SUMMARY KEYWORDS
brand, kiosk, consumer, guest, customer, restaurant, people, cdp, love, order, bit, elevate, technology, experience, spend, platform, easy, personalization, data, tools
SPEAKERS
Hope (68%), Jeremy (31%), Intro (1%)
I
Intro
0:02
This is the restaurant technology guys podcast, helping you run your restaurant better.
JJ
Jeremy Julian
0:13
Welcome back to the restaurant technology guys podcast. Thank you, everyone out there for joining us. As I say, every time I know you guys have got lots of choices on how you spend your time and energy, so we appreciate you guys spending time with us. Today we are joined by a very special guest. As has been a customer in the last couple of years. I’ve got really cool technology partners, and today is no exception. So today we are joined by the CMO of tipster. Her name is Hope, why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself? Then we can talk a little bit about what Telstra does and how you guys solve industry problems out there.
HN
Hope Neiman
0:47
Cool. Yes, I am hoping Iman, and I’ve spent the vast majority of my career in consumer based technologies, doing a lot of startups start overs, but especially around traditional e commerce. And the reason I came to Telstra in the first place was that it recognition that the restaurant space was kind of devoid of this when I joined, and a real opportunity to help transform what things were bringing best practices from ecommerce, but also trying to create new experiences that really were focused on the restaurant industry.
JJ
Jeremy Julian
1:18
I love it. I’ve never heard the phrase start overs, can you define what that is for our audience real quick, before
HN
Hope Neiman
1:26
I start over is a company that’s reinventing itself. And actually, Telstra is a great example of that. In fact, I didn’t even want to come talk to the company when I started. And it’s sort of ironic, it had been a kiosk business. And there was a recognition by the board and the CEO, that things were changing. And that technologies would be used in other ways than kiosks. And I thought I don’t want to come talk to a kiosk company. But the recruiter said, Go spend a half hour have a coffee. And we did a two and a half hour whiteboarding session for what we wanted this business to be what we thought technology could bring. And the irony of it all is that kiosks have made this roaring comeback. They’ve always been popular in Europe, where we’ve operated. But here in the US, we’re seeing just a huge transformation in the in restaurant experience with technology.
JJ
Jeremy Julian
2:19
Yeah, and I know we’ll get into that conversation as we go on. But for those that are unfamiliar with toaster and or any of its other pre start over iterations, tell me a little bit about tell stir, who are they who did they grow, you know, where did they grow out of, and then we can talk a little bit about what you guys do to solve and kind of where the business is going?
HN
Hope Neiman
2:38
Sure, the company started about 15 years ago, as I said before, primarily as a kiosk company. But the vision always was to bring components to the restaurant industry that use technology. So it’s both on the consumer side, one of the things I think we do differently is a recognition of how to best use consumer technologies and data in particular, but also an acknowledgement about the back office tooling. So being able to use make things simple, especially in these days where it’s so hard to get new employees when they come, they don’t have a lot of startup time. So those same tools need to work in the back office. And the things that we do are everything from online ordering, kiosks, web ordering, as well as the engagement tools to measure and make sure that your guests are doing well. Things like email, push notification, couponing and loyalty programs.
JJ
Jeremy Julian
3:34
Yeah, it’s, it’s been a fun journey. As many of our listeners know, I’ve been in the space for my entire adult life. And so watching where Telstra was before, and kind of how they started, really, which to me, I always knew tilter as you walk up to a kiosk, and it’s interesting, because they pivoted, and then I don’t say I’ve had to pivot back, but they had the tech there. So talk to me talk to me kind of about that journey, and where it where it started, you know, you kind of throw it out there. But, you know, I knew them as kiosks and and, you know, it was they were successful. Overall, they were successful, but they’ve had to pivot. They’ve had to they’ve had to migrate. So, you know, as well, as you understand it, why don’t you talk me through that journey, because I think there’s a lot of different iterations. And a lot of people that engage with the platform that may not even know the platform exists behind the scenes there. And so I’d love to just kind of dig, dig a little bit deeper for our audience that that again, maybe knew them only as a chaos company, and they’re like, we’re not dealing with any of that stuff. Or, you know, we don’t want to we don’t want that, you know, chaos is not part of our brand, persona. At least it wasn’t until they couldn’t get team members to your point. And then, you know, but you guys have continued continued to iterate over the last number of years.
