November 17, 2025 • 18 mins
Zack Oates sits down with Rachael Nemeth, CEO of Opus Training, to talk about turning frontline training into real-time performance. Rachael explains why most brands don’t have a completion problem — they have an adoption problem — and how Opus makes training inclusive with instant mobile access and automatic translation. She shares how Opus pairs with Ovation to detect issues early and push targeted refreshers before they become revenue problems.
Zack and Rachael discuss:
- Training as the foundation of guest experience
- Adoption vs completion and mobile-first access
- Using AI to detect anomalies and intervene with training
- Closing the loop between marketing promises and ops delivery
- Real-time, location-specific refreshers that lift accuracy and service
Thanks, Rachael!
Links:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachael-nemeth/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/opus-so/
https://www.opus.so/about-us
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_01 (00:00):
Welcome to another edition of Give and Ovation, the
Restaurant Guest ExperiencePodcast.
I'm your host, Zach Ot, and eachweek I chat with industry
experts to uncover theirstrategies and tactics to help
you create a five-star guestexperience.
This podcast is powered byOvation, the feedback and
operations platform built formulti-unit restaurants.
Learn what is actually happeningin your restaurants and exactly
(00:22):
how to improve while drivingrevenue.
Learn more at ovationup.com.
And today I have a good friend,a partner, and just a fellow CEO
battling in the restaurant techspace, Rachel Nemuth.
She is the CEO at Opus Training.
And one thing, Rachel, that Ialways tell people is that the
second craziest people in theworld are those who open
(00:44):
restaurants.
I think that they are just likeabsolutely nuts.
But the first, the absolutecraziest people in the world are
those who build tech to sell tothose crazy people.
SPEAKER_00 (00:57):
Yeah.
I knew the second that came outof your mouth, I was like, I
don't know exactly what you'resaying.
SPEAKER_01 (01:01):
Yeah, yeah.
Because you know, you got tohave a couple of screws loose to
open up a restaurant becauseit's really, really hard.
But to say, like, hey, I want tosell to those people, you got to
have a couple of shelves loose.
So anyway, I am so glad thatyou're joining us in this
podcast.
We've tried to record thisbefore, but we just have too
much fun talking.
And so when we got on, I waslike, all right, Rachel, no
small talk.
We're just hitting recordbecause we're gonna we're gonna
(01:23):
take the whole time catching up.
For those who aren't familiar,there may be a couple of people.
We talk about Opus all the timeon this podcast.
For those who might be listeningfor the first time, explain to
us what Opus is.
SPEAKER_00 (01:34):
Opus is a training operating system that is
designed for businesses with alarge distributed workforce.
Our favorite customers aremulti-unit restaurant groups.
And Opus is designed to workwith those brands to help them
achieve the consistency theyneed in order to scale.
(01:55):
And we just firmly believe thattraining is the foundation of
really great guest experiencesand more fluid growth
opportunities.
SPEAKER_01 (02:05):
And I love that because when we think about
training, what does it mean totrain?
It's so much more than justlike, hey, here's a sheet of
paper that you should look atwhen you first onboard, right?
And the way that you do it, andI actually had my first
experience being an employee ofsorts of Opus because I was at a
(02:25):
trade show that they utilizedOpus to let people know where to
go, what they were supposed todo, what sessions they were
supposed to be in.
It was so easy and so useful togo in there and just know
exactly what I'm supposed to do.
SPEAKER_00 (02:39):
Yeah.
It's interesting.
You meant was this the umCraveCon?
SPEAKER_01 (02:43):
CraveCon, yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (02:44):
Yeah, total blast.
And what's interesting, thatparticular use case is Opus is a
training system, right?
Where it's a native AI platformthat's designed to help get
employees the information andthe knowledge they need in the
moment that they need it.
You just referenced paper.
That's 70% of the restaurantindustry.
(03:05):
Even folks who are using somesort of legacy learning
management system or LMS, partof their training is still
usually on paper, we found.
And that's usually the back ofhouse teams or the folks who
don't speak English.
Opus is designed to be a fullyinclusive app.
In order to get in, as youexperienced it, you use a phone
number, you put in first andlast name, and you're in.
(03:28):
It's linked to a location, itautomatically translates all of
your training and all of yourdocuments into 130 languages.
