Today, John Schnatter, the founder and former Chairman and CEO of Papa John’s International (PZZA), commented on the steadily declining customer satisfaction rating for the pizza company, as reflected in the just-released American Customer Satisfaction Index 2020-2021. The index uses data from 500,000 customer evaluations to produce an econometric model to analyze customer satisfaction across 10 economic sectors throughout the year, including its report on the restaurant industry. In its findings on limited-service restaurants, ACSI indicated that for the second consecutive year, Domino’s Pizza has beaten Papa John’s in customer satisfaction. Papa John’s received its lowest score since 2009, shortly after the departure of Nigel Travis as CEO.
Schnatter issued the following statement in response:
“We built Papa John’s based on core principles committed to exceptional customer service and product quality. These declining customer satisfaction scores are not surprising, given current management’s decision to eliminate the matrix measurement system for product quality and service. What gets measured gets done, and the company’s lack of quality measurement is resulting in a subpar customer experience. Prior to my departure from the company at the end of 2017, Papa John’s had won the ACSI award among pizza chains every year since 1999, except in 2009. It’s disappointing to see the company abandon the quality positioning we worked so hard to build.
“Furthermore, current CEO Rob Lynch is overseeing anemic new store growth at Papa John’s. This performance is similar to Lynch’s tenure in leadership roles at Arby’s, when the company added just five total net units during his seven years with the company. New store units are a very important indicator for future financial growth, but there are fewer domestic Papa John’s stores today than when I left the company - 3,298 today vs. 3,441 in 2017 (see chart). Unfortunately, it’s clear that Rob Lynch is a low quality, low growth CEO. While the company boasts about building new stores, most franchisees are simply protecting their territories (‘squatters’ rights’) and don’t have plans to open new stores. In fact, while the company announced a plan to open 49 stores in the Philadelphia market from 2021-2028, to date they have only opened less than six in the market.
“Papa John’s has been blaming me for three years for their mismanagement, but they couldn’t be more wrong. As we’ve learned through discovery in litigation against our former ad firm, Laundry Service, certain board members allegedly conspired with the ad firm to set me up and create a false narrative about comments I made against racism on a media training call. The truth is, customer satisfaction has been dropping steadily because I haven’t been there to fix management’s mistakes and misdirection, causing harm to franchisees and employees.”
Click on this link to view the American Customer Satisfaction Index 2020-2021.
For more information on Papa John Schnatter, go to thepapajohnschnatter.com.
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