A closer look at the RestaurantChains.net research process

In 1996, we launched our company by developing a new approach to research. We knew that while most B2B services did a pretty good job of identifying the obvious, well-known companies, there were many sales opportunities that simply weren’t making it into their listings.

So we decided to look in places that our competitors were overlooking. We kicked off our research process using a combination of proprietary software and old-fashioned hard work, evaluating a weekly stream of restaurant information from more than 600 sources. It took some doing, but we learned how to laboriously comb through countless new business filings, legal filings, license filings, classified advertising listings, periodicals and Internet sites in search of restaurant-related data that nobody else was publishing.

But we didn’t stop there. We made follow-up calls to every single listed company in order to confirm and verify the information we’d found. We then began publishing this meticulously-collected and personally-verified data as a weekly report for a group of subscribers that grew rapidly over the years. In addition to new concepts, we included information about the constantly-changing names, addresses and phone numbers in the high-turnover restaurant industry. This service, called Research Report for FoodService, was our first publication – and it remains a valued source of sales leads for many of our customers. See the page Our History.

In 2004, we leveraged this research process – and all the information we’d gathered over the years -- to create a new directory called RestaurantChains.net, which covers multi-unit and multi-concept chains only. Instead of being published in report form, the information in RestaurantChains.net resides in a constantly updated database, which means that our subscribers can access current, accurate information. If, for example, a new CEO takes over at a chain, or if a company adds new units or new concepts, our customers can get this information as soon as we uncover it.

The key to this process is the personal and professional skills of our researchers, each of whom has a minimum of four years experience with our company. Each researcher makes hundreds of telephone calls each week, tactfully but professionally probing for information. As a result, 60-100 new multi-unit operators are added to our database each week. Equally important is the fact that our research team keeps currently published listings fresh by calling and re-verifying every current record at least three times per year. Over time, we’ve found that it takes this kind of persistence to keep our data accurate, up-to-date, and actionable. You can’t sit back and let the data come to you; you have to use proactive, outbound research techniques.

That’s what RestaurantChains.net is all about, and that’s why we believe our directory is in a class by itself.

Questions? Call 914 591-4297