And the goal is that training isfinally accessible for the first
time.
One of the biggest barriers thatrestaurants see is not training
completion.
It's training adoption.
That's actually the biggestissue.
(03:50):
You can talk to any restaurantoperator and they can't tell you
if 100% of their team iscompleting training.
They can probably only tell youthat, yes, all of our servers
did it.
SPEAKER_01 (03:59):
Well, what about everyone else?
We did it at a pre-shift meetingand Joe wasn't there, but we did
it, right?
So Joe just needs to like figureit out as we go.
SPEAKER_00 (04:08):
Right.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (04:10):
And the reason I that we're such big fans of
ovation, of Opus and Ovation, Iguess, but isn't just I love
what you do, but also there's anawesome integration that we have
that we recently launched.
And talk to us about what thatmeans on your end.
Because obviously collectingguest feedback is so critical in
that guest connection, but thenclosing the loop with that
(04:30):
training to make sure that theright people are getting the
right training.
So talk to us about how you'releveraging AI and the feedback
that we're collecting.
SPEAKER_00 (04:39):
Yeah.
So we've been using AI since thefounding of Opus, which was over
five years ago, but the visionwas always bigger than using AI
for translation and contentgeneration and agentic AI for
asking questions.
What I love about thepartnership that we have with
Ovation is that we're reallyentering an entirely new chapter
with Opus around AI anomalydetection and intervention.
(05:02):
Those are just fancy words forbasically saying we can
integrate with any operationsplatform you have in order to
identify any issues that arehappening with your front line
and intervene and fix them withtraining before they become a
crisis.
So the status quo, and anyonewho's listening knows this, is
(05:23):
that all training is scheduled.
It's reactive, our sales aredown, so we're gonna push this
training out.
It's we had a bad guestexperience, so we're gonna push
training out.
Well, what if you could actuallydetect those trends early and
wedge in training before itbecomes a revenue issue?
So that's why I really love thework that we're doing to kind of
power all of that data fromovation and turn that into
(05:47):
meaningful training outcomes.
SPEAKER_01 (05:49):
Because it's not just about training your team.
And it's not just about trackingthe guest experience.
You have to train and track andtrack and train and train what
you track and tracked what youtrained.
You've got to be able to havethis cycle of this handoff in
this virtuous flywheel betweentracking and training.
Because the whole reason thatyou spent all this money hiring
(06:12):
someone, bringing them in,training them, the music, the
ambiance, everything that youdo, the ingredients that you
pick, how do you have yourrestaurant set up, the
furniture?
It's all for the guestexperience.
But so much of that guestexperience is about the
employees, are your team memberswho actually have that last,
(06:33):
that last we talk about the lastmile.
This is really the last inch.
When they're giving that food tothat guest, that handoff is the
key of the experience.
And I love that you have thatability to actually make sure
that they are getting trained onthe exact things that the guest
is saying that they need basedon how we're tracking.
(06:54):
And so I think that's what Ilove about this.
And I, you know, I've had aslide talking about training and
tracking for so long.
And so when our teams firststarted connecting about this, I
was like, yes, because this iswhat it needs to be.
It's all one thing, which is theemployee experience, the guest
experience, and then theprofitability of the restaurant.
(07:15):
And that's what it comes downto.
SPEAKER_00 (07:16):
And we see so many operators who invest so heavily,
if not overinvest, in decor andthen underinvest in staff
enablement.
And you have to ask yourself,okay, if I had to reallocate 10%
of my CapEx, OpEx from Ambianceinto employee tools, where would
(07:38):
I put it in order to make theguest feel good immediately?
It's gonna be in training.
It's gonna be in evoking thatreally amazing experience.
You know, I saw behind you ofunreasonable hospitality.
We hear this all the time thatthat the missing link between a
good and a great guestexperience is the human
(07:58):
experience.
But that requires training andcoaching.
And the best training andcoaching happens in the moment
when it's relevant and peoplecan respond to it and talk about
it.
Not when it's just like, hey,Joe Schmoe, just in case this
happens one day and you have acustomer who's had a bad day,
here's what you should do.
(08:19):
What if it can be entirelyresponsive to what's happening
in the business?
So I love what you guys aredoing.