HN
Hope Neiman
4:45
So it’s interesting, because I think in some ways we were ahead of our time. So at the time that chaos started, we had a customer who came to us we were already making plans for how do we deal with mobile and why and other kinds of components. And Burger King who for whom we had done kiosks in airports and other places, came to us with two exercises. One was they were reentering the French market and wanted us to build that kiosk for them. And oh, by the way, eight weeks time, which we pulled off. And the second was they felt, and they were very early, they pulled back and came in later, they wanted to create a loyalty program and a web app. And so we built that for them to be able to experiment and do it. And it was highly successful. But there were a lot of reasons why they felt the market was a little early for that, as well. But I think the reason that we were a little ahead of our time, is because we were already seeing the grouping of data of tools like CRM, to be able to pull people back not just, you know, here’s a web application. And a lot of companies started where the CEO said, Oh, we have to have online ordering. And I think we saw it as a bigger vision. What’s been really nice, especially over the last two to three years, is that companies that started in this space are saying, Okay, it’s time for the next generation, how do we take these tools and really make them work for us, it’s not enough to just have online ordering, you have to validate and it has to work in a restaurant outside a restaurant. And as I said before, even in the back office tools. And so our evolution had been starting with a platform. And that platform can be fully integrated across us. But it also has building blocks, so that if a brand has another loyalty program that they want to attach, or something else, we can plug those pieces in to what we’re doing, as well. And we work across multiple platforms. So we’ve talked about chaos. But when you think about Asia, or Latin America call centers very important. So we have a call center component that can plug in. So all that data can be used across the customer as well.
JJ
Jeremy Julian
7:17
I love it. I love it. And I know that our longtime listeners will have heard this from me and from some of our other guests is is, is the consumers, you know, there’s there’s been this consumerization of engagement in a restaurant brand, and a food service brand. You know, I probably accelerated by the advent of Amazon and Apple. And you know, everybody’s got an ordering device in their pocket. 15 years ago, not everybody had, you know, it was probably a 50% adoption of a phone in your pocket, if it was even that and it wasn’t an ordering device at that time. So the fact that you guys started there started to understand where consumers were at. But I love the vision and I kind of where you guys are going with the idea that consumers are going to want to order wherever they are based on their own ordering preferences. Sometimes it may be a kiosk, you’re talking about an airport, you need to get in and out quickly. I guess the platform is great. Talk to me a little bit about just kind of the consumerization of IT in the restaurant space, because really you guys have taken, you know, what is a consumer facing device started kiosks, turned into mobile turned into web turned in all of these different ways, and said, How do I understand what the guest wants, and then be able to translate that to the restaurant that’s going to prepare the food and deliver it to them in some way, whether it’s sending them in a bag over the counter, or it’s or it’s getting it delivered in a third party area, or whatever those things are. So can you talk to me a little bit about how did you guys how did you guys continue to iterate? Because it’s such an interesting concept. Because you guys, I don’t say have solved to your point your guys are so far ahead of the times. And you know, had not been for COVID I wonder how what would this acceleration that continue to happen? Because there’s been very few brands that have really adopted the full spectrum of understanding that. And so I’d love to get some learnings from you guys. How did you guys how did you guys iterate and understand what consumers were doing? And then using the data to solve those problems.
HN
Hope Neiman
9:07
It’s really a multiple legs of a stool. So the first part is really the fact that it was taking traditional ecommerce and much like you said about what people like Amazon were doing. But I would argue it’s any sort of digital experience as consumers themselves have gotten more digitized. More used to personalization, Uber Netflix. Yep. I mean, all of these platforms. I’m fond of telling our customers that your competition is no longer just the restaurant down the street. It is the experience that they’re seeing on anything that they touch, that’s digital, and their expectation is changing. Which brings up the second point. I’m a believer in the fact and I really instill this across the team and they all are advocates as well. We cannot drink our own Kool Aid. So it’s one thing for us to believe thing is, it’s another to go out and find out. So this year that we just got the results back. But we’ve spent the last five years going out at least once during the year to talk to consumers using traditional, very powerful research companies, and doing this in a joint way, so that we can understand both what they did, which is a little bit of a nuance, because we see what they do, but that what they think they did is one thing. The second part of it is what do they expect to do going forward? And both in COVID times, but also now coming out of COVID? The results are really remarkable. And it’s not just us seeing it, McKinsey did a study on personalization, Salesforce did one on the connected consumer. And they’re all speaking very much the same language, which is, number one, consumers are expecting personalization. In