Proposition: Obviously, the value proposition is best value and service and their registered trademark is “Legendary Food and Legendary Service®”. Spend your money here and you will be treated well and fed well by people willing to bend over backwards for your business. I feel confident that if I spend my money I will get a value in customer service and quality of food without aggravation. Texas Roadhouse is recovering from Covid-19 and have appeared to have maintained their integrity to their customers, their brand and their staff. 

    What I Learned from this Assignment: I learned from this assignment that there is much to be learned from digging through market analysis, stocks, social media threads and a company’s reputation. Perhaps the greatest thing I learned was the value in a good company culture. If a primarily dine in vibe steakhouse can survive Covid-19 maybe most businesses can. I also learned that looking at steaks for hours in a project is best done after you eat.