I think you've already found away to sort of intervene in
really meaningful ways to createbetter guest experiences.
And now we're trying to find away to fold in the frontline
teams, the majority workforceinto that experience as well
with ovation.
SPEAKER_01 (08:39):
And I think it's so beautiful because one of the
things that is so critical isthis concept of markerations,
which is like, how doesmarketing operations connect?
SPEAKER_00 (08:50):
And I was like, all right, I don't know where this
is going.
SPEAKER_01 (08:55):
But the thing is, is that if you don't have your
operations buttoned up, guesswhat's gonna happen when you
spend all of this money to get aguest in the door?
They're gonna have a badexperience because either
service or accuracy was wrong,and then they're not gonna come
back.
And so not only are they notgonna come back, but what if
(09:17):
they go leave you a negativereview?
Then you've got 26 customersthat you just lost there.
I look at that like you could bepaying to have people have a
negative experience, and thenyou're actually losing money
because you paid to have someonecome in and have a bad
experience.
Let's imagine that you go andyou like have a first date, and
(09:37):
you're like, okay, I'm gonna goto a nice restaurant, we're
gonna spend all this money, I'mgonna invest in this date.
Then you're super rude on thedate.
Does it matter that you askedthe person?
Does it matter that youscheduled the reservation or
that you showed up or that yougot the right food?
No.
What matters is you were rudeand you're not getting a second
date.
Right.
And I think that's somethingthat is so key.
(09:57):
And so as we're talking aboutthe guest experience, as we're
talking about this, what whatare some tactics that you've
seen that have improved theguest experience, Rachel?
SPEAKER_00 (10:05):
So well, uh I think two things.
And and the first is actually inresponse to what you were saying
before.
I think we see this really tightloop between marketing and
training.
And if marketing brings inpromises, training has to arm
the frontline worker to deliveron them.
So those have to be kind ofinextricably linked when you
(10:30):
think about how to run yourbusiness.
So, in order to create kind ofbetter guest experiences, I'm
biased, but it has to come downto great training for your
frontline team.
If accuracy dips during an LTO,we can push a two-minute
refresher training at pre-shiftand measure review lift or
(10:53):
whatever sort of metric you'retrying to move.
We want to help be the driver todo that because the people who
are on the front line are thepeople who are delivering on
that promise.
So I think that has to be aconstant reminder for operators
that marketing is a brandpromise and you have to find
ways to deliver on it.
It's not just about the product.
SPEAKER_01 (11:12):
Oh my gosh.
Because uh especially when itcomes to like things like LTOs.
Yeah.
Right.
When I go in and I'm like, hey,I saw this ad.
I I came in to try this thing,and they're like, ah, I don't
know what that is.
And it's like, oh, well, this issilly.
Um, right.
And by the way, Rachel, datashows that if you want to create
a one-star experience, it isactually not about the food.
(11:35):
The food will create three-starexperiences, four-star
experiences, like, uh, it wasgood, but chances are you have a
good product.
You wouldn't be in business ifyou didn't have good food.
And the food might be made alittle bit wrong, might be a
little slow, whatever, but it isabout the number one thing that
is going to create a one-starreview is service.
(11:58):
Service, service, service.
How do they feel about it?
The second thing is gonna beaccuracy.
And guess what those two thingsare uh can be solved with?
unknown (12:08):
Training.
SPEAKER_01 (12:08):
Maybe training.
SPEAKER_00 (12:10):
But I want to add though that it's not just
training, it's real-timeresponse training.
I think one of the biggest gapsthat's happening today is when I
talk to operators and especiallyVPs of training, all of these
folks who are really championingtraining.
This is not a knock ondepartments.
It's just the reality of theworld we live in where marketing
(12:31):
gets the data or ops gets thedata, and then it takes months
to get that information down toyour training team so that they
can act on it.
Well, you don't have threemonths to react to an order
accuracy issue or a serviceview.
That's actually the differencebetween somebody coming back
into your store and not.
So you have to find ways torespond, either against the
(12:54):
franchise, the location, theindividual, so that you can
intervene it and resolve itquickly.
So that's why I love thinkingabout ways that you can get a
tighter, faster feedback loop.
I don't know about you, but atOpus, actually internally, just
our own culture, we have what'scalled a working with me
document.
