March 10, 2025 • 21 mins
On this episode of Give an Ovation, Johnathan Chen, CEO and Co-Founder of 5&5, joins Zack Oates to discuss how restaurants can optimize their technology stack to improve operations and guest experience. With years of experience in restaurant tech and digital services, Johnathan shares insights on streamlining systems, avoiding tech overload, and ensuring that technology serves the guest—not complicates their journey.
Zack and Johnathan discuss:
- The biggest tech challenges restaurants face today
- How to reduce friction in the ordering process
- Why simplicity is the key to a great guest experience
- The impact of too many disconnected tools in restaurant operations
- How top brands are using technology the right way
Follow Johnathan Chan & 5&5:
- Website: https://5and5.com/
- LinkedIn: Johnathan Chen
Thanks, Johnathan! 🎉
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to another edition of Give an Ovation, the
restaurant guest experiencepodcast, where I talk to
industry experts to get theirstrategies and tactics you can
use to create a five-star guestexperience.
This podcast is sponsored byOvation, an operations and guest
recovery platform formulti-unit restaurants that
gives all the answers withoutannoying guests with all the
(00:21):
questions.
Learn more at OvationUpcom.
And today we have Jonathan Chen, the co-founder and CEO of 5 in
5.
And he was previously the headof strategy at 5 in 5 and took
over last year as a CEO Beendoing some amazing things over
there.
Obviously, he's been there fora while.
He actually, if you dig deepinto his LinkedIn, you see he's
(00:43):
no noob to the restaurantindustry.
He's been around the food andBev space for a while, so don't
let the brains fool you.
But, jonathan, welcome to thepodcast man.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Thank you for having me Excited to be here.
I'm humbled.
What an introduction, honestly.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
Well, all I did is read what you've done, man.
You've done some great thingsand for those who aren't
familiar with Five and Five, youwant to explain to us a little
bit about what it is.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Yeah, absolutely so.
5.5 is a food serviceintroduced.
Premier IT and digital managedservices company really kind of
support brands end to end fromeverything from RFP to SaaS,
implementation to POS andplatform management, and our
focus really is on making surethat brands have really the
ability to make the righttechnical decisions versus
sometimes what is the easiestdecision.
So really every brand that wework with has a completely
(01:28):
bespoke to W with us.
They decide how little or howmuch support they want from us,
and we support all the majorpoint of sale systems and tend
as well.
So really here I'm kind ofmaking sure that we are there to
support our brands and whateverthey're looking for new
technology, transitions,additions, whatever that may be
that's exactly what we're herefor.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
So what are some problems that you're solving?
When brands come to you andthey're like ah, jonathan, we
need some help because we havethis problem.
Where are you like?
Yeah, we nailed that for you.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Yeah, I would say COVID sparked a lot of this.
But as everything kind ofcontinues to become more and
more digital, a lot of thismeans adding more and more
technology to the solution stackand what was two or three
pieces now is 15, 16, 17 pieces.
And oftentimes brands arereally excited to add these
solution stacks in and thendon't realize it all has to
connect together for it to workseamlessly to get really kind of
(02:18):
the true value out of it.
And it gets to a point wherethere's too much and they're
really trying to figure out well, exactly what do we actually
need?
What do we need to do?
How do we fix the things aren'tworking?
How do we make sure we aregetting the value out of the
solutions that we signed up for?
And oftentimes it kind of comesto us in just this historic
whatever.
There's some tribal knowledge,some people know it's happened,
some people don't, and so it'sreally kind of us figuring,
(02:40):
figuring out from what is thisvery black box of what exactly
is happening and really how canwe kind of pull this together?
So I would say most of thetimes around commerce and saying
, hey, we know that there'sopportunity, we just need to
kind of help figuring it out.
So it's not always kind of aclear cut.
You know you need exactly whyor exactly x.
(03:00):
Some of our brands do come tous and say hey, look, we want to
redo our menu and we know thatredoing the menu is going to
impact the point of sale system,it's going to impact loyalty,
it's going to impact onlineordering.
How do we make sure we don'tbreak everything?
Then other times it's hey, wejust know things aren't working
and we need someone to come anddig in and figure out what's
going on.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
Yeah, and I think that that is something where
it's often with consulting.
When I was a consultant, it wasone of those things where,
before I got into consulting, Iwas like consulting is a joke.
You're going there, you chargea lot of money to do a simple
project, but really what itcomes down to is a lot of times
there's projects where it's tooexpensive to hire someone in or
(03:38):
hire a team in full time tohandle it, and that team would
be doing things for the firsttime.
And so when you work withadvisors, consultants, teams, it
allows you to solve a problemthat's very specific with
experts who have done it severaltimes.
So you have the benefit of notonly keeping up with your
competition, but going fasterthan them and making sure that
(04:01):
you're getting these criticalpieces of infrastructure in
place the right way.
Because, oh my gosh, jonathan,how many times do you have to go
in and clean up what someonetried to figure out for the
first time, where all they hadto do was make a call, and now
they're paying twice as much togo half as fast?
Speaker 2 (04:21):
Absolutely.
And I think the reallyinteresting part is cost is
always kind of this top of mindthing for brands, especially now
.
