There’s a Pavlovian thrill to walking up and ordering at Chipotle—picking out ingredients as you desire and getting swept down the line as your food is prepared fast and fresh. Our app needed to mirror this unique experience.

Launch the app and you’re in the restaurant, at the front of the line. With only 24 ingredients, our menu is simple. So our app had to be simple. Customers navigate key sections of the app—order, account and bag—by swiping up, right and left. This creates a sense of space and makes the app fast and intuitive to navigate.

We used native paradigms where it benefitted the user, like customizing meals. Swiping right for extra cheese is as simple as asking over the glass. And we challenged conventions in pursuit of simplicity. Ultimately, we created a one-of-a-kind mobile ordering experience by listening to users, pushing conventions, and keeping it Chipotle.

The apps were designed and engineered using an integrated Lean UX / Agile development approach that allowed for frequent testing sessions with real Chipotle fans. This resulted in constant improvements over a 7 month period leading to an MVP launch in November 2017 on both iOS and Android platforms. After launch we monitored app analytics, customer feedback in the app stores and social media, and conducted ongoing user testing to inform design and performance improvements through monthly releases. The apps were promoted mainly via in-store signage, a tout on chipotle.com, and two limited promotions of FREE chips & guac for new app installs (sorry if you missed those—mmmm...guacamole).

The reimagined Chipotle iOS and Android apps launched in the US in November 2017, and were featured in the media as well as the Apple App Store. After release, the apps surpassed business targets with mobile average daily users quadrupling and mobile sales increasing by 41%. Moreover, the success of mobile drove a 33% overall sales increase across all Chipotle’s digital channels. The customer response has been consistently positive with the new mobile app reaching an average of 4.5 stars in the Apple App Store. That’s a jump of more than 2 full stars over the prior version.

Chipotle went beyond just "building a better app". We reimagined the entire mobile experience with a focus on "better serving the mobile customer."

We conducted expansive user research, including in-restaurant discovery to define personas and map the mobile customer journey while ensuring the app worked as part of a larger digital ecosystem. The outcome of this exercise was an informed backlog of features and requirements. We built this app for serious Chipotle fans. It’s this passionate audience that’s most inclined toward repeat mobile ordering, and has the greatest potential to become app evangelists—or “appvangelists”, if you will.

While we built the app for serious fans, we always kept the Chipotle team members in mind. Any decision we make in the app impacts operations. So, we spent equal time with our team members, who receive and build digital orders, to maximize throughput and ultimately improve the customer experience.

Chipotle took an early lead in the digital space with web, mobile and watch apps that set the standard for fast casual restaurants. But, with the previous mobile app hovering around 2 stars, customers may as well have been sending old tyme fax orders instead. We recognized it was time for an update, or more accurately, rebuilding from the ground up.

We set out to deliver new iOS and Android mobile apps with a fresh look and faster ordering flow to improve the experience for customers on the go. The apps needed to put the food out front to beautifully feature our real ingredients. They also needed to reduce ordering friction while boosting order frequency, average order revenue, and app usage.