(13:14):
Every time we hire a newemployee, we ask them 16
questions on how they like towork best.
How do you like to take notes?
How do you like to do X, Y, andZ?
And we always ask, how do youlike to receive feedback?
100% of the time, people say, Iwant it direct and in the
moment.
It's never varied.
No one ever says, I want you towait three weeks and tell me
(13:35):
what I'm doing wrong then.
Frontline teams want that too.
Your hourly team wants to knowand wants to be better.
That is why they're there.
It's they're there to succeedand they're there not just to
take home a paycheck, but to begood at their job.
That's just the humanexperience.
SPEAKER_01 (13:52):
I love that.
And because at the end of theday, one thing that holds true
in any company is that thecustomer experience cannot
exceed the employee experience.
And if you want your employeesto feel empowered to make
changes and to know exactly whatthey need to do to do a good
job, you need that real-timetraining.
(14:15):
A lot of people who listen tothis podcast are founders, they
own their own restaurants.
And it's sometimes hard as afounder, as a leader, because we
don't have our training manuals.
We don't know exactly what weneed to do to succeed, but we
just go and figure it out.
We cannot expect our team to dothat.
So we have to be able to realizethat for them to succeed, they
(14:38):
need to know what do we wantthem to do to succeed.
For us, it's all in our brainsbecause okay, I want to do this
and I'm gonna do it, and thenI'm successful.
But when you're dealing withemployees who aren't inside of
our heads who don't know, it'slike we got to make things a lot
clearer for them to make surethat they know how to be
successful.
And I think you will be shockedat how many of them truly do
(15:02):
want to be successful.
That person that you think is aB player, maybe they're just a B
player because we haven't giventhem the pathway to become an A
player.
SPEAKER_00 (15:10):
Right.
And sometimes being a B playeris just fine, but you still need
to be a good B player.
I was talking to Jason Morgan,the CEO of Original Chop Shop,
great guy, very smart.
And he's talking about the kindof reality of frontline
training.
And he says, listen, if my team,I'm parsing his words, but he's
basically if my entire frontlineteam, if 70 to 80% of them are
(15:34):
all B players, that's fine.
If that's the best we can getand they feel great at their job
because they're gonna go homeand have kids and second jobs
and commutes, that's okay.
They don't need to be anythingmore than just a good brand
ambassador.
And that top 10, 15%, let'screate opportunities for them to
grow.
No matter what, the through linebetween those A and B players is
(15:57):
they all wanna know what goodlooks like so that they can go
to work and feel successful,whatever success means to them.
SPEAKER_01 (16:04):
I love that.
Love that, love that, love that.
Rachel, you are just a pillar inthe industry.
You know so many people.
Who is someone that you feellike deserves innovation?
SPEAKER_00 (16:14):
The person who actually comes to mind today,
because there's a lot, is AndrewPacker, chief strategy officer
at Bahama Bucks.
If you don't know Andrew, youshould.
Just incredible operator,incredible thinker, incredible
energy.
Zach, you guys would matchenergy-wise.
SPEAKER_01 (16:34):
Well, I I love Bahama Bucks.
They're such a such a greatbrand.
SPEAKER_00 (16:38):
Great, great, great product.
And Andrew has always found away to kind of meaningfully
blend employee experiences andoperations to run a very
successful franchise operation.
I think there are 120 units andgrowing right now, but I love
what they're doing and Andrew'sworth knowing, and so is Bahama
(16:59):
Bucks.
SPEAKER_01 (17:00):
Absolutely.
Love that shout out.
And how can people find andfollow you and Opus Training?
SPEAKER_00 (17:06):
To check out Opus Training and actually try out
the app if you want, go toOpus.so.
If you want to follow me onLinkedIn and talk about the
industry, it's just RachelNemith on LinkedIn.
We are on all socials as acompany, Insta, Facebook, you
name it.
And yeah, don't be a stranger.
(17:27):
I love to talk about theindustry.
I'm very active on LinkedIn andI try to respond to every
comment.
SPEAKER_01 (17:33):
Awesome.
Well, Rachel, for showing usthat being good starts with
training well.
Today's ovation goes to you.
Thank you for joining us on GiveItovation.
SPEAKER_00 (17:41):
Thanks, Zach, very much for having me.
Excited to be here.