I mean the last few years Ithink we've all seen the
industry brands continue tofigure out ways to kind of cut
on G&E expense, really kind ofbalancing really kind of the
economic situation of wherewe're sitting from an industry
standpoint, and oftentimes wekind of talk about whether it's
a consulting resource or kind of18-inch services.
(04:43):
It oftentimes, surprisingly, itworks out better, partly just
kind of what you mentioned.
It's kind of an expertresourcing you have at the ready
, that's done this process quitea few times, that's going to
come in and fix the problemreally fully, versus kind of
duct tape the solution.
But part of this is also just,oftentimes, because the
expertise is there, you don'treally sometimes need that full
(05:03):
resource.
We have brands that come to usand say, hey, just help us clean
stuff up and then just make itmanageable and we can take care
of it.
So really being able to kind ofequip brands with the ability
to say, cool, what do I actuallyneed?
Where should this spendactually go?
That's what we're here for.
So where it could be a project,it could be an ongoing retainer
.
But for us, what do youactually need and really, how do
we clean this up for this toactually be sustainable long
(05:25):
term, with or without a resource, If that's not some of the
brand needs at this momentbecause of where they are in
terms of their brand growth?
Speaker 1 (05:32):
I'm a nerdy guy.
I like technology.
I'm guessing by your AirPodMaxes, you're kind of a nerd too
.
So, as we're sitting heretalking about the tech stack and
these different techs toimplement, I think one of the
things that it's always criticalto remember and I know that
from our teams have been talking, I know that 5 and 5 believes
(05:53):
this very strongly it's reallyabout the guest experience.
And if the technology is notenhancing the guest experience
in the end because a lot oftimes you could implement
technology and it helps with thebottom line or top line and
that allows you to invest morein the guest experience, but if
the end result doesn't all flowto the guest experience, it's
not a worthwhile endeavor.
(06:14):
So what do you look at, how doyou marry technology and guest
experience and what do you thinkthe most important aspect of
guest experience nowadays is?
Speaker 2 (06:25):
Yeah, that's a great question.
I mean I would say this is kindof really obvious, but I think,
from the position we stand in,we really feel like it's
oftentimes forgotten versusbeing the focus.
But I'd say the most importantaspect of the guest experience
is brands providing really thesimplest, least complicated way
to place an order.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
Oh my gosh, Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.
Can we just pause there andjust celebrate that moment?
Right, Remove the friction.
If people want to send moneywith you, let them.
97% of people have recentlybacked out of a purchase due to
friction.
I love that, Jonathan.
I just want to spend money withyou.
Let them.
97% of people have recentlybacked out of a purchase due to
friction.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
I love that, jonathan .
Speaker 1 (07:01):
I just want to celebrate you for saying that
man.
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
And look, I get that it's not the least or it's not
the most exciting or flashyinnovation.
It's not the thing that wereally want to be spending time
talking to.
It's not what makes thenewsletter, the publications,
it's not the stuff that the CTOsare most proud of.
But really, at the end of theday, it doesn't make a
difference if this is in-storeor digital.
Every time we make somethingcomplicated, it really prevents
(07:25):
the core of what the entirepurpose of everything we're
doing really is there for, whichis how do we make this
transaction happen when a storeruns out of items, is it 86 fast
enough with a customer placingtransaction?
Does it support digitalpayments?
Can you one-click order?
These are all kind of verystraightforward things.
Really.
Can a customer start thetransaction and end in?
How fast does it take for thatkind of end-to-end process?
(07:47):
And we were sitting here andsaying, cool, how do I optimize
everything from my POS to mypanels to can a staff go in and
easily place, modify ordersbased on customer requests?
Is that applied to web andmobile?
Look, at the end of the day,the way I see it is, the
ordering experience can bepretty, but if it adds
unnecessary components andcomplexity for a customer trying
to place a transaction.
I think the brand started tofocus on the wrong things and
(08:10):
really just focusing on cool.
How do I go from the start ofthe transaction to the end?
As simple, straightforward,least complicated as possible.
From the start of thetransaction to the end?
As simple, straightforward,least complicated as possible is
really where brands are goingto start to win and, I think,
where a lot of brands arestarting to really focus their
energy and attention.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
It makes so much sense and it's so simple, right?
And I think that that's thething about so much of
hospitality is you hear it andyou think, well, no, duh.
But here's the thing it's hardto implement because there's a
thousand other things punchingus in the face and we start to
(08:46):
get away from the reason thatwe're in it, which is that human
to human aspect, and we'rethere to fill people and help
them feel fulfilled, and thoseare things that often get
overlooked as you work with alot of these brands.
Typically, your averagecustomer has quite a few
locations.
You're working with some of thebiggest of the biggest brands.
(09:08):
Yeah, and what is somethingthat you would recommend?
What are some tactics that youwould recommend to improve the
guest experience for bothmulti-unit brands?
And then, what are some piecesof advice maybe for some of the
smaller brands out there thatare looking to grow into someone
who can claim to be one of yourcustomers?
Speaker 2 (09:26):
Yeah, absolutely.
I think it is kind of similarand tied to kind of what we were
just talking about.
But a lot of this is kind ofthis like back to basics, which
is kind of this approach that Ifeel like in general, a lot of
brands are going to take anddoesn't matter for small trying
to go big or big and massive asan organization.
