From store-only to digital CX results in five weeks
Founded in Belgium in 1990, Le Pain Quotidien is an international chain of bakery restaurants that has more than 260 locations across 20 countries. The brand prides itself on the quality of its ingredients and products, and delivers a memorable, in-store experience with its trademark long wooden “communal” tables.
In a fast-paced marketplace, being able to evolve along with customer needs and expectations is key to surviving and thriving. Le Pain Quotidien, though a popular name on the high street, needed a stronger digital backbone to help it stay ahead in an ever-changing world.
The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated a long term trend towards online retail and out of restaurant consumption.
While delivery channels like Deliveroo and UberEats offered a welcome band-aid when lockdowns closed stores, the limited data they release made it hard for Le Pain Quotidien to gain insights into customer behaviour and differentiate themselves in an increasingly crowded marketplace. Commission fees also ate into profits.
It quickly became clear that Le Pain Quotidien needed to complement external sales channels with its own ecommerce channels while maintaining operational efficiency across the various ordering platforms.
Having evaluated Le Pain Quotidien’s most pressing needs, we came to the conclusion that by using an existing, configurable software package to build their click & collect system, we could accelerate the project and still lay a solid foundation for the future.
With this decision made, we set about exploring how to integrate all e-commerce ordering platforms into a single system that would centralise orders before passing them to the kitchen. Delivery management hub Deliverect provided the solution we needed – connecting to Le Pain Quotidien’s point of sale system, this order aggregator helped streamline order processing while ensuring a smooth employee experience.
With the integrated solution ready to go, we piloted Le Pain Quotidien’s click & collect for one week at a popular store in Brussels – gathering learnings and feedback that would help us fine-tune the employee onboarding and general roll-out – before a full roll-out to 40 branches across Belgium and France.
across Belgium and France fully equipped with e-commerce capabilities
from business case to roll-out
“November Five and Nova Reperta have translated our needs and ambitions into effective and efficient digital solutions. Speeding up our digital transformation and helping us expand beyond our traditional channels.”
CEO Le Pain Quotidien
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While food delivery services like Deliveroo and UberEats have offered a lifeline to restaurants worldwide during COVID lockdowns, having a proprietary e-commerce storefront offers a wealth of possibilities that a “one size fits all” solution does not.
By launching their own click & collect system, Le Pain Quotidien got straight back into the driving seat, able to manage and derive insights from their own data, have a storefront completely in line with their branding, and avoid service fees to third-party delivery platforms.
The company now has the agility to test and learn, and continuously improve the quality of their operations, offer and overall customer experience.
It has always been difficult to predict the future, and now, more than ever, businesses need to deliver value on a continuous basis – no more projects that last months or years, only to have missed the boat.
The decision, together with Le Pain Quotidien, to launch a proprietary click & collect system based on an existing, customisable software package was a “no regrets” decision that allowed us to deliver real value fast.
Then, by piloting the service for one week in a single store in Belgium and one in France – rather than work towards a full roll-out to all locations at once – we gained valuable feedback and real-world experiences that informed the subsequent full rollout to 40 stores across the two countries.
To continuously improve Le Pain Quotidien’s customer experience, a short satisfaction survey is sent after each order. Gaining valuable customers insight and measuring the overall customer satisfaction score in real-time, currently being at 4,76 out of 5.
The launch of Le Pain Quotidien’s multi-channel e-commerce solution is just one early chapter in their digital transformation journey. And we started as we mean to go on: building a collaborative SWAT team between the LPQ teams, November Five and Nova Reperta, that draws on the strengths of all those involved across our three organisations.
By seeding our entrepreneurial DNA deep within the business, we were able to create a true sense of partnership, with everyone working towards one, joint mission.
