Flipping Customer Experience: How Mel Howell Transformed Culture at BurgerFuel
Mel Howell has done something remarkable. She’s led the biggest Customer Experience Deck and Emotional Culture Deck hybrid project in the world—bringing together two powerful tools in a way no one else has before.
In 2020, she designed and rolled out a customer and employee experience programme across 50+ BurgerFuel stores in New Zealand, helping franchise teams create their own unique in-store culture. The results? A massive shift in engagement, customer experience, and team morale.
Key Highlights from Mel’s Journey:
- Reimagining Customer Experience Post-COVID – Recognising the need for a stronger emotional connection with customers, Mel designed a new experience-focused programme for BurgerFuel leadership.
- Innovative Three-Part Workshop – The training was structured around Self, Customer, and People, helping leaders first reflect on their own emotions before shaping how they interact with customers and employees.
- Empowering Store Leaders – Instead of a top-down approach, each of BurgerFuel’s 58 stores designed their own customer and employee experience, leading to massive buy-in from teams.
- Immediate Impact on Customer Experience – As the workshops rolled out, customer reviews and ratings immediately increased, proving that emotional engagement improves customer satisfaction.
- Embedding Culture into Daily Routines –
- Pre-shift meetings now include a simple but powerful question: “How do we want our customers to feel today?”
- Weekly shift manager meetings keep customer and team experience front and centre.
- Audits now incorporate customer experience, ensuring it remains a priority.
- Three Core Feelings for Customers – Across all stores, teams consistently identified the top three feelings they wanted customers to experience: Welcome, Important, Comfortable.
- Driving Employee Engagement – Recognising that engaged employees create great customer experiences, BurgerFuel launched new initiatives, including:
- Peer nominations to celebrate employees making a difference.
- The “Good Bastards” program, rewarding outstanding staff with a fun, all-expenses-paid Head Office experience.
- Sustained Change & Commitment – BurgerFuel didn’t just run a one-off programme; they committed to embedding emotional culture into their business long-term. They even created a new Head Office role dedicated to customer and employee experience.
Mel’s story is proof that thinking big and taking action can lead to something truly game-changing. Watch to see how she’s used The Emotional Culture Deck and CX Deck to redefine customer and employee experience at BurgerFuel.