A lot of this comes down tosimplicity and that is what that
(09:47):
looks like in terms of coreexecution and what success is
going to kind of resembleongoing.
And I think a lot of this alsocombines a lot of the thematics
we kind of continue to hearwithin the restaurant industry.
Is there this buy versus buildapproach?
Do I go and handpick anintegration for every single
point of my system or do I dothis kind of all in one solution
?
And all of this kind of tiesback down to brands are just
(10:08):
starting to evaluate whether ornot what they've chosen is
actually what they need.
Is every solution andtechnology stack necessary?
Is it actually doing the valueto's expected?
Is it actually driving salesand actually making customer
experience better?
And I think a lot of this iswhat I mean by the back to
basics approach is just beingintentional and looking at the
entire customer journey, Whetherthat's in store or online.
We're really saying what do weneed to make it better and
(10:30):
faster for a customer?
And I think this is applicableregardless of the brand size,
Because I think when you'resmall going big, you start
saying, look, how do I catch upto the big guys?
The big guys have the fancy UIson the front end.
You have all these greatdestination platforms, etc.
How do I add all this stuff in?
But again, if you're notutilizing it correctly, it's not
integrated properly.
It doesn't matter that you haveit, because you're not able to
(10:51):
get the true value out of it.
No-transcript, and I thinkwe've even seen it.
(11:23):
Really from a marketingperspective, right, we look at
every single brand and, asthey've been moving forward in
this process of like, what isthat?
Back to basics, right, itdoesn't matter if that's
McDonald's looking at theirvalue proposition.
It doesn't matter if it's allthese brands starting to do
nostalgic LTOs or going back tobrand aesthetics and historicals
of saying, look, why do peoplelike us to begin with?
What made us as great a brandas we are today?
(11:45):
That still applies very much tothe technology stack.
I always say that, for all thework that we do, I still order
from the Uber Eats and DoorDashand part of it is look, I know
that I'm paying a premium, butordering through these platforms
guarantees me basic andunnecessary when I'm just trying
to place a transaction.
Secondly, I'm hungry.
I just want to order somethingthat I know is a consistent UI,
(12:07):
no matter where I'm placingtransaction from.
If I run into a problem, I'mgoing to get an AI agent that
immediately solves it or someonethat's going to come take care
of my problem.
And the brands that are able tocreate a very similar
experience are the ones that Ichoose to order from natively.
Because your inability toensure that a customer get from
the start to the end as easy aspossible no points, no loyalty
(12:28):
program, no integration, nosystem is going to solve those
issues.
And really the best apps thatexist are the ones that enable
the kind of very seamlesstransition between in-store and
digital, but still allow theability to one recognize that
you're a customer, yes, but alsorecognizing that as a customer,
you just want to place atransaction.
So, if I can make sure that youdon't run into payment issues,
(12:48):
you don't run into any weird UIissues, you don't run into order
issues.
That's where I think brands aregoing to again need to focus
effort on to make sure they arecapturing that market segment.
I would say for most of ourbrands really, especially this
year, we have a lot.
What is working, what isn't.
How do we clean this up?
How do you simplify it?
Because it gets to a pointwhere there's too much to manage
(13:09):
and brands are struggling withreally kind of justifying.
Not only is it worth the cost,is it worth the ongoing effort
to continue to maintain thesesystems?
Are we actually getting truevalue?
How are we measuring the returnon investment?
Is it really doing the thingswe thought it was supposed to do
when we added it into oursystem?
Speaker 1 (13:25):
And I think that's so appropriate that when you buy a
technology, it's like buying aboat you don't finish, the
expense is not signed when youpay for it upfront, right, you
always have to maintain it, youhave to use it, you have to
train people on it.
And I think a lot of timesabout we moved into a house and
(13:46):
we put a nice big hood over ourstove.
My wife and I we'd never had ahood before.
So we get there and when westart cooking our first meal,
that's really smoky.
Guess what we don't do?
We didn't turn the hood onright Smoke detectors went off
and it was a whole to do, but wehad the hood, we just didn't
(14:06):
use it.
And I think that's what happensa lot of times with technology
is you get this new piece oftechnology and your staff
forgets to do something simplelike turn it on, to use it.
Or I just talked to a brandrecently and they were like yeah
, we're trying to figure out allthe stuff that was purchased,
(14:27):
because we don't even know.
We don't know what waspurchased, because there were
things that were purchased thatwere a marketing tool that we
weren't even consulted on, andthis was the head of marketing,
and so these are things that wedidn't really have to focus on
and ensure that, like you said,we're not just buying the right
technology, but that it'sspeaking together the right way
(14:49):
and that we're talking to ourpeople about it the right way to
use it, and really do thatevaluation.
Go down Doge style, not to getpolitical, but like line by line
and see what's the value you'regetting here.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
Yeah, and I think a lot of where I'm incredibly
grateful that we kind of sit inthis very interesting position
because, like we don't know anysoftware and a lot of kind of
our process has been superintentional and just saying,
look, we're going to be agnostic, whatever our brands choose is
really what we're going to beable to support.
If they want to move elsewhere,we're going to be able to
support that.
