In writing a mission statement, restaurant experience beats food qualityIn writing a mission statement, restaurant experience beats food quality

What are the elements of a well-formed mission statement for restaurant brands? While we recently saw Starbucks update its mission statement as part of a multi-faceted organizational transformation, the question remains, do these statements (mission, purpose) even matter?

In this article, we will look at 19 leading brands’ performance across several customer surveys and compare them to their mission statement focus. The data leads us to one central question: Are the winners those that chose to differentiate on experience, or those that excel at both food and service but emphasize experience in their messaging?

Restaurant brands are a cornerstone of the average American’s daily life. They help create shared experiences among family, friends, and colleagues. With this shared experience comes an inherent level of trust, comfort, and a need for reliability. A restaurant’s operations need to reflect its willingness to be trusted, and these operations should be grounded in a sound mission statement. For employees, connection to their employer’s mission can lead to 50% higher retention rates and increased morale. This employee connectedness will, in turn, improve the service, quality, and overall customer experience.

The role and evolution of mission statements

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Mission statements have arguably been an unspoken ingredient in business formation and strategy for millennia (Why are we in business). These statements, however, were typically unknown to folks outside of the owner or C-suite. The systematic study of mission statements began in the 1980s. Business scholars examined these traditionally private documents to identify patterns and recommend ways to make them more meaningful to stakeholders — from employees to suppliers to customers. Initially identified as a top-down, “tell-mode” device, the mission statement has evolved over the years into a transparent, visible, seemingly tangible part of a firm’s intellectual property and identity. The increase in publicly available data, the creation of social media, HR practice revisions, and other advancements have made mission and company purpose more readily available, better disseminated across organizations, and subsequently subject to more scrutiny. More recent studies have indicated that firms with strong mission statements (both strong design and “intensely held by stakeholders”) perform better than others.

What restaurant brands are evaluated

For this study, we looked at leading QSR brands’ mission statements and their performance across a variety of customer surveys. To be included, all restaurants must have been rated on these three sources: Chatmeter 2024 QSR Reputation Rating, Brightlocal’s analysis of Google reviews, and the American Customer Satisfaction Index (note: What qualifies these as a “QSR” restaurant is a different topic for a different article). There are 19 restaurants that appear on all three lists.

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Mission focus across the brands

We found that restaurant chains focus on four key purposes:

Taking a deeper look into these themes, Quality focus represents the largest category (31.6%) of mission statements, followed by Customer/Service (26.3%), with Market Leadership and Environment/Community each representing 21.1%. QSR brands, at present, are most likely to emphasize the quality of their food, although this is not aligned with the evolution of mission statements from operational focus to CSR-related focus (Environmental/Community is the smallest bucket). Given many of these brands have been around since the 1970s or before, coupled with the fact that many fail to update mission statements to align with business trends (external and internal), this isn’t surprising.

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What does a good mission statement look like?

To evaluate the potential correlation between customer satisfaction and a brand’s mission, the data from all three surveys were aggregated. The surveys used in this study used varied ways of reporting, some including several components to the survey and some issuing solely an all-encompassing score. Companies were ranked 1-19 across all categories in the surveys and a total score was issued based on the aggregated ranking scores. For instance, if you ranked 1, 6, 19 across three surveys, your total score for this report was 26, for an average of 8.7 (with 1 being the best and 19 being the worst).

Here’s how the mission statement types stacked up across the total customer satisfaction across the three surveys:

The data reveals several interesting points of discussion:

Customer Service-focused missions significantly outperform all others, suggesting that how food is delivered matters more than what is delivered. Despite representing only 26.3% of companies’ missions, these guest-centric statements correlate with the highest customer satisfaction. The missions themselves seem to indicate an investment in the people who serve those who gather to enjoy food and bev, and this service focus delivers well above average satisfaction ratings.

Perhaps most surprisingly, Quality-focused missions, despite being the most common (31.6% of companies), show the poorest performance in customer satisfaction. This suggests that quality alone isn’t enough — it might be considered ‘table stakes’ rather than a differentiator. Are these missions a relic of the top-down mission statements from the 1980s? Or are they a glimpse into a process-oriented organization that has failed to adapt to the evolving customer (and community) needs?

Environment/Community-focused missions perform relatively well, indicating that customers increasingly value their restaurants’ broader social impact and local engagement. These social-focused missions may also indicate a similar investment strategy to the “customer” bucket. After all, aren’t communities just a conglomerate of customers (past, future, potential)? In other words, does a focus on the greater good lead to good customers coming through your doors or to your mobile app?

The analysis reveals a significant misalignment between what restaurants emphasize in their missions and what drives customer satisfaction. While quality is the most common mission focus, it correlates with the lowest satisfaction scores. Instead, customer service-focused missions lead to better outcomes, suggesting that the experience of dining matters more than the food itself.

Landing the mission

The findings suggest a fundamental shift is needed in how restaurants approach their missions. While quality food remains important, it’s no longer enough to drive superior customer satisfaction. Today’s customers expect quality as a given but make their choices based on service experience and community impact.

As the restaurant industry continues to evolve, brands should reassess their missions to ensure alignment with customer values. For restaurant leaders, the question becomes: Does your mission statement reflect what truly drives customer satisfaction, or is it stuck in a product-centric past?  Yes, revising your mission will be public knowledge and may illicit some shareholder questions, but failure to advance your mission may lead to more dire questions in the years ahead.

Restaurants should consider:

To further illustrate the need for a shift in approach, let’s consider an example. A traditional, product-centric mission statement like “To create the best burger” could be transformed into a more customer-centric version: “To delight our customers with the highest quality service and burgers.” Assuming you already have the capability in place to provide a quality burger (you’ve been doing this for years), this revised version allows you to signal to customers, staff, and investors that you are committed to developing and harnessing your customer experience capability in the future. 

Let’s face it, consumers are unlikely to return to a restaurant with low-quality food, so the quality should be a given. Service (hospitality) appears to be mission-critical and what sets the highest-performing brands apart from others.

AUTHOR BIO

Dr. Nathan Libbey is an Instructional Associate at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, with over two decades of experience in academia, industry, and technology. Holding a Doctorate in Law and a Master of Science from Northeastern University, Boston, he brings a strong scholarly foundation to his work. Dr. Libbey has served as Vice President, Advisor, and Director for numerous technology startups, as well as Global 50 and Fortune 500 firms. He specializes in business and strategy leadership, bridging theoretical rigor with practical innovation.