Overcoming outdated perceptions
with groundbreaking design
Whitbread’s Premier Inn needed an overhaul to deliver an improved Food and Beverage offering. They needed to modernise the guest experience, increase food and beverage purchase and optimise labour efficiency. Big asks! Bold changes in trial locations followed. We needed to unlock invaluable insights, understanding precisely what worked and what didn’t to deliver a scalable strategy with significant commercial outcomes.
Iterative immersion
Our two-phased approach, blending intercept interviews, observations and guest interviews was key to success; we immersed ourselves, staying overnight and experiencing the redesigned spaces first-hand – providing a deep understanding of spontaneous reactions, emotional responses and behavioural impacts. Behind the scenes, extensive stakeholder management was paving the way for landing hard-to-hear messages, and triangulation with large scale quant data. Crucially, we needed a pivot from viewing qual as ‘nice to have anecdotes’ to powerful evidence worth its weight in gold in the boardroom.
Impact beyond the commercials
Practical recommendations fed directly into Whitbread’s commercial and strategic programme: our insights were the foundations of a future-proof strategy. Spend per sleeper targets were exceeded, weekly F&B sales soared, guest satisfaction increased – and the internal mindset shifted: the value of qual was seen for the first time. The Kokoro/Whitbread partnership continues to thrive – and our work continues to be entered and shortlisted for business impact awards (watch this space)
“The research Jess and the team delivered on our new public area proposition was superb. They blended qualitative research with quantitative results to create a seamless, compelling and joined up piece of insight. This helped us build a rock-solid business case for which aspects of the space to further invest in, to refine the proposition and map on to other trial sites in the pipeline. This was invaluable for helping us make some otherwise polarising decisions and contributed to the large returns we’re seeing. A great piece of work.”
Sarah Simpson, Head of Product (Premier Inn)
“This piece of insight was instrumental in understanding what aspects of our new ground floor proposition should be taken forward for further trial sites in our estate. The team uncovered several quick wins which have since been implemented and are driving the success in guest scores and F&B revenue. The work also gave the business confidence in qual when combined with our post-stay survey for optimum impact. Thank you to our Insight team and Kokoro.”
Tamara Strauss, Global Customer Director (Premier Inn)