But it's also in our kind ofability to work closely with our
(15:23):
partners and say how do we makesure that our brands are
getting the most value?
Because, like half the time, abrand will sign up and say cool,
this looks really good on paper, they'll get the sales process,
the partner's excited, get themsigned, and then there's no
traction and then the brandeventually kind of falls off and
the reality is it's thetechnology.
There is just simply adisconnect with how is that
brand getting value out of thesystem?
(15:44):
Do they understand how it evenworks?
Is it even integrated properly?
These are question marksBecause, look, if you talk from,
I'm sure, your perspective andhaving the SaaS solution, it's
sometimes really basic stuffthat you expect was already done
.
But someone on the brand said,yep, I did that task of making
sure everything's connected andnever happened.
And so you're getting half theamount of information that's
(16:04):
needed for your platform to workeffectively and the brand's not
happy because they're notgetting the results and
everything seems kind of weird.
And so our role also is makingsure that, if a brand signed up
for something that our partnersare also successful in that
space, that's 100% we're herefor it's, sitting here and
saying, cool, what are you using?
Does it make sense and are yougetting the most out of it?
(16:26):
Because I think oftentimes,like you said, brands are
signing up and saying, cool,this is nice, pretty, I've
turned it on, and then theyforget that it's there.
And when you forget that it'sthere and not utilizing
correctly and yes, it's going tobe very easy for you to sit
here and say, cool, I'm notgetting the value out of it when
the reality is, you're just notsimply utilizing really the
full breadth of what thatsolution is there for and
designed to be able to do forthe brand as well, yeah, I think
that one of the biggest thingsthat I feel like is an issue
(16:49):
with restaurants and technology.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
Now that restaurants have really started to adopt
technology since COVID, as youwere talking about, the next big
hurdle is implementing andutilizing that technology.
There are so many vendors.
I guarantee you right now inyour brand you are working with
a vendor who can solve a problemfor you that you are paying for
(17:12):
, that you don't know they cando so.
As part of going through thataudit of what is the value here,
part of that is let's reconnectand let's make sure that you
and that your vendor arechatting and understanding that,
so you get the full breadth ofwhat they can do, because
there's so many things.
I just talked yesterday tosomeone who didn't know that you
(17:34):
can use Novation phone numberto text back and forth without
submitting feedback.
Right, that's a brand new thingfor them, but something that we
have.
There's so many things thatevery vendor can do that it's
hard to remember what they areand aren't using, what they have
and haven't heard about, whatthey chose not to use, what they
(17:55):
didn't know they can use, andso, yeah, I would say in that
evaluation process, it's reallypowerful to go through and
understand, and that's part ofthe benefit of using someone
like you right, jonathan, isthat you take it upon yourself
to understand the scope andcapabilities of these tech
vendors.
That's why I think it's sopowerful to leverage someone who
has that expertise.
Now, I know we're running lowon time here, and I do want to
(18:18):
make sure that we hear thisanswer, because you know a lot
of people in the restaurantindustry, and so who is someone
that you think deserves anovation?
Who's someone who we should befollowing?
Speaker 2 (18:29):
I think a close friend of yours, but I'm going
to throw the ovation of enoughthat Vicky, because I think a
lot of what he does and this iswhat I have immense respect for
is he's not creating content forthe sake of it being content,
and every post that he's postingis not sales.
It is something that's reallyintentionally there.
To kind of start theconversation is to add context
(18:51):
to the conversation.
He's super passionate aboutwhat he does.
They have a beautiful platform.
A lot of it is saying how do weadd value to the conversation?
How do I show brands what theycan get out of it?
And I think I mean this is anice way LinkedIn has kind of
like started to transform tolike Facebook is what it feels
like.
So to really kind of feel andsee authentic content and really
(19:12):
the way I see it is in meetinghim.
He posts the way he talks.
He's not fluffing this up to besomething else, and so his
ability to be an expert in hisspace and also be authentic in
the way he's approaching it inhis voice shines through.
There's a ton of value that Iget just kind of seeing what
he's posting about the brandsthat are working with this
platform and really kind of howhe's seeing the industry and
technology continually evolve,that it feels like it's an
(19:35):
actual honest conversation andit's adding canning to the fire
versus it's just there to saysomething, to say something in a
space.
So I throw it to him, immenserespect for him and kind of
everything he's built with histeam.
But that's who I give theovation to.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
Awesome.
Yeah, love Bicky, love Abhi.
He does some awesome stuff.
Great content, great human,very well deserved.
Now where can people go to findand follow you, jonathan?
Speaker 2 (20:00):
Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
And 5 and 5.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
And 5 and 5.
You're welcome to follow me onLinkedIn.
I don't host super frequently,so 5 and 5 probably is where you
can get most of the updates,but you can search my name,
jonathan Chen, on LinkedIn.
Otherwise, in terms of 5 and 5,you can search us both on
Facebook, alongside of Instagramand LinkedIn.
On LinkedIn and Facebook, it'llbe 5 and 5.
On LinkedIn, it's 5and5,underscore com, and then our
(20:25):
website is 5and5.com 5and5.com.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
Awesome.
Well, jonathan, for remindingus that the heart of the guest
experience is not necessarilyabout technology, but simplicity
.
