r+d

I love Five Guys Burgers and Fries. Everything about the experience of going to our Five Guys around the corner is great. You're greeted cheerfully when you enter, the store is clean, there are salty peanuts to shell while you wait for your food, the burgers and fries are solid, and they do little things like putting little sticker numbers on the wrappers of the burgers that correspond to the order you ordered them, so you know which burger is which before opening it up. I know #1 is my wife's, number #2 is me and #3 is the one to split for my kids.

1. Our best salesman is our customer. Treat that person right, he'll walk out the door and sell for you.
   Totally obvious, but completely overlooked countless times by so many companies. The reason many marketers see Facebook and other social networks as the ultimate marketing goldmine is because word of mouth recommendations are the most powerful marketing around. And really, lots of companies give lip service to this, but Five Guys is living it.
2. We don't do coffee. We don't do milkshakes. We don't deliver. We don't have drive-thrus. If you're in a hurry, there are a lot of really good hamburger places within a short distance from here .
   It's seems antithetical to say that great customer experience are often built around saying "no" to customer-requests, but in many cases it's absolutely true. Saying no to things that aren't core to your business allows you to spend more time and resources on excelling in your core areas: having a great product and out-executing your peers. A story from Mr. Murrell on this:

   "When we first opened, the Pentagon called and said, "We want 15 hamburgers; what time can you deliver?" I said, "What time can you pick them up? We don't deliver." There was an admiral running the place. So he called me up personally and said, "Mr. Murrell, everyone delivers food to the Pentagon." Matt and I got a 22-foot-long banner that said ABSOLUTELY NO DELIVERY and hung it in front of our store. And then our business from the Pentagon picked up."

3. Stick with two tomato slices
   "About five years ago, hurricanes killed the tomato crop in Florida, and prices went from $17 to $50 a case. So a few of my franchisees called and said, "We're not using tomatoes. The prices are too high." I suggested using one slice instead of two. My kids were furious: "It should be two! Always!" They were right -- it's too easy to start slipping down that slope. We stuck with two slices, and so did our franchisees."

   There are countless stories from Apple relating how Steve Jobs absolutely wouldn't relent on certain key interface or ergonomic issues. One button on the mouse. No battery access on the iPod, etc. Despite lots of compelling evidence that these choices didn't reflect the best experience for users, Steve adamantly believed these design decisions were critical to his vision for the device. That commitment to vision is critical to quality. You see that same commitment with Five Guys, only with tomatoes. Sure they are selling burgers, but more importantly, they're selling quality, repeatability, consistency. They can't get that if their product, experience and sense of corporate direction are swayed by the winds of market changes.

4. Trouble over the details
   "We taste-tested 16 different types of mayonnaise to find the right one. We have two third-party audits in each store every week. One is called a secret shopper -- folks pretend they're customers and rate the crews on bathroom cleanliness, courtesy, and food preparation. Then we have safety audits -- they identify themselves and check all the kitchen equipment. The crews make about $8 or $9 an hour. If they get a good score, they will split another $1,000 among them, usually five or six people per crew. A press release goes out to every store announcing the winners. Right now, it's the top 200 stores. Last year, we paid out between $7 million and $8 million; this year, it will be $11 million or $12 million."

   This is sort of an add-on to #3 but it really brings it home. You have to trouble over all the details of you operation if you want to maintain the quality and integrity of your vision. Even the mayonnaise. Get involved in the details to demonstrate the direction for your team. Test to measure your effectiveness. Incent your team to drive the behaviors you value.

5. Stick to what works
   "We make the same bun we started with. We hired the old guy who used to bake our bread for the first store, and one of his partners. They work in the Virginia bakery. We have 10 bakeries scattered around the nation. Our bread is baked daily, picked up by 3 p.m., and put on truck or plane so every store gets fresh bread every morning, even if they are 400 miles away from the nearest bakery."

   In some businesses, this mindset is poisonous to innovation. In others, it's the key to success. For Five Guys, sticking to what works is fundamental to the customer experience they are creating. The buns they started with were the best at the time and continue to meet their needs. Mr. Murrell says elsewhere that there are many vendors who could provide buns for less money, but right now that's not a concern of his. What is a concern is quality, which is his competitive strength. Now, if a competitor to Five Guys were to come along who undercut him on price and approximated the quality, sticking to this strategy might be a problem. But for right now, it's exactly what they need to simplify and maintain control over the experience.