Mobile food ordering enhances customer service and revenue for Yum Brands

New solution delivers a bucketful of benefits

Yum China is the exclusive licensee of Yum! Brands in China, where it operates KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell restaurants. Yum! Brands spun off its China holdings into Yum China in 2015 to allow for separate investment in the region. The Chinese company is focused on expanding KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell and is the country’s biggest fast food licensee, with over 7,685 outlets, of which more than 4,000 are KFCs.

Yum China has experienced rapid expansion and high demand for its popular menus. As a result, customers have endured long lines in many restaurants, ultimately affecting the company’s ability to maximize revenues.

The company believed that more efficient methods for meeting customer demand would result in improved revenues. It also realized that many of its patrons were savvy online customers and heavy users of mobile technologies. Therefore Yum China thought that creating multiple ordering channels would likely result in improved customer satisfaction as well as a boost to the company’s brand image.

However, developing a new solution would require meeting a number of IT criteria. Yum China wanted the new system to be built with a flexible IT solution that would support future business and development needs, which also meant having the ability to accommodate frequent changes to business models and rules. The solution had to be able to support potentially complex promotion rules and marketing activities. And perhaps most importantly, it needed to be able to scale.

With as many as 10 million potential users, pressure on the system could be massive.

A mobile, scalable solution

With customer experience and service as key focus areas, DXC Technology was tapped to build a mobile ordering system that could perform multiple functions, responding to Yum China’s need to improve location-based customer engagement and drive greater efficiency in customer operations.

DXC began developing the KFC Mobile Ordering System (MOS) in July 2012 for iPhone/iPad and Android devices. The DXC team finished development in March 2013, and the application went live in July 2013. In December 2013, Yum China promised major new initiatives to improve its KFC and Pizza Hut brands in China for 2014. The company centered its efforts on changes to KFC’s menu and on ramping up a recent marketing push by using social media and other digital tools.

Built using HTML5 and hybrid technologies, the new system was designed to receive and process food orders from customers, reducing in-store waiting times. The ability to process orders through the company’s website, as well as from Apple and Android mobile devices, was expected to boost overall revenues.

In addition to order management, DXC’s solution also functions as a content management system and social networking platform, allowing Yum China to track customer trends and swiftly refine its promotional strategies.

Yum China signed a 5-year deal with DXC to provide support services, which include the ongoing development and enhancement of its mobile ordering system plus the maintenance of its e-commerce platform, big data and application management services.

DXC delivers a big boost

Since its July 2013 launch, the mobile ordering system has been downloaded to more than eight million devices. It processes over 200,000 orders per day and is fully integrated with Yum China’s online and call center ordering systems.

Business metrics for the mobile ordering system have been uniformly strong. High consumer ratings for the app have boosted the brand’s online image and significantly reduced in-store waiting times. Multichannel revenues have increased dramatically, with mobile ordering representing more than half the volume.

Overall, the company has seen a revenue boost of greater than 15 percent and has realized a 30 percent reduction in cost.