Scooters makes pizza. It’s not an innovative idea that revolutionised the market but the franchise chain’s continued success in a tough market is down to a simple but often forgotten idea. Scooters Pizza is successful because it impresses with excellent service. This commitment to quality is a habit that has been instilled over years and is a passion that infuses all corners of the company but dedication to superior service is easier talked about than accomplished.
The trick is changing the company’s focus from what they produce to making their customers’ experience at their stores easier and more enjoyable.
Managing Executive of Scooters Pizza, Jeanne Geldenhuys believes that while good branding plays a role in business success, it is active and involved employees who drive and strengthen the message tied up in the Scooters Pizza brand. She knows that customer perception plays a big role in a purchasing decision and if customers are not happy with their experience in-store, then ultimate it is the chain that suffers.
She believes it is what sets Scooters Pizza apart. “We have benefitted from giving our staff the tools to create their own success and in return we have dynamic involved employees who view our success as their own.”
Scooters Pizza understands that people are the essence of a successful business as they are the link between the brand and the customer experience of the brand. It is through enthusiastic employees that customers experience and live the authenticity and passion of the brand.
The pizza giant’s continued success in a tough economy is down to a culture that focusses on its employees, and it’s a culture that brings customers through the doors again and again. Since its inception, the company’s founding members understood that recruiting and retaining the best talent available is the key to success. It has allowed them to be able to adapt and thrive where competitors have stumbled.
Managers are encouraged to interact with people they supervise, to share knowledge and to impart experience. It is a collaboration that works both ways. Employees understand the goal they are working towards and managers develop an understanding of the skills and potential of staff and how to align them with current and future objectives.
For the Scooters Pizza management mistakes made are a learning experience that strengthens the company in the long run. It’s a learning curve that allows all employees to learn the business without fear that mistakes will be punished. Geldenhuys goes on to explain that with this freedom comes responsibility.
“On the same hand our employees are trained to understand that they will be held responsible for their actions. Once they accept responsibility, then we, as management and customers, expect them to meet those goals. We believe in the importance of accountability. People have to be able to believe that you will deliver what you’ve promised, whatever that is.”
Scooters Pizza employees know that believing in this ethos is easy, rewarding and normal business practice.
“Always view your team and business through a human coloured lens. Always ask yourself how do I keep them in the loop, listened to, appropriately equipped and responsibly led? Every business is unique with its own strengths, challenges and priorities but if you get the right people, the rest will follow,” Geldenhuys concludes.