Today's ovation goes to you.
Thank you so much for joiningus on Give an Ovation.
Thanks for having me Appreciateit.
Thanks for joining us today.
If you liked this episode,leave us a review on Apple
Podcasts or your favorite placeto listen.
We're all about feedback here.
(20:50):
Again, this episode wassponsored by Ovation, a
two-question, sms-basedactionable 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 OvationUpcom.
Welcome to another edition of Give an Ovation, the
restaurant guest experiencepodcast, where I talk to
industry experts to get theirstrategies and tactics you can
use to create a five-star guestexperience.
This podcast is sponsored byOvation, an operations and guest
recovery platform formulti-unit restaurants that
gives all the answers withoutannoying guests with all the
(00:21):
questions.
Learn more at OvationUpcom.
And today we have Jonathan Chen, the co-founder and CEO of 5 in
5.
And he was previously the headof strategy at 5 in 5 and took
over last year as a CEO Beendoing some amazing things over
there.
Obviously, he's been there fora while.
He actually, if you dig deepinto his LinkedIn, you see he's
(00:43):
no noob to the restaurantindustry.
He's been around the food andBev space for a while, so don't
let the brains fool you.
But, jonathan, welcome to thepodcast man.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Thank you for having me Excited to be here.
I'm humbled.
What an introduction, honestly.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
Well, all I did is read what you've done, man.
You've done some great thingsand for those who aren't
familiar with Five and Five, youwant to explain to us a little
bit about what it is.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Yeah, absolutely so.
5.5 is a food serviceintroduced.
Premier IT and digital managedservices company really kind of
support brands end to end fromeverything from RFP to SaaS,
implementation to POS andplatform management, and our
focus really is on making surethat brands have really the
ability to make the righttechnical decisions versus
sometimes what is the easiestdecision.
So really every brand that wework with has a completely
(01:28):
bespoke to W with us.
They decide how little or howmuch support they want from us,
and we support all the majorpoint of sale systems and tend
as well.
So really here I'm kind ofmaking sure that we are there to
support our brands and whateverthey're looking for new
technology, transitions,additions, whatever that may be
that's exactly what we're herefor.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
So what are some problems that you're solving?
When brands come to you andthey're like ah, jonathan, we
need some help because we havethis problem.
Where are you like?
Yeah, we nailed that for you.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Yeah, I would say COVID sparked a lot of this.
But as everything kind ofcontinues to become more and
more digital, a lot of thismeans adding more and more
technology to the solution stackand what was two or three
pieces now is 15, 16, 17 pieces.
And oftentimes brands arereally excited to add these
solution stacks in and thendon't realize it all has to
connect together for it to workseamlessly to get really kind of
(02:18):
the true value out of it.
And it gets to a point wherethere's too much and they're
really trying to figure out well, exactly what do we actually
need?
What do we need to do?
How do we fix the things aren'tworking?
How do we make sure we aregetting the value out of the
solutions that we signed up for?
And oftentimes it kind of comesto us in just this historic
whatever.
There's some tribal knowledge,some people know it's happened,
some people don't, and so it'sreally kind of us figuring,
(02:40):
figuring out from what is thisvery black box of what exactly
is happening and really how canwe kind of pull this together?
So I would say most of thetimes around commerce and saying
, hey, we know that there'sopportunity, we just need to
kind of help figuring it out.
So it's not always kind of aclear cut.
You know you need exactly whyor exactly x.
(03:00):
Some of our brands do come tous and say hey, look, we want to
redo our menu and we know thatredoing the menu is going to
impact the point of sale system,it's going to impact loyalty,
it's going to impact onlineordering.
How do we make sure we don'tbreak everything?
Then other times it's hey, wejust know things aren't working
and we need someone to come anddig in and figure out what's
going on.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
Yeah, and I think that that is something where
it's often with consulting.
When I was a consultant, it wasone of those things where,
before I got into consulting, Iwas like consulting is a joke.
You're going there, you chargea lot of money to do a simple
project, but really what itcomes down to is a lot of times
there's projects where it's tooexpensive to hire someone in or
(03:38):
hire a team in full time tohandle it, and that team would
be doing things for the firsttime.
And so when you work withadvisors, consultants, teams, it
allows you to solve a problemthat's very specific with
experts who have done it severaltimes.
So you have the benefit of notonly keeping up with your
competition, but going fasterthan them and making sure that
(04:01):
you're getting these criticalpieces of infrastructure in
place the right way.
Because, oh my gosh, jonathan,how many times do you have to go
in and clean up what someonetried to figure out for the
first time, where all they hadto do was make a call, and now
they're paying twice as much togo half as fast?
Speaker 2 (04:21):
Absolutely.
And I think the reallyinteresting part is cost is
always kind of this top of mindthing for brands, especially now
.
I mean the last few years Ithink we've all seen the
industry brands continue tofigure out ways to kind of cut
on G&E expense, really kind ofbalancing really kind of the
economic situation of wherewe're sitting from an industry
standpoint, and oftentimes wekind of talk about whether it's
a consulting resource or kind of18-inch services.
(04:43):
It oftentimes, surprisingly, itworks out better, partly just
kind of what you mentioned.
