Franchise News

Leading Pizza Brand Continues to Prioritize Customer Experience as it Surpasses $1B in Annual Systemwide Sales

Marco's Pizza, the nation's fastest-growing pizza brand*, has earned a top spot on Newsweek's list of America's Best Customer Service in 2023. This prestigious award is presented by Newsweek and Statista Inc., the world-leading statistics portal and industry ranking provider.

Ranking ahead of its national competitors in the pizza industry, Marco's flexes its commitment to the importance of exceptional customer service by prioritizing a People-First approach to business and a promise of Hospitality Always - designed to ensure a superior guest experience, every time. The leading pizza brand has always leaned on its high-quality ingredients as competitive advantage – this ranking brings to light an equally important focus for the brand: customer experience.

"We are striving to be the pizza brand that connects with customers at the human level," said Steve Seyferth, EVP and Chief Experience Officer at Marco's Pizza. "Being awarded a spot on this prestigious ranking validates that we are on the right track in doing so. We've grown from humble beginnings as a small, regional concept to a nationally recognized brand, and as we continue to expand our footprint, we will never lose sight of those customers and neighborhoods that have made Marco's their pizza of choice."

News of this ranking comes on the heels of Marco's announcing the launch of the Marco's Pizza Foundation as an extension of its mission to empower franchisees and team members to make a positive difference in their communities. The new effort marks a deeper commitment to unification across Marco's as it brings the brand, franchisees, and the communities it serves closer together under one common cause. The Foundation will support four key pillars: School & Education, Hunger Prevention & Nutrition, Workforce Development, and Entrepreneurship.

Marco's closely monitors its customer service metrics as it aims to make continuous improvements. As a result, customers have taken note, as one survey respondent stated, "Marcos is a supporter of the community and their pizza has quality ingredients. Marco's is fast and reliable. The deals consistently offered can't be beat. Thank you!"

As a brand that strives to exceed guests' expectations every day with a People-First approach to business, Marco's is investing millions of dollars in technology innovations through the next few years as it grows to become the fourth largest brand in pizza. The brand is exploring technologies that create better customer and employee experiences while helping to improve store-level profitability at the same time.

For example, Marco's recently announced the investment of millions of dollars in technology innovations over the next few years designed to create business efficiencies, maximize order growth, and improve the customer experience. Areas of investment include testing AI-enabled voice-to-text ordering and automated promise times, integration with third-party delivery services, migrating to a 100% cloud-based order management system, plus testing new operational equipment.

With strong growth and performance, Marco's experienced a 12.8% increase in year-over-year Average Unit Volume (AUV), and the Top 50% of Marco's franchised stores generated $1,198,201 AUV for 2021**.

For more information on Marco's Pizza franchise opportunities, visit https://www.marcos.com/franchising/ or call 866-731-8209 to speak with Shannon Iverson, Vice President of Franchise Sales.

ABOUT NEWSWEEK'S AMERICA'S BEST CUSTOMER SERVICE LIST METHODOLOGY
America's Best Customer Service brands were selected based on an independent survey from a vast sample of more than 25,000 U.S. customers who have either made purchases, used services, or gathered information about products or services in the past three years. Customers were asked whether they would recommend brands to friends or family as well as assess brands in the following areas: quality of communication, professional competence, range of services, customer focus, and accessibility. A total of 160,000 customer evaluations were collected. The results provided information about brick & mortar, online retailers, and service providers from 161 categories.

ABOUT MARCO'S PIZZA
Marco's Pizza is America's Most Loved and Most Trusted Pizza Brand, according to the 2019 Harris Poll EquiTrend® Study. Headquartered in Toledo, Ohio, Marco's Pizza is the fastest-growing pizza brand in the United States*. Marco's was founded in 1978 by Italian-born Pasquale ("Pat") Giammarco and thrives to deliver a high-quality pizza experience, known for its dough made from scratch and its three fresh signature cheeses. The company has grown from its roots as a beloved Ohio brand to operate over 1,100 stores in 33 states with locations in Puerto Rico and the Bahamas. Most recently, Marco's Pizza was ranked No. 2 in the Pizza category on Entrepreneur Magazine's 2022 "Franchise 500" ranking, and No. 4 in the Fastest Growing category on Restaurant Business' 2021 "Top 10 Fastest Growing Chains" ranking. Other recent accolades include a high ranking on Newsweek's 2023 "America's Best Customer Service" in pizza chains list, ranked No. 40 on QSR's Top 50 and has been featured five consecutive years on Nation's Restaurant News' prestigious "Top 500" ranking.

*Marco's Pizza is the fastest-growing pizza brand based on year-over-year unit growth, according to 2021 NRN Top 500 U.S. Restaurant Ranking LSR Pizza Segment.

**Based on the Average Unit Volume of the top 50% of our Franchised Stores for fiscal year 2021. Based on fiscal year 2021, 146 of 389 Franchised Stores in the category (38%) met or exceeded this average. This information appears in Item 19 of our 2022 FDD – please refer to our FDD for complete information on financial performance. Results may differ. There is no assurance that any franchisee will perform as well.