How to reinvent franchising with tech and transparency

Fact: 74% of people in Oxford who tried Dodo Pizza once placed an order at least one more time since the day we opened. So logic says that in order to boost sales, we need to prompt Oxonians to sample our pizza. The chances that a person trying our pizza will remain Dodo Pizza customer are pretty high. Initiating first try might sounds like a piece of cake—just get your coupons and discounts ready! But we find that boring. And old-fashioned. And annoying. So, we’ve come up with something better. Here’s what we have in mind (and...

Wow, that’s a long, scary line. Strangely enough, all these people aren’t waiting for a new iPhone. Do you recognize the bird on the sign over there? Yep, it’s Dodo! And this is a Dodo Pizza Day in a town across the ocean.

Dodo Pizza’s headquarters is starting a new round of negotiations with investors. We’re growing globally (for instance, Dodo Pizza opened in China in June) and need a few more millions to feed our expansion. As part of this process, our small American branch, which now consists of only one pizzeria in Oxford, was asked to outline a long-term plan for the US market.

As you probably know, Dodo Pizza Oxford doesn’t take orders via phone—we decided to cut off the landline to save money. As a sort of bonus, now we have plenty of information about our customers. The Internet knows everything, and our website for Oxford has been up and running for more than three months. So we dove into the data hoping to glean a few meaningful insights about our customers and their needs. Spoiler: the effort has totally paid off.