It's kind of an expertresourcing you have at the ready
, that's done this process quitea few times, that's going to
come in and fix the problemreally fully, versus kind of
duct tape the solution.
But part of this is also just,oftentimes, because the
expertise is there, you don'treally sometimes need that full
(05:03):
resource.
We have brands that come to usand say, hey, just help us clean
stuff up and then just make itmanageable and we can take care
of it.
So really being able to kind ofequip brands with the ability
to say, cool, what do I actuallyneed?
Where should this spendactually go?
That's what we're here for.
So where it could be a project,it could be an ongoing retainer
.
But for us, what do youactually need and really, how do
we clean this up for this toactually be sustainable long
(05:25):
term, with or without a resource, If that's not some of the
brand needs at this momentbecause of where they are in
terms of their brand growth?
Speaker 1 (05:32):
I'm a nerdy guy.
I like technology.
I'm guessing by your AirPodMaxes, you're kind of a nerd too
.
So, as we're sitting heretalking about the tech stack and
these different techs toimplement, I think one of the
things that it's always criticalto remember and I know that
from our teams have been talking, I know that 5 and 5 believes
(05:53):
this very strongly it's reallyabout the guest experience.
And if the technology is notenhancing the guest experience
in the end because a lot oftimes you could implement
technology and it helps with thebottom line or top line and
that allows you to invest morein the guest experience, but if
the end result doesn't all flowto the guest experience, it's
not a worthwhile endeavor.
(06:14):
So what do you look at, how doyou marry technology and guest
experience and what do you thinkthe most important aspect of
guest experience nowadays is?
Speaker 2 (06:25):
Yeah, that's a great question.
I mean I would say this is kindof really obvious, but I think,
from the position we stand in,we really feel like it's
oftentimes forgotten versusbeing the focus.
But I'd say the most importantaspect of the guest experience
is brands providing really thesimplest, least complicated way
to place an order.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
Oh my gosh, Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.
Can we just pause there andjust celebrate that moment?
Right, Remove the friction.
If people want to send moneywith you, let them.
97% of people have recentlybacked out of a purchase due to
friction.
I love that, Jonathan.
I just want to spend money withyou.
Let them.
97% of people have recentlybacked out of a purchase due to
friction.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
I love that, jonathan .
Speaker 1 (07:01):
I just want to celebrate you for saying that
man.
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
And look, I get that it's not the least or it's not
the most exciting or flashyinnovation.
It's not the thing that wereally want to be spending time
talking to.
It's not what makes thenewsletter, the publications,
it's not the stuff that the CTOsare most proud of.
But really, at the end of theday, it doesn't make a
difference if this is in-storeor digital.
Every time we make somethingcomplicated, it really prevents
(07:25):
the core of what the entirepurpose of everything we're
doing really is there for, whichis how do we make this
transaction happen when a storeruns out of items, is it 86 fast
enough with a customer placingtransaction?
Does it support digitalpayments?
Can you one-click order?
These are all kind of verystraightforward things.
Really.
Can a customer start thetransaction and end in?
How fast does it take for thatkind of end-to-end process?
(07:47):
And we were sitting here andsaying, cool, how do I optimize
everything from my POS to mypanels to can a staff go in and
easily place, modify ordersbased on customer requests?
Is that applied to web andmobile?
Look, at the end of the day,the way I see it is, the
ordering experience can bepretty, but if it adds
unnecessary components andcomplexity for a customer trying
to place a transaction.
I think the brand started tofocus on the wrong things and
(08:10):
really just focusing on cool.
How do I go from the start ofthe transaction to the end?
As simple, straightforward,least complicated as possible.
From the start of thetransaction to the end?
As simple, straightforward,least complicated as possible is
really where brands are goingto start to win and, I think,
where a lot of brands arestarting to really focus their
energy and attention.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
It makes so much sense and it's so simple, right?
And I think that that's thething about so much of
hospitality is you hear it andyou think, well, no, duh.
But here's the thing it's hardto implement because there's a
thousand other things punchingus in the face and we start to
(08:46):
get away from the reason thatwe're in it, which is that human
to human aspect, and we'rethere to fill people and help
them feel fulfilled, and thoseare things that often get
overlooked as you work with alot of these brands.
Typically, your averagecustomer has quite a few
locations.
You're working with some of thebiggest of the biggest brands.
(09:08):
Yeah, and what is somethingthat you would recommend?
What are some tactics that youwould recommend to improve the
guest experience for bothmulti-unit brands?
And then, what are some piecesof advice maybe for some of the
smaller brands out there thatare looking to grow into someone
who can claim to be one of yourcustomers?
Speaker 2 (09:26):
Yeah, absolutely.
I think it is kind of similarand tied to kind of what we were
just talking about.
But a lot of this is kind ofthis like back to basics, which
is kind of this approach that Ifeel like in general, a lot of
brands are going to take anddoesn't matter for small trying
to go big or big and massive asan organization.
A lot of this comes down tosimplicity and that is what that
(09:47):
looks like in terms of coreexecution and what success is
going to kind of resembleongoing.
And I think a lot of this alsocombines a lot of the thematics
we kind of continue to hearwithin the restaurant industry.
Is there this buy versus buildapproach?
