Dive Brief:

• Travel center chain Road Ranger has rolled out the FeedbackNow customer experience assessment platform across its entire footprint after a successful pilot, according to a company announcement last week.
• The initial launch saw Road Ranger place smiley boxes — which allow customers to rate their experience with a smile, neutral face or frown — near bathrooms and coffee stations in five locations. It also included QR codes, for customers who wished to leave more detailed feedback. 
• With labor struggles continuing to plague the c-store industry, retailers are increasingly using in-store technology to automate various tasks and gather customer data to improve their operations.

Dive Insight:

Road Ranger’s two-month long pilot with FeedbackNow, which helped gather information about the cleanliness of the restrooms and the quality of its coffee selection, garnered over 21,000 responses. The data helped the company adjust its cleaning schedule to address what it called “multiple flaws identified through comments,” according to the announcement.

“The program in general is a unique way to capture the voice of our customers and we are considering additional uses down the road,” said Ryan Arnold, vice president of marketing at Road Ranger.

The company also deployed people counters to get a better sense of the location’s foot traffic, along with check-in and check-out boxes, to track restroom cleaning. 

"Every Road Ranger location is unique and requires detailed variances,” said Arnold. “Our partnership with FeedbackNow allowed fact-based evidence on traffic patterns from store to store, varying geographically. We’ve learned from our customers the most ideal times to schedule cleanings and how to efficiently communicate with our team members when alerts to cleanliness arise.” 

Feedback submitted through the smiley boxes and online is automatically distributed to store leaders and managers. 

FeedbackNow, owned by research and advisory company Forrester, previously ventured into the convenience store space with Stinker Stores in May. Stinker has deployed the smiley boxes as well as multiple choice boxes in four of its stores across multiple regions. 

Schaumburg, Illinois-based Road Ranger is the fourth-largest travel center chain in the U.S. with 47 stores in seven states — Arkansas, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, Texas and Wisconsin.