the McKinsey study, 75% of the people said during COVID, they used a new digital experience. What was interesting about that, however, if you take it one step further, is 71% said they expect personalization. And maybe scariest of all, is that 76% said they are disappointed if they don’t get it. So the fact that we were seeing the shift that consumers were telling us, we were seeing it in the impact of what we were able to do, especially by using things like a consumer data platform and segmenting off customers, and targeting people in a very different way, has really led us to an evolution across our tool sets. And I don’t want to lose the fact that how easy those tools are on the back office help us a lot of impact, not just in how you’re training people. But I’ll give you a great example. Early on for a lot of brands that use very standard tool sets, they might have the shake machine go down in a place that sells shakes. So you order it, you expect to go pick it up or it’s been delivered. And now we’re trying to figure out how do we go ahead and give you a refund, we don’t have it, your expectations are really off having tools that make it really easy to turn things on and off, to train and to allow someone different rules based systems so that the clerk can turn something off temporarily. And oh, by the way, having tools that the next morning, somebody might turn it back on, because they don’t realize it was turned off. And so alerting them and doing that are all part of what I think has set us apart. And something that has been a very powerful impact on how our tools actually work. And what we continue to look towards. Last thing I’m going to mention as part of this as well, is, excuse me, at RLC. One of the things I talked a lot about, but I’ve been talking about it without necessarily using the terminology is really the state of all things phygital. And what that means is it’s a combination of the physical and the digital world. And that’s much more than just having a multichannel commerce solution. So people think it’s enough to say, Great, we’re going to allow somebody to order in the restaurant, and we’re going to allow them to talk to order on their phone, and we’re going to let them order on the web or a call center. consumers increasingly want experiences that and you said part of this are agnostic between platforms, but carry their information across those platforms. So if I go to a kiosk, and you’ve sent me coupons, do I have a way to be able to use those coupons on the kiosk? Because if you don’t, you may never use the kiosk because you’re missing out on an opportunity, or using something that we’re seeing increasing desire for a bring to table technologies, where if you’re in a fast casual restaurant, instead of lining up, you can go sit down at the table, you can place your order, you can be prompted to order something else knowing that you’re in the restaurant. And the fact that you might get a discount because they know you’re still there to do that. That cross pollenization is something that we are seeing a real influx against and frankly, very powerful data about the ability to target someone in a personalized way. That doesn’t feel creepy. So it’s not just about saying we know you ordered this, but being able
JJ
Jeremy Julian
14:49
to care careful there because people get weird about it when they’re like Ah How did you know who I was?
HN
Hope Neiman
14:54
And the worst is also you know, there there’s been these stories about this target parent that I target and his daughter, but but even things like telling a guest that you know where they are. So you have to be very cautious. Wait, are you following me everywhere? But knowing that that information you’re asking for permission, I guess knows what the back given take is, are all really important considerations across the boards, and it’s one of the reasons that I think companies that have been strictly b2b companies have a much harder time with these are thinking about them, because they’re not considering what the consumer impact is. And frankly, even the back office, people who are consumers in a very different way.
JJ
Jeremy Julian
15:42
Well, that was going to be one of my so I, and those that watch on video on YouTube or on LinkedIn, will watch me write notes, because I think I wrote down at least four if not question, five questions, hope while you were going through that, but I’m going to start with the whole customization and personalization. I’m going to tell you a quick story. And then I’d love for you to to riff on it a little bit. We we at CBS did some consumer facing technology about 10 years ago, for a brand that didn’t have consumer facing technology initially. And maybe 11 years ago, what we put, we put essentially kiosks at every table, and the kiosks that went at every single table caused the level of modification in their operation that was well unexpected. They were casual dining brand that, you know, said when they did statistical analysis, I think it was somewhere between 15 and 20% of the orders would get modified, you’d have a cheeseburger and you’d have the lettuce and tomato and onions and pickles on the side, guests would never tell you, I don’t want tomatoes, they would just get it without get with the tomatoes, and then they pull the tomato off themselves. They might not tell a server when you’re standing tableside. But the minute you allow them the opportunity to do it, whether it be on the web, or it’s at a kiosk or it’s at your phone or anywhere else, the guests feel empowered to do that, which is a fantastic guest experience. But if you can’t deliver on that brand promise, it’s a problem. So I’d love for you to talk a little bit about that. Because to your point, and enabling this is great. But if the guest experience can’t be anywhere close to what they want, or what they expect, they won’t come back, or they’ll be disappointed with the experience and the value that they paid for.
