Burger King’s turnaround plan boosts sales, customer satisfaction

Seven months after Burger King unveiled a strategy to revive its U.S. business, the chain is selling more Whoppers than ever before.

Burger King U.S. President Tom Curtis told CNBC that preliminary improvements to restaurant operations and new marketing campaigns are already boosting sales and customer satisfaction, although it’s still early innings.

Parent company Restaurant Brands International will report its first-quarter earnings and sales results for its divisions, including Burger King U.S., before the bell on May 2. Last quarter, Burger King’s U.S. same-store sales rose 5% on the back of implementing early steps in the turnaround plan.

The $400 million plan to rejuvenate Burger King’s domestic sales was developed in partnership with franchisees and focuses on revamping its restaurants and investing in advertising.

“What’s happened in the last six months is that sense of ‘We’re in this together’ that we have with our franchisees. I think it’s unique in the business, and I think that differs from what you see from some of the competition as well,” Curtis said.

Burger rival McDonald’s has had much-publicized spats with its operators over the years. Recently, tension has been boiling over changes to its franchise policies.

Before Burger King announced its official turnaround strategy, the company spent roughly a year simplifying operations with a goal to improve efficiency and order accuracy, Curtis said. For example, Burger King reformulated and renamed its chicken sandwich. The now-retired Ch’King sandwich involved 21 steps to prepare the final menu item. The Royal Crispy Chicken sandwich takes just five.

After announcing its “Reclaim the Flame” strategy at a franchisee convention in September, Burger King turned its attention to an in-store training program for all of its restaurants that instructed workers to greet customers, make Whoppers properly and give out Burger King’s iconic crowns. Curtis said it was “the most important thing that we did coming out of the convention.”

Burger King also held roundtables for general managers in 45 cities. Those roundtables included training general managers on how to execute a five week-long deep clean of their restaurants.

“I think those things are foundationally important, and they resulted in a 20% uplift in guest satisfaction,” Curtis said.

Additionally, Burger King launched its “You Rule” marketing campaign this fall. The chain’s mascot, the Burger King, is nowhere to be seen in the ads. Instead, customers are royalty.

And despite Curtis’s own initial misgivings about the “Whopper Whopper” jingle used in the campaign (he was underwhelmed by the lyrics and asked the marketing team to rethink it), the song went viral and spawned memes across Twitter and Tiktok. The company officially released the song in response to the popularity, and it has nearly 3.3 million streams on Spotify as of Friday.

“We’re selling more Whoppers than we ever have. It’s had a really positive impact that we didn’t pay for or…