Do I go and handpick anintegration for every single
point of my system or do I dothis kind of all in one solution
?
And all of this kind of tiesback down to brands are just
(10:08):
starting to evaluate whether ornot what they've chosen is
actually what they need.
Is every solution andtechnology stack necessary?
Is it actually doing the valueto's expected?
Is it actually driving salesand actually making customer
experience better?
And I think a lot of this iswhat I mean by the back to
basics approach is just beingintentional and looking at the
entire customer journey, Whetherthat's in store or online.
We're really saying what do weneed to make it better and
(10:30):
faster for a customer?
And I think this is applicableregardless of the brand size,
Because I think when you'resmall going big, you start
saying, look, how do I catch upto the big guys?
The big guys have the fancy UIson the front end.
You have all these greatdestination platforms, etc.
How do I add all this stuff in?
But again, if you're notutilizing it correctly, it's not
integrated properly.
It doesn't matter that you haveit, because you're not able to
(10:51):
get the true value out of it.
No-transcript, and I thinkwe've even seen it.
(11:23):
Really from a marketingperspective, right, we look at
every single brand and, asthey've been moving forward in
this process of like, what isthat?
Back to basics, right, itdoesn't matter if that's
McDonald's looking at theirvalue proposition.
It doesn't matter if it's allthese brands starting to do
nostalgic LTOs or going back tobrand aesthetics and historicals
of saying, look, why do peoplelike us to begin with?
What made us as great a brandas we are today?
(11:45):
That still applies very much tothe technology stack.
I always say that, for all thework that we do, I still order
from the Uber Eats and DoorDashand part of it is look, I know
that I'm paying a premium, butordering through these platforms
guarantees me basic andunnecessary when I'm just trying
to place a transaction.
Secondly, I'm hungry.
I just want to order somethingthat I know is a consistent UI,
(12:07):
no matter where I'm placingtransaction from.
If I run into a problem, I'mgoing to get an AI agent that
immediately solves it or someonethat's going to come take care
of my problem.
And the brands that are able tocreate a very similar
experience are the ones that Ichoose to order from natively.
Because your inability toensure that a customer get from
the start to the end as easy aspossible no points, no loyalty
(12:28):
program, no integration, nosystem is going to solve those
issues.
And really the best apps thatexist are the ones that enable
the kind of very seamlesstransition between in-store and
digital, but still allow theability to one recognize that
you're a customer, yes, but alsorecognizing that as a customer,
you just want to place atransaction.
So, if I can make sure that youdon't run into payment issues,
(12:48):
you don't run into any weird UIissues, you don't run into order
issues.
That's where I think brands aregoing to again need to focus
effort on to make sure they arecapturing that market segment.
I would say for most of ourbrands really, especially this
year, we have a lot.
What is working, what isn't.
How do we clean this up?
How do you simplify it?
Because it gets to a pointwhere there's too much to manage
(13:09):
and brands are struggling withreally kind of justifying.
Not only is it worth the cost,is it worth the ongoing effort
to continue to maintain thesesystems?
Are we actually getting truevalue?
How are we measuring the returnon investment?
Is it really doing the thingswe thought it was supposed to do
when we added it into oursystem?
Speaker 1 (13:25):
And I think that's so appropriate that when you buy a
technology, it's like buying aboat you don't finish, the
expense is not signed when youpay for it upfront, right, you
always have to maintain it, youhave to use it, you have to
train people on it.
And I think a lot of timesabout we moved into a house and
(13:46):
we put a nice big hood over ourstove.
My wife and I we'd never had ahood before.
So we get there and when westart cooking our first meal,
that's really smoky.
Guess what we don't do?
We didn't turn the hood onright Smoke detectors went off
and it was a whole to do, but wehad the hood, we just didn't
(14:06):
use it.
And I think that's what happensa lot of times with technology
is you get this new piece oftechnology and your staff
forgets to do something simplelike turn it on, to use it.
Or I just talked to a brandrecently and they were like yeah
, we're trying to figure out allthe stuff that was purchased,
(14:27):
because we don't even know.
We don't know what waspurchased, because there were
things that were purchased thatwere a marketing tool that we
weren't even consulted on, andthis was the head of marketing,
and so these are things that wedidn't really have to focus on
and ensure that, like you said,we're not just buying the right
technology, but that it'sspeaking together the right way
(14:49):
and that we're talking to ourpeople about it the right way to
use it, and really do thatevaluation.
Go down Doge style, not to getpolitical, but like line by line
and see what's the value you'regetting here.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
Yeah, and I think a lot of where I'm incredibly
grateful that we kind of sit inthis very interesting position
because, like we don't know anysoftware and a lot of kind of
our process has been superintentional and just saying,
look, we're going to be agnostic, whatever our brands choose is
really what we're going to beable to support.
If they want to move elsewhere,we're going to be able to
support that.
But it's also in our kind ofability to work closely with our
(15:23):
partners and say how do we makesure that our brands are
getting the most value?
Because, like half the time, abrand will sign up and say cool,
this looks really good on paper, they'll get the sales process,
the partner's excited, get themsigned, and then there's no
traction and then the brandeventually kind of falls off and
the reality is it's thetechnology.
There is just simply adisconnect with how is that
brand getting value out of thesystem?
