How Giggling Squid increased their share of 5 star reviews by 3%
Giggling Squid is a vibrant UK-based Thai restaurant group with currently 53 locations nationwide.
Known for its bold, flavour-packed dishes, Giggling Squid offers a menu designed for sharing, complemented by whimsical, floral interiors that blend Thai inspiration with contemporary charm.
For the year ending 31 March 2024, the Thai restaurant group reported a 4.3% increase in turnover driven by robust customer demand and improved operational efficiency, with like-for-like site EBITDA rising 12% year-on-year.
Smart Surveys
The Giggling team have been working with 125 Data & Insights for 7 years and have spent the last 12 months focussing on a wider Hospitality Expectations project within the business. The challenge was to increase the % of guests who were recommended a dish by the team and to showcase menu knowledge, two specific areas where they felt it would increase guest satisfaction and ultimately loyalty.
By using the Smart Survey functionality within the 125 Data & Insights platform, Christina Placidi, Head of Learning & Development at Giggling Squid, tracked these two key metrics every week, alongside creating additional training material and running focus groups with the operational teams. By tracking it weekly, Christina was able to see which restaurants needed more training, more training materials and a greater focus.
“The ability to use the platform and to track key metrics that are vital to our business is invaluable. Every week we are collecting guest experience data from thousands and thousands of our guests, giving us real insights to their experience. Overall we saw a near 10% increase in guests being recommended a dish and in some instances this was as high as a 35% increase.”
Results
+265%
Increase in reviews in some sites
+3%
Increase in share of 5* Google reviews
+2
NPS score
Over a 12 month period from April to March, Giggling Squid saw a 9.2% increase overall in guests being recommended a dish. On top of that there was also an 8.4% increase in the team showing product knowledge. The key knock on effect was a huge increase in both the quality and quantity of the feedback, which also had a positive impact specifically on Google reviews. One site went from receiving an average of 32 reviews a week to 117 – a 265% increase.
Overall, over the entire 12 month period, Giggling Squid achieved a 3% increase in the share of Google reviews that were 5 stars and improved their NPS by 2 points.
“As a result of this strategic project with 125 Data & Insights, we now have a dedicated product knowledge champion in the business who shares best practice, tracks performance, sets targets and highlights focus dishes each and every week for our GM’s.”
Christina Placidi, Head of Learning & Development at Giggling Squid
