A digital transformation that drove record sales

&pizza, a 50+ location restaurant chain, has been working with Happy Cog for years to help its business stand out in a highly competitive market. A few years ago, &pizza set out to shift the bulk of its transactions to digital channels -- and asked Happy Cog to help.

Meeting a Surge in Demand

As &pizza focused on digital efforts, the chain's number of new guests increased by nearly 360%, to tens of thousands more every month. &pizza needed to step up its order intake and fulfillment process fast; the ability to accept a high volume of digital orders had become essential. As their digital agency of record, Happy Cog stepped up to the challenge.

A Digital Revamp

We first expanded their online ordering system with direct integrations to third-party delivery providers like UberEats and DoorDash in order to make the playing field larger for them. We then implemented a new curbside pickup feature and integrated text messaging system to make pickup faster and more convenient. For example, when an order is ready, the system sends an automated text to the guest; guests can also pick their parking spot or let &pizza know where they are in the new interface for ease and convenience.

Following curbside pickup, we then worked with &pizza and their design team to revamp their entire menu interface, from pie selection to checkout, to make it more accessible. The goal was to make the menu easier to navigate, allow for quick selection of your pie and extras with a single click, and enhance the overall look and feel of the experience. Guests can now browse through many new pie creations by &pizza’s culinary team and easily customize their order by adding and removing ingredients from a vast list of options. We built a new interface to highlight the large list of ingredient options paired with colorful photos.

Redesigning the Guest Experience

To support the increase in guest traffic, new menu offerings, and ability for a guest to choose curbside or in-shop smart pickup, &pizza needed a more streamlined way to manage order interactions. Happy Cog built a whole new infrastructure and system in the form of back-of-the-house expo tablets that make it easier to give the shop instant order status information and guest interactions.

Now, when new orders come into a shop, they appear on an expo tablet where a team member can quickly triage orders in progress and those ready to be delivered to guests. The simple statuses for the orders let the team members clearly assess the current status of the pie and quickly respond directly to the guest if there are any issues or questions via an integrated text messaging platform. When a guest arrives at the shop, they have a space in the mobile app to enter in their parking space number and identify their vehicle. That information displays on their corresponding order that the team member sees on the expo tablet. Once the order has been handed off to the guest, the team member can quickly complete the order with a one-touch action on the expo tablet. The expo tablet has revolutionized the way team members interact with each other, guests, and their orders. Team members no longer have to physically check to see when orders are ready by opening a pizza hot box storage.

Along with a redesigned guest ordering interface and streamlined shop order hand-off processes, the kitchen display system (KDS) needed some upgrades. Happy Cog originally built the KDS software and hardware for &pizza and, while there had been many requests for enhancements over the years, increased shop orders made it time for a refresh. Happy Cog worked with &pizza to retrofit the existing KDS systems to allow for team members to “bump” an order through each of the three build processes. With a single click of a button, an order’s pie build can be passed between 2 or more crafting stations in the shop. Orders are segmented into cards with easily scannable ingredients and notes of substitutions. This streamlined process allows an order to be started and finished with fewer errors (such as missing ingredients).

Record Digital Sales

Over the course of 6 months, &pizza's priority was to build up their overall digital presence -- and we worked right alongside them to make those goals a reality. From fast requirements gathering, to rapid prototyping and development sprints, Happy Cog was able to turn out multiple new features and enhancements to their mobile and online ordering experiences.

As far as numbers go, &pizza saw its highest digital sales ever. And, in the course of just weeks, &pizza saw 10 times the digital volume on its ordering system. Because of increased sales, Happy Cog and &pizza implemented even more digital ideas, including enhanced delivery features.