HN
Hope Neiman
17:17
It’s actually a very fine line. And for us, I feel like we have two masters. One is the brand and one is the guest. The brand usually has the initiative of both making their customers happy, but also to maximize their revenue. Part of that is how do I get an upsell or cross sell or something to engage them. The second however, is Oh my God, I don’t want to really muck with the recipe too much in the kitchen. Because now the person the likelihood since they’re not following a standard recipe is somebody may screw it up. Yep. So we’re walking. And that’s one of the great things about data is we’re walking this fine line of what do you elevate? So if you’re in a burger brand, and you have cheese and bacon are the most common add ons, you want to elevate. You’re very prepared.
JJ
Jeremy Julian
18:13
They’re very good. And that’s why you put cheese and bacon on all burgers, but okay,
HN
Hope Neiman
18:17
exactly. But you also have a situation where an onion is something a lot of people want to take off. Yep. But things like to your example of tomato. If they’re not prompted, they might not think I should take off tomato. And that’s perhaps mucking with things on it. So being able to create a series of using the data of components that make it easy for somebody to customize the things that people do customize, and make it perhaps a little less obvious. For those who don’t. I’ll give you an example. I have somebody who works for me. And it’s an ongoing joke. She really hates mayonnaise really hates mayonnaise, we’ll take days off of any
JJ
Jeremy Julian
19:07
Christmas gifts are showing up with mayonnaise hellos and the whole nine yards. Perfect. Okay.
HN
Hope Neiman
19:11
So she always looks to customize without mayonnaise. She’s very uncommon. A lot of people wouldn’t give him the choice, don’t take it off. So it may be one of those things that’s like with a very simple click customize all versus being able to encourage something that isn’t going to really change the experience. Now the other side of that is how do you also elevate things that people were unaware that they could get? So jalapenos is a great one in one of our customers. And I heard actually from franchisees, before we heard from the brand that they really want to put jalapenos on. So we’ve elevated it and we’ve shown a pretty significant increase See an average check by doing that. But there are also other opportunities example, you build a combo. Everybody always knows you can say, Do you want to make it larger? Do you want to just get sandwich? What do you want. But when you get to your drink, let’s say, most people are unaware that for $1, more or less, say they can get a shake, or some other elevated drink, how you show that, in order to really make it appetizing to someone is a big difference than it is of just making it an long scroll or not really making it enticing to do it. And those are all things that we pay a lot of attention to, both in the way that we construct flows. And we have different standard flows for different types of restaurants. So QSR, that’s a burger brand versus a sandwich brand. Versus pizza, versus a fast casual brand. Those flows are slightly different. So if you’ve always got an option for a salad, being able to have a flow, that if you select the salad, lets you pick a dressing, maybe lets you pick an extra dressing, lets you say how you’re gonna do it. Versus if I pick fries, I don’t want to see those other screens, I want to get somebody through the process faster. I
JJ
Jeremy Julian
21:20
love it. I love it. And I think that that I mean, and the one thing I will say that, you know, and this is not just because I’m a fan of what you guys do, but I think I do love the fact that you guys truly focused on the experience for the consumer, as well as the brand. And you guys really focus on this vertical to make sure that the restaurants are impacted in the in the most positive way possible.
HN
Hope Neiman
21:42
Which he never thinks about that. That’s actually pretty interesting, too is there’s this interesting dynamic. And I learned it a long time ago in traditional e commerce, which is you have the numbers. But you also have to understand the visceral experience that somebody’s getting, what that emotional hooks, and how to place that on there not just believe simply the numbers that are on and or the beliefs of what happened. So we have a customer who said, Oh, we need fewer touch points. And so we’ve got a screen that has disposition, diamond or takeout, we have a screen that has language because they’re in a market in Europe where they have multiple languages. Let’s put them on one screen. And I said, you know, I think you’re making it a more complex, you’re causing somebody on a kiosk to think through two choices, versus easily doing one at a time. And no, no, no. And they wanted to just implement it. I said, Let’s a be testing. And they grudgingly said, yes. Well, within three days, we rolled back to the original experience, because the drop off was so significant from people when they put them both there. And that speaks to meeting different flows, whether it’s kiosk to mobile, whether it is you know, in what kind of a market, whether it’s the type of restaurant, you need to have the flows that really make sense where that guest is,
JJ
Jeremy Julian
23:16
yeah, well, and I hope I’d love for you to talk to so he talks about your early days at you know, the early days of the product and having it available more so in Europe, and you know, and I don’t say you’re Asia, you know, you talked about those things throughout your, your story. Did you guys also find that even the order flow and the way that concert, what a consumer expected on the kiosk and or a mobile ordering experience was different. I mean, I know, when I’ve been to Europe, even the payment experience is very different than it is here in the US up until very, very recently. Now more and more and more, they’re coming with a tablet, and they’re asking you to pay tableside and doing the tip. You know, which again, I get Europe is a little bit different from that perspective. But you guys find, you know, some of like adoption on countries outside of North America, and specifically United States, they were more apt to try consumer facing technology. But did you also find that they were looking, you know, whether it’s the multiple language thing, or just even the way that they would order their food was different than we may have been trained here in the US.
