CMO Roundtable with Zaxby's Chief Marketing Officer, Patrick Schwing

"How does your marketing team work with other departments to elevate the guest experience?"

Patrick Schwing

Chief Marketing and Strategy Officer

Zaxby’s

I firmly believe that “Guest is Boss.” As marketers, we need to understand our guests’ preferences to create appealing products and meaningful brand experiences (what Zaxby’s calls “encore experiences”).

A strong consumer understanding is the competitive advantage, specifically in the crowded QSR category. Our consumer insights research influences our product innovation strategy, advertising strategy, media placement investments, and approach to creating a seamless digital user experience.

Creating a QSR brand that stands out from other key players in the market is a cross-functional effort across the business. We must work as one team across all touchpoints that impact the guest experience. This isn’t just limited to our external marketing efforts; it is equally applicable to field operations, our internal training teams, and more. When we get it right across marketing and operations, our guests reward us with more business, translating awareness into brand preference and guests into loyal brand fans.

We are constantly innovating at the speed of retail, so we must hold transparency, one of our values, at the center of our work. Having a high level of trust with our consumers allows for better collaboration among our team members, which is particularly important for innovation. At Zaxby’s, we work to optimize the quality of our products with the supply chain while testing new items from our culinary team based on data-driven consumer insights. This is a cross-functional effort across departments, including ops, supply chain, menu innovation, marketing, finance, and IT.

Our highly collaborative workstream enables us to drive sales overnight while building our brand over time. We are focused on the long-term, sustainable growth of Zaxby’s as a strong player in the chicken QSR category. Growing a business responsibly means creating a brand that consumers love and delivering a great guest experience at every visit.