Case Study: CKE Restaurants (Carl's Jr. & Hardee's) achieves streamlined contact center operations and six-figure cost savings with Service Management Group (SMG)

How CKE reimagined its contact center to streamline operations + improve the customer experience

CKE, parent company of Carl’s Jr.® and Hardee’s®, faced an inefficient and costly contact management system that relied on a third‑party call center and a confusing catalog of 225 contact types. To address poor insight generation and high operating costs, CKE partnered with Service Management Group (SMG) to reimagine its contact center and customer feedback approach using SMG’s digital feedback tools and the smg360 platform.

Service Management Group (SMG) implemented an always‑on digital feedback form, consolidated contact types from 225 to 15, centralized feedback and case management in smg360, and automated issue routing. The changes eliminated the external call center (delivering six‑figure annual savings), automated more than 80% of inquiries, cut average daily call volume by 65%, increased actionable feedback to franchisees by 400%, and freed a full‑time employee for other work.

CKE

Ryan Hanawalt

VP, Strategy + Transformation