Strategy
Customer-Centric Mobile Strategy
Rather than simply designing apps, Photon focused on implementing a customer-centric mobile strategy for Olive Garden.
Home | Consulting | Client Outcomes
Olive Garden serves up rich guest experiences through mobile
Client
Olive Garden (Darden Restaurants)
Industry
Restaurants
Capabilities
Customer-centric mobile strategy, native iOS and Android apps, and UX modernization
Key outcomes
Improved guest engagement and loyalty, remote waitlist access, and more effective use of data and insights
Overview
Darden Restaurants, a Fortune 500 company, operates a unique portfolio of businesses, including Olive Garden and other casual and fine dining restaurants. Darden teamed up with Photon to enhance the mobile experience for guests at Olive Garden, its largest restaurant brand. Darden chose Photon as its mobile app development partner for Olive Garden, and Photon focused on implementing a customer-centric mobile strategy.
The Challenges
Olive Garden Needed To Meet Rising Guest Expectations
Long Waits
Common pain points in the guest experience included long waits during the dinner rush.
Changing Guest Expectations
Millennials increasingly expect features like online ordering, payment flexibility, and personalized services.
The solution
Photon helped Olive Garden eliminate pain points in the guest experience and offer personalized services.
Mobile apps
Native iOS And Android Apps
Photon built independent, native iOS and Android mobile applications for Olive Garden.
Guest experience
Remote Waitlist
The apps enabled new features, such as the ability to join the waitlist remotely.
UX
Modernized UX
Photon's creative services modernized Olive Garden's digital experiences for cross-channel engagement, improving the UX across online ordering and payments.
Guest experience
"ToGo" Experience
Photon brought a key new feature to Olive Garden's "ToGo" offering that allows guests to see their order history through the mobile app and quickly reorder past orders.
Results
The Olive Garden mobile app improved the guest experience
Loyalty
Improved Engagement And Loyalty
With Photon's implementation of the Olive Garden mobile app, Darden saw an exciting improvement in overall guest engagement and loyalty.
Guest experience
Mobile Waitlist Access
Darden called mobile access to the wait list a big leap in its ability to improve the guest experience and eliminate common pain points like long waits during the dinner rush.
Data
Data-Driven Experiences
Darden now leverages data and insights more effectively to deliver great guest experiences.
Convenience
Convenience And Control
The new features give Olive Garden's guests increased convenience and control while expediting services and creating frictionless personalized experiences.
“Millennials increasingly expect features like online ordering, payment flexibility, and personalized services. With Photon’s implementation of the Olive Garden mobile app, we saw an exciting improvement in our overall guest engagement and loyalty.”
Chris Chang, SVP & CIO at Darden Restaurants
Conclusion
By implementing a customer-centric mobile strategy, Photon helped Olive Garden give guests increased convenience and control, from joining the waitlist remotely to quickly reordering past "ToGo" orders. With Photon's implementation of the Olive Garden mobile app, Darden saw an exciting improvement in overall guest engagement and loyalty.