HN
Hope Neiman
24:14
Um, kiosks really has subtle differences. So people really expect a kiosk, and even things like paying at the counter, which is counter intuitive in many places, like why would I do this, and I have to get in a line. Well, by the way, we make it easy so that you can create a separate line. But that’s a different story. kiosk was a more subtle difference in web and mobile applications, we see more differences. Part of it is the adoption to mobile was much faster overseas than it was here. We always knew it was coming here. And we always build things from a mobile first perspective, because that’s the most complex platform to work on. But mobile was much less important. At early on here, it’s over the last three years that it’s just exploded even on very complex ordering components, that’s a big difference. The second is also payment, payment, even more than in a kiosk in a mobile piece. Many countries require you to use protections that take you outside of an application to pay. And so that’s part of it. The third thing that’s different is customer recognition. So using single sign on, and how you use single sign on was, is different in other parts of the world than it has been here in the States. And last but not least, is localization for delivery is massively different. Google Maps does not work. Well, in all countries of the world, especially when you’re in a market where say, you’re you may have an address, but it’s, you have to tell somebody, it’s down an alley, it’s the second white door, knock three times whatever it is, but also in places like Latin America, where you have places that are less safe to deliver, they have meeting points, so you have to be able to accommodate having a pickup point, which by the way, helps us for things like different programs, where you pick up at your office, and you’ve got a whole array of things, it’s very similar technologies to pieces we’ve built to set up to meet it with a local grocery store might be rather than the street that you live on.
JJ
Jeremy Julian
26:33
I hadn’t even considered that. But those are the those are really interesting stories. And I appreciate that, because I know, some of our listeners are gonna go international, and they oftentimes don’t consider these things.
HN
Hope Neiman
26:44
In fact, to that point, one of the things that we’ve done that’s very different, is there are some brands today that you know, because the industry is built off of the brands that might power their US based operations, but have master franchisees in other places in the world. They don’t want to muck with international, so they might be doing things here. And but they want a partner that can handle all those complexities elsewhere. They don’t want to have to deal with it. And so we’re seeing a change there. Also, we’re isn’t necessarily just a brand we’ve worked with, but it may be a brand that either has built their own or is working with somebody else here in the States, who’s approached us saying, Can you help us in our markets in you know, pick the country, I mean, think about how complex it is in a place like the Middle East, where you not only have English, which is left to right, but you have to be able to accommodate right to left. And so we have applications that do that, or character based languages like Thailand or Japan.
JJ
Jeremy Julian
27:46
And yeah, no. And we had the privilege of going out into China and doing multi language in China. That was an interesting, interesting deal. And to your point, you learned quite a bit. I’ve got two other trains of thought that I want to talk through hope before we before we start to wrap up the next as you mentioned CDP. And CDP has been one of those things that you know, and I see you chuckling on video. It’s, it’s, it’s it’s a bit of a misnomer. And I think in the consumer space, you know, there are data platforms that, you know, Facebook, and Google and Amazon and Apple knows so much about us. But the Restaurant Brands, especially since up until COVID, 90 plus percent of the brands were working in house and identifying the guests was really, really challenging as people have gotten more digital. They’ve started to figure out I need to figure out who this person is. Can you talk me through your guys’s vision on what a CDP not just is, but how you can use the CDP plot, you know, as a customer data platform to really enable your brand to get not just the personalization, the customization, but drive the behavior that you’re going to get the most value out of for your guests to grow.
