Points mean prizes for Pizza Hut staff

01 January 2000
Points mean prizes for Pizza Hut staff

By Angela Jameson

Pizza Hut UK is to invest £700,000 before the end of the year in a staff incentive programme in a bid to boost sales.

The company has set a target of growing profits by at least 20% a year. President and chief executive of Pizza Hut UK Jon Prinsell said giving staff added incentives was the best way of ensuring high levels of customer care and repeat business.

Called Champs, the incentive programme rewards restaurants that achieve sales targets and satisfy a monthly visit from a mystery customer. Points are awarded to all staff at a successful restaurant and can be exchanged for a range of prizes, from compact discs to televisions. A further £1m is to be invested in the scheme next year.

"Now all employees care about customer satisfaction and everyone is looking very closely to see how they are performing," Mr Prinsell said.

Pizza Hut currently has 349 restaurants and employs 11,200 staff. The group planned to grow to 500 outlets by 2000, with up to 30 outlets due to open in 1997, Mr Prinsell revealed.

Expansion will occur on high streets and in retail and leisure parks. More home-delivery units will also open outside London and the number of licensed units, with partners such as Texaco and Compass, will also grow.

"In the UK we eat about a quarter of the pizza that is eaten in Canada, Australia and the USA. The trend here is towards greater pizza consumption and we believe it is a strong growth market for the next 10 years," Mr Prinsell said.

"If we can continue to grow like-for-like sales by 9% to 10% and to grow organically by 10%, I think our targets are achievable," he added.

Mr Prinsell said sales had been growing significantly over the past year, thanks to the advent of the stuffed crust pizza. This pizza has been advertised widely on television, by stars such as Cindy Crawford and Damon Hill, since its launch in September 1995.

The company remains tight-lipped about the bottom-line impact of the product, but sources within the company suggested to Caterer it now accounted for 14% of total sales. Pan Pizza is still Pizza Hut's best-selling product.

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