Customer Satisfaction Soars!

“Approximately one-fifth (21 percent) of consumers today say that beverages play a very important role in deciding which restaurants to visit for meals. Consumer demand…will lead to even more innovation in terms of beverage type and flavor, and an increasing focus on health and natural ingredients will inspire drink development.”

Technomic, 9/10/2014

“What’s Hot Alcohol” 2013 Bartender Survey: #3 culinary cocktails with fresh ingredients

-National Restaurant Association

The Challenge:

Ocean Properties, one of the largest privately held hotel development and management companies in North America with over 100 hotels ranging from major brands to independent hotels and resorts, was looking for a way to enter into the fresh juice, craft cocktail arena to increase both cocktail revenue and customer satisfaction while leveraging the trend toward fresh and healthy alternatives. Specifically, the hotel restaurants and bars were in search of a new “fresh juice” cocktail beverage program that offered quality, consistency and speed and would simultaneously meet their customer’s high quality drink expectations and boost profits.

The Solution:

At 26 top tier resort locations, Ocean Properties worked with Freshbev to implement a new cocktail program using RIPE, the first 100% fresh, cold-pressed, HPP cocktail mixers. The juices come in a variety of flavors including Agave Margarita, Lemon Sour, Agave Mojito, Bloody Mary and Bajan Punch to satisfy multiple taste preferences. They make creating consistent, fresh juice, craft cocktails easy with a two-step process of 1.5 oz. spirits blended with 3.5 oz RIPE juice. Using RIPE allowed hotels to highlight the fresh, high-quality ingredients on their menus, something guests valued and appreciated.

Freshbev’s team of seasoned mixologists designed a menu consisting of 36 different cocktails. In addition to a core list of drinks included at every property, food and beverage managers were given flexibility to choose drinks from that menu best suited for their location and analyze which drinks were ordered most and replace the less popular drinks with others.

The Result:

As a result of implementing the RIPE Bar Juice program, Ocean Properties has been able to quickly serve consistent, fresh juice, craft cocktails in all locations and has seen a dramatic increase in their overall customer satisfaction. According to Scott Luper, NE Regional Director Food & Beverage, Ocean Properties the program is “hugely successful” and “quality and consistency inevitably drives sales.” He says, “It’s not often you get customers telling you how great your drinks are; I’ve never had so many compliments on drinks.” According to Steve Updike, VP Food & Beverage at Ocean Properties, “sales have increased 15 percent.” Ocean Properties is now revamping their back bars to accommodate a larger range of RIPE products and is expanding the program to additional properties.