The QSR/Fast Casual Digital Ordering Performance Study from Ipsos shows that Panda Express had the highest overall score for mobile order pickup experience
Customers clearly want time-saving ease of experience, in-app promotions, and order customization from a restaurant’s mobile order pickup channel. So which brands do the best job at providing those things?
According to the QSR/Fast Casual Digital Ordering Performance study released by Ipsos in partnership with Nation’s Restaurant News, there was no singular brand that received highest remarks in the order experience, app benefits, and app capabilities categories. Overall, however, Panda Express was the top ranked brand out of the 26 experienced by mystery shoppers, scoring an 80 out of 100 possible points. The other brands in the top 10 scored in the 70s.
“We think about the Panda Express mobile app not just as a simple utility for our guests to transact, but an opportunity to engage with them and bring our brand essence to life in an authentic and differentiated manner,” said Nidhin Mattappally, executive director, digital & restaurant experience at Panda Express. “We’ve mirrored the app ordering experience to what’s in-store so that it’s really familiar to guests and made it streamlined so it’s easy to complete.”
Panda Express has also been diligently working on improvement of its digital ordering experience in recent years, including the launch in May 2023 of its first-ever national loyalty program, Panda Rewards, which now has 14 million users and allows customers to earn points on every transaction. Last year, the quick-service Asian chain also added fun new features to the app like the Lunar New Year Good Fortune Scratcher game.
When ordering via the mobile pickup channel, Panda Express customers walk over to the online order pickup sign by the store, bypassing the ordering line, and show the cashier their order confirmation. Newer stores have a digital order status screen showing guests whether their order is ready for pickup or still being made.
Panda Express might have scored the highest overall compared with other limited-service food brands, but there is always room for improvement. Some 97% of mystery shoppers found that the temperature of their order was correct, while 87% found that the food was cooked properly and tasted good. However, only 81% of shoppers found that the food was visually appealing, and 77% said it was securely wrapped. These scores match the overall trends of the study, in which the lowest mystery shopper scores overall were in the visual appeal and secure packaging categories.
“Improving the experience in our mobile app is a continuous and daily focus at Panda Express,” Mattappally said. “We’re meticulously tracking performance of our app, listening to our guests to see how we can serve them better, and also figuring out how to bring our brand essence to life in an authentic manner. We release new versions every few weeks with updates that build towards this goal and are constantly testing enhancements to see what resonates with our guests.”
Recent changes to the mobile order experience on the employee end include recently putting an on-time percentage tracker on the main KDS screen, which allows employees to track their performance every day. Panda Express also started automatically calculating requested sauce packet counts for each order on the app, so employees don’t have to do it manually.
In individual categories, Panda Express scored highest in app benefits, Whataburger scored highest in order experience, and Chick-fil-A scored best in app capabilities. Overall, the best-performing brands according to the Ipsos study include Domino’s, Chick-fil-A, Chipotle, and Whataburger (all ranked two through five, respectively).
This is part two of NRN’s coverage of the Ipsos digital ordering performance study results. For part one, click here. And for part two, click here.
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