San Churro is one of Australia's fastest growing dessert café franchises. The San Churro concept appeals to a wide audience of people from all walks of life, united by the desire to spend time with their loved ones and indulge in a sweet treat together. Recently we spoke with Mel, from the Learning & Development team, at San Churro to understand how they implemented a complete relaunch of the San Churro platform to re-engage their network and increase their team’s understanding of their new products! Read on for more details.
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Provide some background on who San Churro is -
At San Churro, we pride ourselves on being Australia’s favourite sweet treat destination. We are passionate about premium couverture chocolate, traditional Spanish churros and Fairtrade coffee, served with a side of fun. For us, it’s about creating a vibrant and welcoming place for customers to come together with their loved ones and share an indulgent experience together through the simple joys of chocolate and churros.
Our first store opened back in 2006. We now have 56 and we are heading towards a goal of 100 locations by 2025.
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Why did you choose to rename & relaunch the San Churro platform?
The San Churro platform was originally launched in 2009. Over the years, the platform had unfortunately fallen to the background with other business goals becoming the key focus. San Churro decided to take on the project of refreshing the platform to increase learner engagement and training completion rates throughout the business. The previous platform named “The Monk” had been around since we launched, and the restaurant teams had lost faith in the value of the system. The only way forward was to do a total overhaul and relaunch with a new name!
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How did you approach the project?
When the idea came up to refresh the platform, the San Churro team organised a meeting with our Relationship Manager to understand what was needed for the relaunch to be successful. This meeting inspired our team to not only complete the relaunch but rename and relaunch the platform at San Churro’s national franchise conference in May. The team then entered the planning phase, consisting of reviewing the current learning journey and the process for the team in restaurants, to ensure they were confidently able to complete their roles. The San Churro team then designed a new user experience document to provide clarity around the learning journey and how each module would fit within this.
After discussion with the Marketing team, “The Book of Churrology” was created, along with this an innovative design concept including an L&D style guide and careful consideration of the “Books” that were being introduced to the learning journey. Six weeks after the initial discussion with our Relationship Manager the newly renamed platform went live!
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Which tool has had the most impact since the relaunch?
San Churro didn’t realise at the time of creation, but the updated streamlined Dashboard would have the most impact on the business. Through collaboration with the Operations & Design team, the team ensured that each widget on the dashboard would easily assist the end user with fulfilling their roles. At each step of widget creation, they also consider the look and feel of the mobile app to increase its usage. With the help of our Relationship Manager, we recognised the need for two main dashboards: one for managers and one for end users. This means the management team can log in and see their audits & reports at the top of the page and end users can easily access their training and latest menu updates.
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How has the platform increased engagement since the relaunch?
San Churro has seen an amazing increase in training completion rates, from 22% engagement with the platform in January to an outstanding 79% engagement result in June!
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What do you love most about your new look “Churrology” platform?
Mel’s favourite part of the platform is the new bright colours and the new menu GIF widget across the top of the dashboard. The more visually appealing it is, the greater the chance of our young learner cohort logging in and interacting with the platform.
(FYI - average age range of user is 15-19)
“Our Relationship Manager was awesome throughout this process, she kept us on track and made sure that we had everything that we needed at each stage of this transformation. We had weekly meetings with her, and she was also available via email and phone, if we needed her. There is no doubt that our FranConnect Relationship Manager made our lives easier throughout this process. We would not have been able to do this relaunch with such a tight timeframe without her.”
Thank you so much to Mel for providing us an insight into your successful relaunch project for San Churro. If you would like to explore the ways in which you can relaunch and revitalise your platform, please reach out to your Relationship Manager to book in a consultation session.