HN
Hope Neiman
28:56
It’s it’s one of the experiences that I think when people look back, enabling with a CDP has been transformative, because it has reduced some of the complexity of having to go into data and seeing what’s going on with it. So a couple of examples for us that we do. We have gone with several customers. And I’ll give you one use case where we said okay, we’ve done some clustering analysis, you have customers that are around this expenditure at the lowest end this expenditure in the middle end and this expenditure in the high end. Let’s send them each group, a very different offer based on how they have to step up to what to buy. So we can look at what the maximum amount that person purchased and required depending on whether it’s the lowest level, the medium level or the high level, somewhere between an eight and a 15% increase in what they have to spend to get a discount. And what you’re doing is you’re now giving somebody something that’s achievable, as opposed to giving everybody a single number that you’re never going to be able to reach. That’s something that we saw for this one customer, almost a 3% increase in average check in the week, this program ran across their whole universe. So a lot of people either didn’t get an offer or didn’t take advantage of it. But if those who did, it dramatically raised, the revenue structure that was on there, the same thing is true about getting guests to make another visit. So knowing what the cadence is, if I know you come six times a year, if I can create something that gets you to come eight times a year, but I do it in a way, that’s just subtle enough, I’m getting much more revenue out of you. But in a way that doesn’t feel like I’m harping, and trying to get you to come in every five minutes. So it’s about taking what people do and moving them along the path much more easily. The second way that it gets used, as I spoke earlier about feeling connected to the brand, yes, being able to show if you’re a brand that sells sandwiches, and salads, and you’re a salad person, and I’m a sandwich person, and this month, we may be pushing some component, some of which is in a salad, some of which is in a sandwich, if I change your homepage, and have a sandwich, if you’re the sandwich person versus a salad, if you’re salad person that allows me to feel connected. And we do the same thing, even in our emails, where we have sections that we work with our customers to be able to populate, so that the image may be different, if you will have a coupon program attached to it having three coupons that that person has in there, whether they were targeted or general. So they’re seeing things that are achievable, but that are very personal to them, and not be disappointed of not having it.
JJ
Jeremy Julian
32:13
Yeah, I have a I had an example. And I think our listeners have heard this story is I was I don’t drink. And I was in somebody’s marketing database. And they were they were launching a beer club and I constantly there’s there hasn’t been a check that I’ve had at this brand ever that had alcohol on it, or beer for sure, because my wife does drink wine and spirits from time to time, but she doesn’t drink beer. And so they’re marketing this beer to me, and it felt very unperson alized. And thus I stopped paying attention to their stuff. And when I asked one more quick piece about about CDP and identification, especially for on prem, you know, and then let’s talk a little bit about some of the federal laws, both here in the States as well as overseas about how to identify, who can I capture? How do I capture that? You know, you hear the tech people that are like, Oh, we’re going to do facial recognition. And we’re going to know when hope walks in. And then you hear the French government go, No, you’re not, that’s not going to happen. And I picked France, because you brought up France earlier. But talk to me a little bit about how for on prem are we going to get to a CDP where we identify that it’s hope that’s walking in, and what hopes experience that she wants is because if hope is walking in with her family, it’s a different experience than when she’s coming in for a business lunch, or a business dinner. They’re different experiences and on prem is different than digital. So talk to me a little bit about kind of your thoughts on that and how you guys are solving some of those pieces if you wouldn’t mind.
HN
Hope Neiman
33:41
This goes back very much to what I talked about, of things being interconnected. So it’s funny. Many moons ago, a brand we worked with, wanted on prem, the name to come through which the POS allowed. I’m like, Are you sure you know, for somebody to walk up to the counter and just start their order and have them say, thank you hope feels a little bit like, especially if you’re there with your kids and all the rest of it. That’s less of an issue, but having identifiers. In fact, the dirty little secret is that your loyalty program is the greatest way to be able to have that identification. So example, I walk in, I’m almost doing the equivalent of registering. So I’m hitting it so that I know I mean, they’re gonna get my points or I’m gonna take advantage of something. Depending on what you elevate into the on prem experience. One easy example is, Hey, I see you now have a redemption available. Would you like to take advantage of that? That feels very positive to me, Oh, wow, I can get something discounted that I wanted or had I was unsure that I had it available. But there’s also another piece to it. One of the things that’s very interesting is we not only capture past orders, but we also have the ability to count capture anything that’s been customized by a guest and put it into their own category. So I can as a consumer, if I’m walking in, and I’m connected to it, and I click to be able to connect to the POS, while I’m there, saying, This is what I want, I don’t have to go through all the customizations or I might have all the things that my family did, and go 1234. And I’m done, or even connect to a past order. So those are elements that, you know, I’m a believer in the fact that everybody loves getting a discount, when people will walk across the street to save 50 cents. But if you can make my life easier, if you can make it more convenient for me to order. So if I’m in a drive thru, and I have five screaming kids in the back, and I already know what they all want. That’s easier experience when I get up to the the call box as an example, the ordering. Yep, yep, exactly. So those are the kinds of things that we look to add into the structure of convenience features, to make it easier. And that’s one of the things that we’re seeing with the improvements in curbside, or facilitating pickup experiences, making a dramatic improvement. In fact, in the research that we recently did, the number one experience that people expect to be doing in the next three months, is ordering directly from a brand for pickup. And I think it’s a combination of cost less than delivering, I can control when I get it, I can control the experience of what I’m getting. And they’ve now made it easy for me to get my food, which is going to be hot when I actually get home with it. So those are things that I think are really critical, and that are going to be kind of the next evolution and wave of expansion.
