Alexandre Macedo
Analyst · Piper Jaffray
Thanks, Daniel. Q3 marks the fourth consecutive quarter we've achieved positive same-store sales growth in North America and the best quarter of comp sales growth since Q2 of 2012. We've had our new marketing and promotional strategy to launch fewer, more impactful products in place for over 1 year now and have worked hard to fine-tune our execution to deliver consistent growth.
While it's been great to see sales results grow consistently, what is even more telling of the success of this strategy is the improved margins our franchisees are seeing. Our initiatives have helped to reduce waste in our kitchens, simplify crew training and improve overall restaurant operations. Though there's still plenty of room to improve, we believe we have the right strategy in place to consistently enhance our guests' experience and improve our franchisees' profitability.
During Q3, we were excited to launch 4 new entrées to the menu. On the premium side, we introduced the Mushroom and Swiss Bacon WHOPPER sandwich. With thick-cut bacon and sauteed mushrooms, this product represents a fresh new twist on America's favorite burger, the WHOPPER. Another addition to the premium sandwich lineup was the A1 Ultimate Bacon Cheeseburger. With its hearty A1 sauce coupled with a warm toasted artisan bun, guests were able to enjoy this bold new taste. And as a part of the 2 for $5 lineup, we introduced the Mushroom and Swiss BIG KING, which helped drive traffic without adding additional complexity to our kitchens.
Finally, as Daniel already mentioned, we also relaunched Chicken Fries in Q3. Chicken Fries were originally introduced in our restaurants back in 2005. But in 2012, we took them out of the restaurants to make way for other chicken products. Earlier this year, our digital marketing team started doing some social listening and found out that our guests were mentioning Chicken Fries all the time on the Internet. To be exact, there was 1 social mention to bring back Chicken Fries every 40 seconds in January of this year. So we gave guests exactly what they wanted. We brought back Chicken Fries.
The relaunch strategy was centered on an almost exclusively digital and social media campaign. Given that it was actually social media that spurred the return of Chicken Fries, it was only fitting that we used these channels to announce the comeback. So we took to Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and other popular online channels in August. Within the first 24 hours, the #chickenfriesareback hash tag had been twitted more than any of our previous multi-week digital and social media campaigns combined. That includes SATISFRIES and the NCAA March Madness campaigns, which were both very successful campaigns in their own right. Within the first 10 days of the campaign, Chicken Fries had been mentioned over 1 million times on Twitter. The Chicken Fries campaign represents yet another successful step in our strategy to leverage digital and social channels to reach our guests in innovative ways.
Our consistency strategy of impactful product innovation complemented by value was effective in Q3 and continues to be successful in Q4. We are pleased to see our Q3 comp sales momentum continue into October, and we look forward to further updating you on our next earnings call.
Turning now to Slide 10. The reimaging component of our Four Pillars strategy continues to be a focus area as it is a proven avenue for growing the top line of our restaurants. Our team continues to work hard on expediting construction and finalizing our remodel pipeline for the remainder of the year. And we expect to hit our stated target of 40% of the U.S. system on the modern image by the end of 2015, well ahead of schedule. We plan to update you with specific numbers at year end, but we are pleased with this great progress.
Moving to operations on Slide 11. The Restaurant Excellence Visit program or REV program, which we launched at the beginning of the year, continues to be an important focus area as we pursue best-in-class operations. Our REV program is designed to complement our coaches initiative. Our coaches continue to work with restaurant teams and managers to share best practices, while restaurant auditing is performed by outside specialists. This structure allows our coaches to focus their efforts entirely on supporting restaurant teams and managers, which we believe is the right strategy to improve consistency in system-wide operations.
Auditors, on the other hand, can provide an objective and analytical assessment of ops performance so that we can benchmark across the system. With this refined field structure in place, we have gained positive traction throughout the course of the year and are seeing tangible results. Overall guest satisfaction scores have improved by 6%, and speed of service has improved by 8%.
While there's still much room to improve, we believe we have the right strategy in place to bring our restaurants to best-in-class operations.
Now I'll turn it back to Daniel, who will give you an update on our international development.