La Madeleine Grows Takeout Biz by Six Percent. But That's Not All.

La Madeleine, a Dallas-based 60 unit French country cafe, named Exit41 as "Vendor of the Year" at its 2010 Leadership Conference on September 28th in Las Vegas. Exit41 partners with la Madeleine to grow the restaurant's To-go business with its "all channel" ordering solution which includes integrated online, mobile, phone-in and Facebook applications. Exit41 also provides centralized phone-in ordering services for la Madeleine at its Andover, Mass.-based call center, staffed with ordering specialists who seamlessly extend in-store operations and represent the la Madeleine brand.

"Exit41 was the clear choice for our Vendor of the Year. Each day, Exit41 interacts directly with our most valuable asset -- our loyal guest base, they help us increase revenue and they enable us to be part of the growing social web," says Phil Costner, chief operating officer, la Madeleine. "What more could a restaurant want in a partner?"

La Madeleine first began working with Exit41 in November 2009 as part of a multi-phase strategic growth initiative to increase overall same store sales, optimize in-store operations and provide a superior level of service to their guests. In Phase I, la Madeleine implemented online and call center services from Exit41. Phase II includes the rollout of la Madeleine's iPhone application, now available on Apple's iTunes App Store, and a soon-to-be implemented Facebook ordering application. Phase III is planned to include an iPad mobile kiosk. The initiative has garnered the following results to date:

• Overall To-go sales have increased 6 percent
• After taking hundreds of thousands of online and Call Center orders, average checks are 50-60 percent higher than the in-store company average To-go check
• In the initial pilot test, online and call center orders represented 11 percent of To-go business and in less than one year it has grown to 20 percent
• Positive feedback from guests on ordering ease, convenience and accuracy as well as la Madeleine's ability to instantly "recognize" the guest with identification and order history across channels

Exit41's applications are PA-DSS compliant, certified by the PCI Security Council. Additionally, guest data, order history, preferences, etc are consolidated across ordering channels into a single database -- key to building guest loyalty through targeted marketing and CRM.