JJ
Jeremy Julian
37:08
Yeah, one thing I’m gonna I’m going to hit on just because it came up from another guest that we had that works on the loyalty spaces is oftentimes, yes, you want to move people up the value chain. But if you’ve got a consumer that’s coming in three times a week, they may have a lower guest check average. And you’re okay with that, because they’re a loyal brand follower. And you want to use the data to make sure that they’re stay coming in three days a week. And they mentioned, they might just get a cup of coffee and a bagel. And you’re okay with that. Because they’re there three days a week or four days a week or five days a week. So why don’t you talk a little bit about that just because I think all too often people talk about, I need people to spend more I need people to grow their check average, I need two people to grow their the the frequency. And that’s not always the case. There are loyal brand loyalists that every Tuesday I’m here to have my steak and eggs and you want them to come in every Tuesday to have their steak and eggs and you don’t want to push them away. Because they’re one of those people that has a button the seat every Tuesday to get his steak and eggs.
HN
Hope Neiman
38:06
I couldn’t agree more. And that’s why when we look at the data and analyze what it is, we tend to use a lot of RFM, which is stands for recency, frequency, and monetary value. And it takes the components of that how frequently you come in when you last came in how much you spend, and creates a series of rubrics, which helps us better understand and work with our brands to market against those guests, knowing who’s going to who’s got the room to spend a little bit more on a check, who’s got the room to come in a little bit more frequently. But the one that many people forget is the guy who’s already coming a lot and already spending a lot. The most important thing is keeping them there. And not. They’re not trading for somebody else. Exactly. And that has real value in the process of doing that. But the other thing that I think people forget, and it’s I caution, I actually had this conversation with a customer the other day, I caution them about being entirely focused on average check. And that’s really for two reasons. One is if you’re a brand that has restaurants across a bigger expanse, geographically, what somebody spends in New York City is different than what they spend in Tulsa. And if you’re adding stores in the Midwest, your average check across your whole network may drop. But you’re also seeing a very nice average check in those other places. But the second thing is you can encourage somebody to come in in off hours when they don’t come when nobody comes. If it’s two to four in the afternoon, and you’re gonna give away a free soda. Chances are they might also buy chicken nuggets or fries, or an ice cream cone. So that average check is low. But it’s an incremental visit as part of it and you’re Lifetime value of those guests is actually going up.
JJ
Jeremy Julian
40:03
Well, and it’s funny, I brought it up earlier. And I think it’s something that we I would also caution brands to consider is my no pick Chick fil A, just because they’re a nationally recognized brand that everybody knows who they are, when I’m traveling, and I’m out of my home region, my check average is going to be quite low when I go to Chick fil A, because it’s just me, it’s gonna, I might be there with a kid, you know, at a sporting event or, you know, on a business lunch or breakfast or dinner, and I’m going to my check average is going to be different than when I’m traveling. And I’m going to my local store, and I’m going with my four kids and my wife, my check is going to be significantly higher. And so depending upon the instance in which I’m I’m engaging with the brand is going to also define those things. And I think everybody just looks at, well, he spent $75. Last time How can I get him to spend $80 this time? And the truth is, is it you’re not going to always do that it truly depends on what am I engaging with that brand for? And I think triangulating that against the channel that I came in through, you know, did I come in through mobile? Did I come in through the app did I come in, come in at a cashier, and am I geographically in the same region where I where my zip code is on my loyalty account or any of those kinds of things. And that’s
HN
Hope Neiman
41:15
why even when I mentioned earlier about this banding, not everybody qualified because if we use you as the example, you might have some bills that are $10, and some that are $40, we can’t get a good sense of what it takes to encourage you to do it for exactly that reason. But if we take the people where it’s really consistent, and we can elevate those, that’s very approachable. And that’s why we win.
