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The hefty investment makes Benchmark Intelligence one of the few venture-backed startups in Fresno, according to CEO Eric Santos. The fact the funding came from local investors makes it even more unique and special for Santos, who said he is proud to be part Fresno’s growing technology sector.

San Joaquin Capital was founded earlier this year by Fresno-based technology entrepreneur Tim Goetz, local orthopedic surgeon Eric Hanson and local businessman Randel Mathias. The venture capital firm successfully closed its first round of funding in February.

Benchmark Intelligence software aids restaurant and retail chain owners in understanding why certain locations perform better than others. The Benchmark Intelligence dashboard stores and analyzes data from customer feedback via surveys and social media reviews as well as data from field manager notes to determine the performance of each location and the factors contributing to its success or lack thereof.

Benchmark Intelligence collects data from three main sources — voice-of-the-customer SMS text messaging surveys, social media reviews and field study audits.

Santos said the text messaging survey system is a huge improvement over traditional surveys that require customers to call a number and take 20 minutes out of their day to answer questions, or that require customers to fill out a comment card. According to Benchmark Intelligence research, a business only hears from 4 percent of its dissatisfied customers through these old-fashioned methods. Santos said the text message system is fast so customers are more inclined to give their feedback.

“Our program lets customers give their feedback in 10 seconds when they send a text message,” Santos said. “Each location is assigned a different number where customers can text feedback, and all the feedback is stored on a dashboard the executives of the restaurant can use to analyze. We use the IBM Watson supercomputer to analyze the messages for any trends.”

Benchmark Intelligence measures social media activity in a similar way, searching sites such as Google Place, Yelp and Foursquare and analyzing reviews and comments made about different chain locations.

In addition to analyzing customer feedback, Benchmark Intelligence also streamlines the field study auditing process. Traditionally, field managers from the corporate headquarters will visit a site equipped with a checklist to fill out with pen and paper. Down the road, the information on the checklist may be lost if its not transferred into digital form quickly. Benchmark Intelligence has a field-auditing builder that field managers can use to fill out their checklists digitally, using a mobile device or tablet, that way nothing is lost. The auditing reports are stored on the dashboard along with customer feedback so all the information about the performance of a specific site is available at the executives’ fingertips.

Benchmark Intelligence has been operational for a year and a half and already serves a dozen customers, most notably Deli Delicious and Me-n-Ed’s. Two startup accelerators spurred the company’s growth — Boomtown in Boulder, Colorado, and The Brandery in Cincinnati, Ohio. Benchmark Intelligence received some funding through these accelerators but the $500,000 seed funding investment is a substantial boost for the company.

“Now we have fuel to add to the fire and we’ll be able to pay ourselves a salary and hire new employees,” Santos said.

Benchmark Intelligence currently has six employees, three of whom are co-founders, and one new employee will be hired later this month.  Eventually, Santos plans to expand Benchmark Intelligence nationally and internationally.

“We plan to have a big impact on Fresno and eventually a big impact nationally and globally,” Santos said.