SPEAKER_01 (17:44):
Thanks for joining us today.
If you like this episode, leaveus a review on Apple Podcasts or
your favorite place to listen.
We're all about feedback here.
Again, this episode wassponsored by Ovation, a
two-question SMS-based,actionable guest feedback
platform built for multi-unitrestaurants.
If you'd like to learn how wecan help you measure and create
a better guest experience, visitus at ovationup.com.
Welcome to another edition of Give and Ovation, the
Restaurant Guest ExperiencePodcast.
I'm your host, Zach Ot, and eachweek I chat with industry
experts to uncover theirstrategies and tactics to help
you create a five-star guestexperience.
This podcast is powered byOvation, the feedback and
operations platform built formulti-unit restaurants.
Learn what is actually happeningin your restaurants and exactly
(00:22):
how to improve while drivingrevenue.
Learn more at ovationup.com.
And today I have a good friend,a partner, and just a fellow CEO
battling in the restaurant techspace, Rachel Nemuth.
She is the CEO at Opus Training.
And one thing, Rachel, that Ialways tell people is that the
second craziest people in theworld are those who open
(00:44):
restaurants.
I think that they are just likeabsolutely nuts.
But the first, the absolutecraziest people in the world are
those who build tech to sell tothose crazy people.
SPEAKER_00 (00:57):
Yeah.
I knew the second that came outof your mouth, I was like, I
don't know exactly what you'resaying.
SPEAKER_01 (01:01):
Yeah, yeah.
Because you know, you got tohave a couple of screws loose to
open up a restaurant becauseit's really, really hard.
But to say, like, hey, I want tosell to those people, you got to
have a couple of shelves loose.
So anyway, I am so glad thatyou're joining us in this
podcast.
We've tried to record thisbefore, but we just have too
much fun talking.
And so when we got on, I waslike, all right, Rachel, no
small talk.
We're just hitting recordbecause we're gonna we're gonna
(01:23):
take the whole time catching up.
For those who aren't familiar,there may be a couple of people.
We talk about Opus all the timeon this podcast.
For those who might be listeningfor the first time, explain to
us what Opus is.
SPEAKER_00 (01:34):
Opus is a training operating system that is
designed for businesses with alarge distributed workforce.
Our favorite customers aremulti-unit restaurant groups.
And Opus is designed to workwith those brands to help them
achieve the consistency theyneed in order to scale.
(01:55):
And we just firmly believe thattraining is the foundation of
really great guest experiencesand more fluid growth
opportunities.
SPEAKER_01 (02:05):
And I love that because when we think about
training, what does it mean totrain?
It's so much more than justlike, hey, here's a sheet of
paper that you should look atwhen you first onboard, right?
And the way that you do it, andI actually had my first
experience being an employee ofsorts of Opus because I was at a
(02:25):
trade show that they utilizedOpus to let people know where to
go, what they were supposed todo, what sessions they were
supposed to be in.
It was so easy and so useful togo in there and just know
exactly what I'm supposed to do.
SPEAKER_00 (02:39):
Yeah.
It's interesting.
You meant was this the umCraveCon?
SPEAKER_01 (02:43):
CraveCon, yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (02:44):
Yeah, total blast.
And what's interesting, thatparticular use case is Opus is a
training system, right?
Where it's a native AI platformthat's designed to help get
employees the information andthe knowledge they need in the
moment that they need it.
You just referenced paper.
That's 70% of the restaurantindustry.
(03:05):
Even folks who are using somesort of legacy learning
management system or LMS, partof their training is still
usually on paper, we found.
And that's usually the back ofhouse teams or the folks who
don't speak English.
Opus is designed to be a fullyinclusive app.
In order to get in, as youexperienced it, you use a phone
number, you put in first andlast name, and you're in.
(03:28):
It's linked to a location, itautomatically translates all of
your training and all of yourdocuments into 130 languages.
And the goal is that training isfinally accessible for the first
time.
One of the biggest barriers thatrestaurants see is not training
completion.
It's training adoption.
That's actually the biggestissue.
(03:50):
You can talk to any restaurantoperator and they can't tell you
if 100% of their team iscompleting training.
They can probably only tell youthat, yes, all of our servers
did it.
SPEAKER_01 (03:59):
Well, what about everyone else?