(15:44):
Do they understand how it evenworks?
Is it even integrated properly?
These are question marksBecause, look, if you talk from,
I'm sure, your perspective andhaving the SaaS solution, it's
sometimes really basic stuffthat you expect was already done
.
But someone on the brand said,yep, I did that task of making
sure everything's connected andnever happened.
And so you're getting half theamount of information that's
(16:04):
needed for your platform to workeffectively and the brand's not
happy because they're notgetting the results and
everything seems kind of weird.
And so our role also is makingsure that, if a brand signed up
for something that our partnersare also successful in that
space, that's 100% we're herefor it's, sitting here and
saying, cool, what are you using?
Does it make sense and are yougetting the most out of it?
(16:26):
Because I think oftentimes,like you said, brands are
signing up and saying, cool,this is nice, pretty, I've
turned it on, and then theyforget that it's there.
And when you forget that it'sthere and not utilizing
correctly and yes, it's going tobe very easy for you to sit
here and say, cool, I'm notgetting the value out of it when
the reality is, you're just notsimply utilizing really the
full breadth of what thatsolution is there for and
designed to be able to do forthe brand as well, yeah, I think
that one of the biggest thingsthat I feel like is an issue
(16:49):
with restaurants and technology.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
Now that restaurants have really started to adopt
technology since COVID, as youwere talking about, the next big
hurdle is implementing andutilizing that technology.
There are so many vendors.
I guarantee you right now inyour brand you are working with
a vendor who can solve a problemfor you that you are paying for
(17:12):
, that you don't know they cando so.
As part of going through thataudit of what is the value here,
part of that is let's reconnectand let's make sure that you
and that your vendor arechatting and understanding that,
so you get the full breadth ofwhat they can do, because
there's so many things.
I just talked yesterday tosomeone who didn't know that you
(17:34):
can use Novation phone numberto text back and forth without
submitting feedback.
Right, that's a brand new thingfor them, but something that we
have.
There's so many things thatevery vendor can do that it's
hard to remember what they areand aren't using, what they have
and haven't heard about, whatthey chose not to use, what they
(17:55):
didn't know they can use, andso, yeah, I would say in that
evaluation process, it's reallypowerful to go through and
understand, and that's part ofthe benefit of using someone
like you right, jonathan, isthat you take it upon yourself
to understand the scope andcapabilities of these tech
vendors.
That's why I think it's sopowerful to leverage someone who
has that expertise.
Now, I know we're running lowon time here, and I do want to
(18:18):
make sure that we hear thisanswer, because you know a lot
of people in the restaurantindustry, and so who is someone
that you think deserves anovation?
Who's someone who we should befollowing?
Speaker 2 (18:29):
I think a close friend of yours, but I'm going
to throw the ovation of enoughthat Vicky, because I think a
lot of what he does and this iswhat I have immense respect for
is he's not creating content forthe sake of it being content,
and every post that he's postingis not sales.
It is something that's reallyintentionally there.
To kind of start theconversation is to add context
(18:51):
to the conversation.
He's super passionate aboutwhat he does.
They have a beautiful platform.
A lot of it is saying how do weadd value to the conversation?
How do I show brands what theycan get out of it?
And I think I mean this is anice way LinkedIn has kind of
like started to transform tolike Facebook is what it feels
like.
So to really kind of feel andsee authentic content and really
(19:12):
the way I see it is in meetinghim.
He posts the way he talks.
He's not fluffing this up to besomething else, and so his
ability to be an expert in hisspace and also be authentic in
the way he's approaching it inhis voice shines through.
There's a ton of value that Iget just kind of seeing what
he's posting about the brandsthat are working with this
platform and really kind of howhe's seeing the industry and
technology continually evolve,that it feels like it's an
(19:35):
actual honest conversation andit's adding canning to the fire
versus it's just there to saysomething, to say something in a
space.
So I throw it to him, immenserespect for him and kind of
everything he's built with histeam.
But that's who I give theovation to.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
Awesome.
Yeah, love Bicky, love Abhi.
He does some awesome stuff.
Great content, great human,very well deserved.
Now where can people go to findand follow you, jonathan?
Speaker 2 (20:00):
Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
And 5 and 5.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
And 5 and 5.
You're welcome to follow me onLinkedIn.
I don't host super frequently,so 5 and 5 probably is where you
can get most of the updates,but you can search my name,
jonathan Chen, on LinkedIn.
Otherwise, in terms of 5 and 5,you can search us both on
Facebook, alongside of Instagramand LinkedIn.
On LinkedIn and Facebook, it'llbe 5 and 5.
On LinkedIn, it's 5and5,underscore com, and then our
(20:25):
website is 5and5.com 5and5.com.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
Awesome.
Well, jonathan, for remindingus that the heart of the guest
experience is not necessarilyabout technology, but simplicity
.
Today's ovation goes to you.
Thank you so much for joiningus on Give an Ovation.
Thanks for having me Appreciateit.
Thanks for joining us today.
If you liked this episode,leave us a review on Apple
Podcasts or your favorite placeto listen.
We're all about feedback here.
(20:50):
Again, this episode wassponsored by Ovation, a
two-question, sms-basedactionable 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 OvationUpcom.
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