How Hungry Howie’s Pizza Stores Gained 35% More Users
Image
Hungry Howie’s has over 500 pizza stores across the US. With millions of customers from California to Florida, the chain caters to different tastes, order preferences and special occasions with only one Drupal site.
Personalization technology, simple user journeys and robust website performance ensure an average of 1.1 million sessions per month. The Hungryhowies.com website's job is to get that pizza ordered as fast as possible. “Working with Hungry Howie’s, we realized that time spent on site was inversely correlated with conversion. More reading translated to less pizza sold,” remembered Kevin Wall, the CEO of KWALL, Hungry Howie’s digital agency and technical partner.
That finding propelled the website redesign on Pantheon, which resulted in 35% more users and a 33% gain in mobile traffic a year after the launch. Improved user experience, scalable web presence and geolocation underscore Hungryhowies.com success. KWALL summarized their goals in five key areas they called CAMPS:
- Conversion: reduce the user journey time to order a pizza
- Accessibility: reduce order complexity to make pizza accessible to all
- Mobile-first: make the site fast and available on the go
- Privacy: minimize loose ends and track only essential information
- Speed: decrease site load times and beef up uptime
Designing for Mobile First
Image
KWALL has been working with Hungry Howie’s for over a decade. Tweaking the website and marketing strategies for evolving consumer needs and modern technologies is an ongoing challenge. In 2017, KWALL noted that over 70% of the pizza chain’s web traffic was coming from mobile devices so responsive design and fast performance were critical.
Hungry Howie’s site at the time favored marketing-focused content with a long-scroll homepage that explained flavored crusts and other specials. So the KWALL team dove into simplifying user journeys and personalizing each state chain’s experience.
“Localization and personalized regional content are incredibly important as site abandonment on mobile is much higher than on desktop. Getting a Florida menu in front of a Florida customer and fast is what will guarantee a conversion, ” said Anita Melendez, COO at KWALL.
It’s also important for the food and beverage industry to meet Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. For example, if someone is color blind or using accessibility browser extensions, their user experience should be unambiguous and convenient, whether they are on the go or in a meeting.
RESULT: After the redesign, Hungry Howie’s mobile traffic went up by 33%.
Geolocation for the Win
Hungry Howie’s new ordering experience is a piece of cake (or pizza!). If a user shares their location or creates an account, it will take only a few steps from selecting pepperoni to paying.
“Pantheon’s Edge personalization system is working pretty well for us,” shared Wall. “It allows us to sort through different states, regions and areas and find the nearest location to the person’s home or office. The second they land on the homepage, we’ll have their location and relevant menu and prices available.”
Before Pantheon, Hungry Howie’s used MaxMind geolocation software. One of the main pain points was the orders coming in from corporate networks. The software would detect the corporation address, but the actual office address could have been anywhere. Users had to manually adjust their location, which defeated the purpose of geolocation in the first place.
Result: With Pantheon’s Edge Integrations, geolocation errors are no longer an issue thanks to Global CDN enabling personalization options.
In personalization, maintaining privacy controls is important to keep users’ trust. KWALL stays on top of global cookie compliance requirements and other privacy policies. For example, Hungry Howie’s doesn’t have European stores, but they have European traffic, which means they have to tick off GDPR requirements for handling personal data.
Super Scaling for the Super Bowl
In the food and beverage industry, the ability to scale based on demand is key to success. When you are selling pizza, traffic spikes happen regularly: from lunchtime to dinner. Planning for a regular influx of hungry clicks is common, but scaling takes on a new dimension when it comes to national or global events.
The main reason we chose Pantheon was the platform’s ability to load the website quickly. Times are relative to sales. If our sites are loading slowly, people will abandon their orders and go elsewhere. On Pantheon, we achieved a 50% decrease in page load times.”
- Kevin Wall, CEO of KWALL
The real test of the platform’s strength happens during Super Bowl and Halloween. During the recent game in Nevada, the sessions doubled from the usual 25,000 per day. Pantheon handled the load and played its part in having everyone’s pizza delivered.
Before Hungry Howie’s switched to Pantheon, it was not always prime time during the big rush. Running a Super Bowl ad once brought the whole site down, remembered Wall. “We’d hit these virtual systems maximums, which would take the whole site down. We’d lose hundreds of thousands of dollars in sales," said Wall.
We’ve tried many different providers. When you hit scale, no one’s around. You file a ticket and never hear from anyone. This has never happened on Pantheon.”
- Kevin Wall, CEO of KWALL
Result: On Pantheon, Hungry Howie’s registered a 23% increase in average server response time and a 50% decrease in page load times.
More Case Studies
Helpful resources to help your team succeed
Japanese American National Museum
Learn how Urban Insight develops advanced features for the Japanese American National Museum with Pantheon’s tools.
A Decade of Drupal at the University of San Francisco
Learn how Pantheon’s Multidev helps the University of San Francisco keep Drupal up to date.
Macomb County Modernizes Digital Services with Successful Redesign
Learn how Macomb County, MI enhanced user experience and accessibility through strategic collaboration and technological innovation on Pantheon with TEN7.