We did it at a pre-shift meetingand Joe wasn't there, but we did
it, right?
So Joe just needs to like figureit out as we go.
SPEAKER_00 (04:08):
Right.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (04:10):
And the reason I that we're such big fans of
ovation, of Opus and Ovation, Iguess, but isn't just I love
what you do, but also there's anawesome integration that we have
that we recently launched.
And talk to us about what thatmeans on your end.
Because obviously collectingguest feedback is so critical in
that guest connection, but thenclosing the loop with that
(04:30):
training to make sure that theright people are getting the
right training.
So talk to us about how you'releveraging AI and the feedback
that we're collecting.
SPEAKER_00 (04:39):
Yeah.
So we've been using AI since thefounding of Opus, which was over
five years ago, but the visionwas always bigger than using AI
for translation and contentgeneration and agentic AI for
asking questions.
What I love about thepartnership that we have with
Ovation is that we're reallyentering an entirely new chapter
with Opus around AI anomalydetection and intervention.
(05:02):
Those are just fancy words forbasically saying we can
integrate with any operationsplatform you have in order to
identify any issues that arehappening with your front line
and intervene and fix them withtraining before they become a
crisis.
So the status quo, and anyonewho's listening knows this, is
(05:23):
that all training is scheduled.
It's reactive, our sales aredown, so we're gonna push this
training out.
It's we had a bad guestexperience, so we're gonna push
training out.
Well, what if you could actuallydetect those trends early and
wedge in training before itbecomes a revenue issue?
So that's why I really love thework that we're doing to kind of
power all of that data fromovation and turn that into
(05:47):
meaningful training outcomes.
SPEAKER_01 (05:49):
Because it's not just about training your team.
And it's not just about trackingthe guest experience.
You have to train and track andtrack and train and train what
you track and tracked what youtrained.
You've got to be able to havethis cycle of this handoff in
this virtuous flywheel betweentracking and training.
Because the whole reason thatyou spent all this money hiring
(06:12):
someone, bringing them in,training them, the music, the
ambiance, everything that youdo, the ingredients that you
pick, how do you have yourrestaurant set up, the
furniture?
It's all for the guestexperience.
But so much of that guestexperience is about the
employees, are your team memberswho actually have that last,
(06:33):
that last we talk about the lastmile.
This is really the last inch.
When they're giving that food tothat guest, that handoff is the
key of the experience.
And I love that you have thatability to actually make sure
that they are getting trained onthe exact things that the guest
is saying that they need basedon how we're tracking.
(06:54):
And so I think that's what Ilove about this.
And I, you know, I've had aslide talking about training and
tracking for so long.
And so when our teams firststarted connecting about this, I
was like, yes, because this iswhat it needs to be.
It's all one thing, which is theemployee experience, the guest
experience, and then theprofitability of the restaurant.
(07:15):
And that's what it comes downto.
SPEAKER_00 (07:16):
And we see so many operators who invest so heavily,
if not overinvest, in decor andthen underinvest in staff
enablement.
And you have to ask yourself,okay, if I had to reallocate 10%
of my CapEx, OpEx from Ambianceinto employee tools, where would
(07:38):
I put it in order to make theguest feel good immediately?
It's gonna be in training.
It's gonna be in evoking thatreally amazing experience.
You know, I saw behind you ofunreasonable hospitality.
We hear this all the time thatthat the missing link between a
good and a great guestexperience is the human
(07:58):
experience.
But that requires training andcoaching.
And the best training andcoaching happens in the moment
when it's relevant and peoplecan respond to it and talk about
it.
Not when it's just like, hey,Joe Schmoe, just in case this
happens one day and you have acustomer who's had a bad day,
here's what you should do.
(08:19):
What if it can be entirelyresponsive to what's happening
in the business?
So I love what you guys aredoing.
I think you've already found away to sort of intervene in
really meaningful ways to createbetter guest experiences.
And now we're trying to find away to fold in the frontline
teams, the majority workforceinto that experience as well
with ovation.
SPEAKER_01 (08:39):
And I think it's so beautiful because one of the
things that is so critical isthis concept of markerations,
which is like, how doesmarketing operations connect?
SPEAKER_00 (08:50):
And I was like, all right, I don't know where this
is going.
