In fact, in this brisk business environment, some 50% of all orders are either by phone or online. Before upgrading the company’s technology platform, Jimmy John had regular and ongoing issues with both his Internet service provider and his phone service provider. According to Jimmy John Franchisee, “there were all kinds of problems with hardware and connection”. Worse still, in a business that depends so much on customer relationships, franchisees were dealing with poor connection quality and unreliable connectivity. From a bottom-line point of view, there were concerns about our “price-to-value” proposition.
Lost connectivity means serious business losses
For Jimmy John franchisees, Internet connectivity is a lifeline – even a few hours of downtime is an unrecoverable business loss. “We were experiencing downtime almost every six weeks”, explains John. “When our ordering system goes down, we lose business, upwards of 50%”. Today, particularly for businesses that operate with online and phone orders, it is crucial to have a secure, reliable, and guaranteed Internet connectivity. Anything less is a prescription for disaster – lost restaurant profit lost productivity and even business failure. For Jimmy Johns, Internet downtime was calamitous. “The minute our Internet connection went down, we were in trouble. Even when we were back online, we were totally backed up with our orders, and customers were getting frustrated – not a very good situation”.
Solving downtime with guaranteed connectivity
In searching for a sustainable solution to connectivity issues, the team at Jimmy John set out some criteria – a worry-free phone system – a seamless Internet connection with 100% reliable backup – and an excellent price-to-value cost for the entire system. “We want the business to be flow smoothly”, explains John. “We want to efficiently process credit cards; we want to ensure simplified customer ordering; we want to easily access emails; we want to manage our back-office, and we want to connect with vendors.” As for phone orders, guaranteed connectivity means that customers can always contact a store to place their orders. Besides that, it’s possible to pay with a credit card over the phone and feel secure about the transaction – all the better for customer contact.
Switching over to Vivant for technology solutions
In an effort to achieve restaurant business profitability, Jimmy John has switched over to Vivant for a new approach to technology. “With Vivant, we don’t have hardware costs”, explains John, the owner of one of Jimmy John’s franchisees. “Best of all, our monthly fees are much less than our previous provider”. One of the most fundamental benefits of Vivant technology is 100% connectivity. For Jimmy John outlets, any Internet interruption activates an automatic switchover to a backup connection. Once the Internet comes back online, the backup system retreats seamlessly.
SmartCONNECT™ is the answer to your needs
SmartCONNECT™ was the answer for Jimmy John franchisees – a cutting edge technology that ensured 100% Internet connectivity. Franchisees enjoy worry-free phone orders, online orders, payment processing, and more. Even when there’s a service outage, SmartCONNECT™ switches to a secondary connection within a matter of seconds – there’s never any noticeable impact. With SmartCONNECT™, restaurant business profitability is sustained with secure, reliable, and guaranteed connectivity. If there’s any type of interruption, the system activates, monitors the connection until it fully recovers, and then switches back to your primary system. There’s no impact on customer sales, employee productivity, and most of all, your restaurant’s profit. For the team at Jimmy John, switching over to Vivant has been a trouble-free experience. “From our phone service to our Internet connectivity, we’re operating at full productivity”, explains John. “And when we do have an issue here and there, the remote support from Vivant is very responsive. Our issues are immediately addressed, diagnosed, and remedied online.”
Read the blog Downtime Disaster: How Internet Connection Interruptions Lost Profits.
