By Hassan Hesham
Seecoz has been one of Cairo's most successful Greek street food restaurants since it opened its doors 7 years ago. It started with a single branch in Sahel, and in no time, it expanded its operations to 5 branches spread across Cairo and seasonal branches in Sahel. This growth was primarily due to their strict policy of providing fresh food and outstanding customer service. Seecoz focuses on national expansion, especially to Alexandria.
Their goals continue; they are looking to expand to other countries as well, as they have an extensive customer base of ex-pats and tourists in Egypt that give them very positive feedback. Seecoz has been developing its menu by adding new items. It all started with 4 sandwiches and now they have over ten on the menu.
Seecoz faced the problem of not directly selling through their channel, leading to a big chunk of their revenues being cut in commissions to online marketplaces. Paying considerable amounts in commissions has made it difficult for them to make offers to their customers as the cost was extremely high due to the commissions.
Learn more about the pros and cons of working with online marketplaces.
All partners agreed on the importance of selling online directly through their own channels. That is when Seooz decided to partner with Zyda, and have their website with complete control of prices and operations. They were then able to offer their customers vouchers and coupons with discounts.
Problem
Seecoz began selling through third parties. At the time, it didn't have an online channel or a website to sell directly to the end customer. Seeoz's management noticed that these online marketplaces were limiting in some respects and decided to build their own online ordering platform.
- Seecoz saw direct online ordering as a way to escape the crippling commissions that had to be paid in return for visibility through the online marketplace's website.
- The company wanted to have a direct line to its customers' data to understand their behavior and needs better.
- Finally, Seecoz wanted a website that reflected its brand personality, with its logo and colors showing its own look and feel.
Solution
Seecoz considered many solutions to their problems. When Zyda approached them, they immediately saw the benefits and the solutions that would help fill the gaps and improve the process.
Zyda offered Seecoz a fully equipped online ordering platform, from menu display & selection to payment integration and marketing tools, including vouchers. In doing so, Zyda enabled the Greek restaurant to receive commission-free orders and have full control of its pricing and offers.
- "When we started selling directly through Zyda, we could freely add coupon codes and discounts and fully control it. We were also able to track the use of the codes and see what works best with our customers." Hazem Ismail, Chief Operations Officer of Seecoz
- One of the things Seecoz focuses on is having a smooth flow of orders and full control to monitor the operations. The orders tracking feature on Zyda’s dashboard helped them to keep track of the speed of every order.
- “This feature helped the management to keep an eye on the performance of the employees and the speed of our process.” Hazem Ismail
Zyda’s CRM and analytical tools were essential for Seecoz. They were able to keep track of every customer, knowing all their details and their history of orders from Seecoz. That helped them improve customer experience and proactively deal with unsatisfied customers.
Zyda's platform helped executives keep track of sales and ensure the business ran effectively. Any unusual changes would be detected and result in the management stepping in and ensuring all problems are fixed.
Learn more about how to make the most of Zyda’s Analytics dashboard
- To see their Zyda site in action, click on the image below
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Impact
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Seecoz started pushing towards its direct ordering to increase the adoption of its platform. And as customers became more comfortable with the new system, sales through the platform increased and continued to rise over time.
"Things have picked up, especially in branches that rely mainly on delivery. Direct ordering now represents over 15% of our revenues, and it is growing." Hazem Ismail
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Zyda has been up to the expectations of Seecoz with a great onboarding experience that helped everyone involved get comfortable with the new system.
"The process was super smooth; you sent a team to our branches to train our agents and operations managers on how to use the dashboard." Hazem Ismail
The support team at Zyda has been up to Seecoz's expectations, being available at all times to help with any requests or issues, especially when they first started using the dashboard and had some questions about it.
"Whenever we faced any issues at the beginning, your 24/07 live support was always there to help us." Hazem Ismail