The Consumer Picks survey was developed by WD Partners’ Insights group and is designed to provide relative benchmark rankings on major attribute ratings across restaurant brands.
Respondents, who participated online, were given a list of 164 restaurant chains organized into groups depending on the chain’s service model as well as the respondent’s geographic location. They were asked to identify which restaurants they had patronized in the last six months, or since Dec. 1, 2010, and how many times they visited during that time period, be it one, two, three, or four or more times.
Respondents were then asked to rate their experiences at the restaurants for up to eight of the restaurants they had patronized in the last six months. The six-month time frame increased the likelihood of reasonable recall by respondents and also ensured that respondents would represent a broader range of consumers and not just a brand’s raving fans.
Responses were scrubbed for 1) inconsistent answers; 2) “straight lining,” or selecting the same response repeatedly; and 3) excessive haste in completing the questionnaire. This scrubbing process reduced the number of acceptable responses to 5,255 from a total of 6,800.
The accepted respondents reported approximately 109,000 restaurant visits over the last six months, which resulted in more than 40,000 restaurant ratings of the 164 restaurant chains. Twenty-five of the 164 restaurants had fewer than 100 ratings and are not included in this report.
The remaining 139 restaurant chains yielded 38,343 ratings.
Fourteen of these 139 restaurant chains had between 100 and 149 ratings and are included in this report, but are marked with a double asterisk to indicate they received less than the desired quota of 150 ratings.
Consequently, the final report features 125 restaurant chains that were rated by at least 150 respondents, and the vast majority of these, or 106 restaurant brands, were rated by more than 200 respondents.
The questionnaire was designed in-house by WD Partners and pre-tested by over 200 staff members familiar with survey methodologies.
We worked with Survey Sampling International, which supplied panel respondents, and SurveyGizmo, which provided the survey administration software.
Results are shown as the percentage of top-two-box ratings received, based on a standard five-box scale. Overall Scores are a weighted average of attribute scores as calculated using their respective customer-reported importance ratings.
The survey addresses nine attributes: Atmosphere, Cleanliness, Food Quality, Likelihood to Recommend, Likelihood to Return, Menu Variety, Reputation, Service and Value.
Demographic information on the respondents was obtained to align the survey results with the U.S. population based on 2010 Census and 2010 Bureau of Labor Statistics reports.
As in all surveys of this type, closely ranked restaurant chains should be considered statistically equivalent.
The detailed data is available for purchase, and additional survey results, such as percentage of top-box scores and custom data analysis, are available by contacting Dennis.Lombardi@WDPartners.com.
WD Partners is a Dublin, Ohio-based firm specializing in the customer experience that helps global food and retail brands innovate through strategy and design. Research conducted by WD Partners’ Insights group is part of the company’s integrated approach to enhancing the performance of foodservice brands.
