Subway plans to spend big in digital with a 150-person team, wants to become more tech savvy...

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Subway plans to spend big in digital with a 150-person team

Yuyu Chen


Subway is the latest fast-food chain that wants to become more like a tech company.

The company is assembling a digital team of 150 full-time employees over the next two years, with some coming from consulting company Accenture. The sandwich chain will still use agencies to produce content, while the 150-person team will focus on technology development, loyalty programs, digital strategy and consumer behavior.

“We are taking a good look at what ‘loyalty’ means for consumers and how to integrate digital experience into restaurant experience,” said Carman Wenkoff, chief information officer and chief digital officer for Subway.

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Wenkoff didn’t have details about what Subway’s digital marketing plan will include but said it will focus on customers’ experience, especially on mobile and loyalty programs.

For example, a customer’s experience might not necessarily start at a Subway restaurant; it may start with seeing an online ad for Subway. “If the guest experience starts there, it has to be hyper-convenient, personalized and consistent, regardless of the digital channel,” said Wenkoff.

The digital push comes as Subway’s market share and sales are slipping. It still has 49.3 percent of the U.S. sandwich sales share, but that share has dropped 5.1 percent since 2010, according to research company Technomic’s Top 500 Restaurant Chains Report. Year-over-year sales in the U.S. declined 3.4 percent to $11.5 billion last year, according to Technomic, faster than the industry. (U.S. quick-service restaurant sales growth declined 0.7 percent from 2014 to 2015, per Technomic.)

Despite the scandal around its long-time spokesman Jared Fogle, Subway’s consumer perception has remained high, according to YouGov BrandIndex’s U.S. Top Ten Buzz Rankings. Darren Tristano, president of Technomic, said sales were hurt by higher sandwich prices, the discontinuation of Subway’s $5 Footlong and increased competition from other sandwich chains like Jersey Mike’s.

Subway released a mobile app last year that is integrated with Android Pay, Apple Pay and PayPal. But it has to keep pace with rival chains like Domino’s Pizza, which has started tracking its consumers’ eating and spending habits in 2015 and made it possible to place orders via online, phone, watch, TV and even voice (via its virtual assistant “Dom”).

Subway also will have to compete with technology companies and financial institutions for talent, and engineers and data analysts might not naturally think of the company as a place to further their careers. Wenkoff didn’t say if Subway would try to compete with tech startup-like benefits like unlimited paid vacation days. But he said in Subway’s favor, working there is more interesting than the average technology company, where people focus on just one or two products.

“Here, you can work on one of everything, like franchisee development solutions and customer-facing projects across 112 countries,” he said. “Our job right now is maybe promoting that a little bit more.”
 

World B Free

Rising Star
BGOL Investor
Subway FELL THE FUCK OFF,......I don't know a restaurant could fall so fast & this was before the exposure of Jared. The leadership of that company is shit, Chipolte just ganked their business model and ran with it. I haven't seen this level of gankship since R Kelly took Aaron Hall's style.
 

Helico-pterFunk

Rising Star
BGOL Legend
I have no intention of ever eating from them again.

Hiding that ass and paying for protection while he still can.


Lexx - He'd better keep a really low profile & never sleep, for sleep is the cousin of death.

As for Subway ... been there a few times in recent years. Had some giftcards and used coupons to max out the savings. Always feel like they're short-cutting with their sandwiches. Just tell them to load the fuck up the veggies. Put everything in there and make it a damn salad. Minus whale. What the hell.
 

Dannyblueyes

Aka Illegal Danny
BGOL Investor
Working in downtown SF I eat at subway 3-4 times a week. You can get a fast, relatively healthy sandwich for under $10. Very few other places do that. Plus, it's one of the very few place in the financial district that stays open 24/7.

Unless you're ordering multiple sandwiches or you're out in West Bubblefuck it's probably faster to order your sandwich in person than use an app. The lines are rarely that long when you have a store on every other block.

The only tech improvement I would suggest is that they allow customers to buy Giftcards from gyft.com save people from having to carry a plastic card with them. Would also save the company money on debit card fees.

More Tech for the same of Tech is starting to get kind of silly
 

Lexx Diamond

Art Lover ❤️ Sex Addict®™
Staff member
Subway FELL THE FUCK OFF,......I don't know a restaurant could fall so fast & this was before the exposure of Jared. The leadership of that company is shit, Chipolte just ganked their business model and ran with it. I haven't seen this level of gankship since R Kelly took Aaron Hall's style.

MS-Word-2-icon.png


How hitech can a sandwich shop be?

Real time sex offender tacking.
 

cnc

BGOL vet down since the “56k stay out!” days
BGOL Gold Member
Last time I ate there was during the $5 footlong promo; none of their sandwiches are worth paying more than that.
 

Mrfreddygoodbud

Rising Star
BGOL Investor
damn they tryin to catch up to dominos pizza,

how the hell is that ol skool frozen pizza tastin crap

doing that well??

them and pop johns crap are the worst fuckin pizza ever...

only that 711 pizza is worse but not that far off....

I can see why chipolte does well... even tho I heard there is a new mexican joint that surpass them in sales...

as far as jared...

damn I mean what a fuckin rags to riches to below rags story...

he went from being one of the luckiest dudes ever to being a disgrace to his whole fuckin family tree....
 

Helico-pterFunk

Rising Star
BGOL Legend
Last time I ate there was during the $5 footlong promo; none of their sandwiches are worth paying more than that.



Another thing too is that they hardly ever offer coupons or promos for them around here. Back in the day they did. You'd think with all the bad publicity of the past year they'd be trying to maintain customer favor & bring additional people in. Whereas places like McD's, A&W, BK, Church's, and KFC are the ones always sending out their coupon sheets & promo offers.

Back in the day ... used to live about 5 mins on foot from a Subway in Vancity. They had a 7-day a week promotion of 2-for-1 subs (footlong) after 4pm. That lasted for several years and then they switched locations to about 5 - 7 mins away by car to another owner/franchisee, and zero deals were offered. This was back in the early-2000s when they were offering this for years.
 
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