JJ
Jeremy Julian
41:41
I love it. I love it. I have a whole bunch more questions. But I know that we’re running up against time. And so maybe we’ll we’ll do a 2.0 Hope, just because there’s so much, I feel like I can sit and talk to you all afternoon. Talk to me, I guess I’d love for you to talk a little bit about what you know. So people are on this digital transformation. All brands are considering it, what are one or two or three things that you would say they need to think about before they plunge straight into going and buying software, finding a partner. And doing that. Obviously, we’d love for them to consider tilter and what you guys do, but at the same time, there is tons of wisdom that you’ve already poured out in the first 40 minutes that we’ve been on the call, not to mention all of the stuff that I know you’ve got from the years of experience and dealing with consumer base, you know, marketing and whatnot, what are two or three things that you would say to all brands that they need to consider before we before we wrap up and let people know how they can get in touch with you.
HN
Hope Neiman
42:39
So one of them is what makes your brand special. Don’t try and just copy what a competitor does, or what you saw out there. But what are your customers come to you for? And can you make that same experience digitally and cross platform so that it feels very familiar? That’s something that I think is really critical and people forget, look at the metrics that make a difference in your business, just like we were talking about before? When are people coming? Can you adjust what that is? How do you play in that world? And the third one is, actually I’m gonna give you four. The third one is do you have the right tools for the nature of the workforce that you have? So
JJ
Jeremy Julian
43:25
yes, things are operationalized. Doing those things? Absolutely.
HN
Hope Neiman
43:28
Operationalizing is really critical. In fact, we have a customer who we’re working with where we’re taking some of our data that was already there, but we’re repackaging it differently, because of what they need in order to make some products that have longer lead times to them. So again, that’s a critical component to the operations of their business, that they had to consider going into a process. And that became a fundamental must have. And it’s one of the reasons I think we won in this because we can accommodate that for them. But but it’s understanding that piece. And the last piece of it is how well will the tools play together? So as I say, we do, right, we do it, we can do everything. And we make it very seamless. And there are lots of things, some brands, all brands can take advantage of that do that. Some don’t need all of those or they don’t want to give up something they have. So are you working with a partner that can make those components speak while one another? Or do you need somebody who can do it all because I’ve lived through with brands where something goes down and it becomes this finger pointing of Wait, which component isn’t working right? And because they’re not talking well to each other, you can’t even identify it. So that’s those are the pieces that I think are really important as you look to expand in this space for your brand.
JJ
Jeremy Julian
45:00
I love it. I love it. And I think, all too often we, we look at Tech to solve a business challenge, but we don’t necessarily understand how it’s going to impact the consumer and the business. And I think, you know, if I was somebody and I’ve had this experience before, and I’m sure you have as well where I order online, and it’s a very different experience, than when I order in store from a cashier than when I order from a kiosk. And because I’m in the restaurant tech space, I try lots of different things. I eat way too much. My budget for food, eating out is way, way higher than it should be. But I try these things, because at the end of the day, I want to experience them. And so well hope I, like I said are just a few minutes ago, I could sit and talk to you all afternoon. I love this conversation. I love the digitization of where you guys are at where you guys are going. For those that want to learn more about toaster, learn, get connected with you learn more about what you guys are doing in the space. Talk to me about how they get in touch and what they can expect the experience to look like.
HN
Hope Neiman
45:58
Sure, come to toaster.com and we will we respond very quickly. I’m all over social media. So whether you look at me up on LinkedIn, on Twitter, on anything out there, I’m really easy to say are you doing
JJ
Jeremy Julian
46:12
tick tock dancer still? Are you? Are you out there doing tech?
HN
Hope Neiman
46:17
And the easiest way to reach me actually is somebody wants to reach out to me as hope@telstra.com which is pretty easy email address to us.
JJ
Jeremy Julian
46:26
I love it. Well, like I said, you know, to our to our listeners, guys, we definitely know that you guys have got lots of options on how you spend your time. There are brands and technology partners like toaster that are truly revolutionising and changing the way that people engage with restaurants. And so, hope thank you so much for taking the time for educator to educate our listeners, guys. I know that all of you guys are on this journey to get more digital. And I would strongly encourage you guys to go check out tilter if you haven’t already done so subscribe to the newsletter. We did launch the YouTube channel in the last couple of weeks and so hopefully you guys will check some of that out. Get connected with me on LinkedIn. You can also see the videos as well as the audio. Hope thank you so much for your time and to our listeners make it a great day.
I
Intro
47:12
Thanks for listening to the restaurant technology guys podcast. Visit restaurant technology guys.com For tips, Industry Insights and more to help you run your restaurant better
