Overview

Founded in the year 2000, ChicKing is one of the leading restaurant franchises in the UAE. Not only has the brand grown in the Middle East, but it has also expanded its presence globally and is now present in over 20 countries. The brand is a household name, famous for its fried chicken, and was one of the first fully Halal-certified QSR brands. For ChicKing, there has undoubtedly been a shift towards online delivery, with close to 60% of revenues now coming from that channel.

Challenges

When the brand started catering to delivery, it used to manage orders directly from its outlets but later developed a centralized call centre to optimise its operations. It was through this call centre that they managed all their orders across channels. This was a very tactical decision for the brand as it allowed the staff at the restaurant to focus on customer experience. By increasing the number of open phone lines, the brand ensured that they did not miss many orders. 

This worked well for the brand before the pandemic as about 70% of the orders for ChicKing were direct and just 30% from online aggregators. When more orders from aggregators started coming in, the agents used to manually access the dashboards provided by aggregators and enter it into their point of sale system - a process which is very tedious. 

As orders continued to increase, the agents at the call centre found it hard to balance orders that were coming in via the phone and aggregators' orders. Manual punching became a massive issue as the brand would receive over 1000 orders a day. Agents also had to check for any remarks left by the customers and cater to that too. When anything was missed, customers would complain and this would adversely affect the brand. It was at this stage that they realised they would have to hire close to 30 agents to manage the order flow, which would add significantly to the costs. When aggregators ran special promotions or discounts, the order volume spiked once again and the brand would not be able to cater to the demand and thus miss orders. Finally, menu management was another massive issue for the brand as ChicKing’s menu has a number of modifications - such as the level of spice for the chicken.

Solution 

After unsuccessfully pursuing an integration directly with the aggregators, the brand realised they needed an integrations expert to solve the issues they were facing. For ChicKing, a number of aspects clicked with UrbanPiper. Primarily, it was the ability to integrate into their in-house POS and the support provided that convinced ChicKing of UrbanPiper’s merits. 

UrbanPiper created a custom integration with ChicKing’s POS system, which had been developed in-house and was a central part of their operations. The intricacies of the integration allowed the brand to say goodbye to the issues they were facing earlier. Since orders now land directly into their POS, there are no missed orders anymore and they are able to handle the load during peak hours.

Menu management is another aspect of UrbanPiper’s integration that the brand finds massively useful. Earlier, during festive seasons, the brand would struggle with making quick additions to the menu and would have to do multiple follow-ups to ensure changes were reflected. Now, this is something that the brand can control in real-time. Additionally, the ability to switch off a product on multiple aggregators in one click is another feature that has added value for the brand.