SPEAKER_01 (08:55):
But the thing is, is that if you don't have your
operations buttoned up, guesswhat's gonna happen when you
spend all of this money to get aguest in the door?
They're gonna have a badexperience because either
service or accuracy was wrong,and then they're not gonna come
back.
And so not only are they notgonna come back, but what if
(09:17):
they go leave you a negativereview?
Then you've got 26 customersthat you just lost there.
I look at that like you could bepaying to have people have a
negative experience, and thenyou're actually losing money
because you paid to have someonecome in and have a bad
experience.
Let's imagine that you go andyou like have a first date, and
(09:37):
you're like, okay, I'm gonna goto a nice restaurant, we're
gonna spend all this money, I'mgonna invest in this date.
Then you're super rude on thedate.
Does it matter that you askedthe person?
Does it matter that youscheduled the reservation or
that you showed up or that yougot the right food?
No.
What matters is you were rudeand you're not getting a second
date.
Right.
And I think that's somethingthat is so key.
(09:57):
And so as we're talking aboutthe guest experience, as we're
talking about this, what whatare some tactics that you've
seen that have improved theguest experience, Rachel?
SPEAKER_00 (10:05):
So well, uh I think two things.
And and the first is actually inresponse to what you were saying
before.
I think we see this really tightloop between marketing and
training.
And if marketing brings inpromises, training has to arm
the frontline worker to deliveron them.
So those have to be kind ofinextricably linked when you
(10:30):
think about how to run yourbusiness.
So, in order to create kind ofbetter guest experiences, I'm
biased, but it has to come downto great training for your
frontline team.
If accuracy dips during an LTO,we can push a two-minute
refresher training at pre-shiftand measure review lift or
(10:53):
whatever sort of metric you'retrying to move.
We want to help be the driver todo that because the people who
are on the front line are thepeople who are delivering on
that promise.
So I think that has to be aconstant reminder for operators
that marketing is a brandpromise and you have to find
ways to deliver on it.
It's not just about the product.
SPEAKER_01 (11:12):
Oh my gosh.
Because uh especially when itcomes to like things like LTOs.
Yeah.
Right.
When I go in and I'm like, hey,I saw this ad.
I I came in to try this thing,and they're like, ah, I don't
know what that is.
And it's like, oh, well, this issilly.
Um, right.
And by the way, Rachel, datashows that if you want to create
a one-star experience, it isactually not about the food.
(11:35):
The food will create three-starexperiences, four-star
experiences, like, uh, it wasgood, but chances are you have a
good product.
You wouldn't be in business ifyou didn't have good food.
And the food might be made alittle bit wrong, might be a
little slow, whatever, but it isabout the number one thing that
is going to create a one-starreview is service.
(11:58):
Service, service, service.
How do they feel about it?
The second thing is gonna beaccuracy.
And guess what those two thingsare uh can be solved with?
unknown (12:08):
Training.
SPEAKER_01 (12:08):
Maybe training.
SPEAKER_00 (12:10):
But I want to add though that it's not just
training, it's real-timeresponse training.
I think one of the biggest gapsthat's happening today is when I
talk to operators and especiallyVPs of training, all of these
folks who are really championingtraining.
This is not a knock ondepartments.
It's just the reality of theworld we live in where marketing
(12:31):
gets the data or ops gets thedata, and then it takes months
to get that information down toyour training team so that they
can act on it.
Well, you don't have threemonths to react to an order
accuracy issue or a serviceview.
That's actually the differencebetween somebody coming back
into your store and not.
So you have to find ways torespond, either against the
(12:54):
franchise, the location, theindividual, so that you can
intervene it and resolve itquickly.
So that's why I love thinkingabout ways that you can get a
tighter, faster feedback loop.
I don't know about you, but atOpus, actually internally, just
our own culture, we have what'scalled a working with me
document.
(13:14):
Every time we hire a newemployee, we ask them 16
questions on how they like towork best.
How do you like to take notes?
How do you like to do X, Y, andZ?
And we always ask, how do youlike to receive feedback?
100% of the time, people say, Iwant it direct and in the
moment.
It's never varied.
No one ever says, I want you towait three weeks and tell me
(13:35):
what I'm doing wrong then.
Frontline teams want that too.
