The Brief
Wahaca’s management team came to us with a problem: their customers weren’t experiencing the best version of Wahaca. They suspected it was down to the menu, which had become over-complicated and difficult to navigate. As a result, diners were defaulting to burritos and main meals instead of digging in to their colourful selection of small sharing plates, and weren’t ordering the best drinks. Some weren’t even making it through the door, because the outside menu wasn’t doing enough to draw them in.
Our Approach
First up: find out what’s really going on. We recommended customer research to discover which aspects of the current menu diners were struggling with. We pulled together the findings from Wahaca’s customer intercepts – customers loved the table-mat menu format, for example, but were confused by the layout, messaging and over-long dish descriptions – with the insights from the sales figures, staff feedback and customer voice research. This gave us a full picture of where the menu was performing, and where it wasn’t. We took this and drafted three menu concepts that would help customers order better, enjoy Wahaca more and boost spend per head.
What We Delivered
We drafted three customer experience-led concepts for the new menus that resolved the issues identified in the research, and presented sketches (like the one above left) and analysis to the team. Once the Wahaca team had decided on their chosen direction, the menus were created by their design agency, Without Studio. We then stepped back in after the design stage to fine-tune the layout and optimise all the headers, dish descriptions and signposting across the drinks, dessert, outdoor and main menus. The menus landed in summer 2018 and Wahaca recorded their highest month-on-month sales since the company’s launch in 2007.
Mark Selby
Wahaca
Anna and Annica delivered exactly what we had asked for. They weren’t afraid to challenge but reacted to our feedback in a very positive way. A real pleasure to work with.
