The challenge

Amid mounting economic pressures and rising customer expectations, the client was facing steadily declining in-store sales over the past several years. Leadership recognized that this trend posed a significant threat to growth and brand strength, and they were determined to act before it deepened further.

In an environment where consumers demand both value and quality, the company needed a razor-sharp strategy to reverse the revenue decline while sustaining, and ideally enhancing, its brand reputation. Gravitas was brought on to help identify the root drivers of the trend and define a clear path to renewed, sustainable growth.

Our approach

To uncover the “why,” we looked at the problem from multiple perspectives. We mined guest surveys, complaints, and reviews to identify pain points in the customer experience. We assessed operational performance across locations, including service standards, speed, and consistency. We analyzed financial and sales data to pinpoint where declines were steepest and whether they correlated with operational gaps. We also reviewed franchisee practices to understand variations in frontline execution, and benchmarked against competitors to determine if the issue was brand-specific or part of a broader market trend.

This multi-lens view revealed that the core challenge was not external pressures alone, it was the guest experience itself. Feedback highlighted mounting frustrations with food quality, staff friendliness, and complaint resolution. These service inconsistencies were quietly eroding customer satisfaction, driving down repeat visits, weakening brand loyalty, and costing millions in lost sales.

Based on these findings, we set out to quantify the true drivers of guest dissatisfaction. Through multivariate regression analysis, we discovered a powerful link:

• Every 1% increase in Overall Customer Satisfaction translated to a 1.4% lift in sales, equal to $7.09M annually.

• Two factors stood out above all others: Food Quality and Problem Rate.

With these insights, we built a solution that would scale and ensure the improvements were sustained in the long term. The centerpiece was a new Remote Operations Center (ROC), designed to monitor, respond, and continuously improve performance across the system.

The ROC included:

• A Virtual Audit Platform – Traditionally, audits were limited to the bottom 10% of stores, each requiring 3 - 4 days to complete. Now, every store can be audited quarterly without the travel burden and expense. This not only cut corporate travel costs but created full visibility across the network and can scale as the client opens new locations.

• A Guest Experience Center – Built to resolve issues faster and dig into root causes, ensuring guest concerns were addressed before they spread.

Outcomes

We established a scalable, data-driven model that enabled consistent tracking, analysis, and improvement of guest experience metrics across all locations. Within the first month of operations, the ROC audited one-third of the client's locations. The targeted interventions led to significant improvements in customer experience metrics, which directly contributed to stronger retention and loyalty. These efforts laid a solid foundation for sustainable revenue growth, helping the brand recover in-store performance and strengthen long-term competitiveness.