Your hourly team wants to knowand wants to be better.
That is why they're there.
It's they're there to succeedand they're there not just to
take home a paycheck, but to begood at their job.
That's just the humanexperience.
SPEAKER_01 (13:52):
I love that.
And because at the end of theday, one thing that holds true
in any company is that thecustomer experience cannot
exceed the employee experience.
And if you want your employeesto feel empowered to make
changes and to know exactly whatthey need to do to do a good
job, you need that real-timetraining.
(14:15):
A lot of people who listen tothis podcast are founders, they
own their own restaurants.
And it's sometimes hard as afounder, as a leader, because we
don't have our training manuals.
We don't know exactly what weneed to do to succeed, but we
just go and figure it out.
We cannot expect our team to dothat.
So we have to be able to realizethat for them to succeed, they
(14:38):
need to know what do we wantthem to do to succeed.
For us, it's all in our brainsbecause okay, I want to do this
and I'm gonna do it, and thenI'm successful.
But when you're dealing withemployees who aren't inside of
our heads who don't know, it'slike we got to make things a lot
clearer for them to make surethat they know how to be
successful.
And I think you will be shockedat how many of them truly do
(15:02):
want to be successful.
That person that you think is aB player, maybe they're just a B
player because we haven't giventhem the pathway to become an A
player.
SPEAKER_00 (15:10):
Right.
And sometimes being a B playeris just fine, but you still need
to be a good B player.
I was talking to Jason Morgan,the CEO of Original Chop Shop,
great guy, very smart.
And he's talking about the kindof reality of frontline
training.
And he says, listen, if my team,I'm parsing his words, but he's
basically if my entire frontlineteam, if 70 to 80% of them are
(15:34):
all B players, that's fine.
If that's the best we can getand they feel great at their job
because they're gonna go homeand have kids and second jobs
and commutes, that's okay.
They don't need to be anythingmore than just a good brand
ambassador.
And that top 10, 15%, let'screate opportunities for them to
grow.
No matter what, the through linebetween those A and B players is
(15:57):
they all wanna know what goodlooks like so that they can go
to work and feel successful,whatever success means to them.
SPEAKER_01 (16:04):
I love that.
Love that, love that, love that.
Rachel, you are just a pillar inthe industry.
You know so many people.
Who is someone that you feellike deserves innovation?
SPEAKER_00 (16:14):
The person who actually comes to mind today,
because there's a lot, is AndrewPacker, chief strategy officer
at Bahama Bucks.
If you don't know Andrew, youshould.
Just incredible operator,incredible thinker, incredible
energy.
Zach, you guys would matchenergy-wise.
SPEAKER_01 (16:34):
Well, I I love Bahama Bucks.
They're such a such a greatbrand.
SPEAKER_00 (16:38):
Great, great, great product.
And Andrew has always found away to kind of meaningfully
blend employee experiences andoperations to run a very
successful franchise operation.
I think there are 120 units andgrowing right now, but I love
what they're doing and Andrew'sworth knowing, and so is Bahama
(16:59):
Bucks.
SPEAKER_01 (17:00):
Absolutely.
Love that shout out.
And how can people find andfollow you and Opus Training?
SPEAKER_00 (17:06):
To check out Opus Training and actually try out
the app if you want, go toOpus.so.
If you want to follow me onLinkedIn and talk about the
industry, it's just RachelNemith on LinkedIn.
We are on all socials as acompany, Insta, Facebook, you
name it.
And yeah, don't be a stranger.
(17:27):
I love to talk about theindustry.
I'm very active on LinkedIn andI try to respond to every
comment.
SPEAKER_01 (17:33):
Awesome.
Well, Rachel, for showing usthat being good starts with
training well.
Today's ovation goes to you.
Thank you for joining us on GiveItovation.
SPEAKER_00 (17:41):
Thanks, Zach, very much for having me.
Excited to be here.
SPEAKER_01 (17:44):
Thanks for joining us today.
If you like this episode, leaveus a review on Apple Podcasts or
your favorite place to listen.
We're all about feedback here.
Again, this episode wassponsored by Ovation, a
two-question SMS-based,actionable guest feedback
platform built for multi-unitrestaurants.
If you'd like to learn how wecan help you measure and create
a better guest experience, visitus at ovationup.com.
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