April 30, 2025 • 15 mins
Yasaman Stewart, Senior Director of Marketing at Brix Holdings, joins Zack to share how consistency, energy, and real connection drive powerful guest experiences. Drawing from her deep operations and marketing background, Yasaman explains how brands can inspire their teams, build authentic connections, and turn recognition into loyalty.
Zack and Yasaman discuss:
- Why consistency in execution builds brand trust
- How operational passion elevates marketing efforts
- Creating emotional guest connections through genuine service
- Tailoring the guest experience while staying consistent
- Leveraging feedback and rewards to drive team motivation
Tune in to hear how Yasaman’s people-first approach is creating contagious excitement across brands.
Thanks, Yasaman!
Learn more:
https://ovationup.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/yasamanstewart/
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Give an Ovation, the restaurant guest
experience podcast.
I'm your host, zach Oates, andeach week I chat with industry
experts to uncover realstrategies and actionable
tactics you can use to create afive-star guest experience.
This podcast is powered byOvation, the feedback and
operations platform built formulti-unit restaurants.
It gives you the insights youneed without the annoying guest
(00:23):
questions.
Learn more at OvationUpcom.
Today I'm excited because wehave someone who and I'm excited
every week we do this, butespecially today because Yasmin
Stewart is not only an amazingindustry veteran and great human
, but she's also just so smartand she gets marketing and I'm
(00:43):
excited to have you on to talkabout the guest experience.
She is the senior director ofmarketing at Bricks Holdings,
where she is at the helm ofmarketing for Friendly's, and
now she's working with CleanJuice as well.
It's pretty fun, yasmin, thatyou can with Bricks.
You don't have to just focus onone brand.
There's a family of brandsthere.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
And it's never a dull moment, and every brand has its
own personality.
It's like literally workingwith another office mate.
It's its own personality andyou have to shift that
personality.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
So it's never a dull moment, that is awesome Now,
okay, so you've had quite thecareer, though, in hospitality.
Bricks is not your first forayinto food, and as you're looking
at the brands that you'veworked at, what would you say
are some of the mistakes thatyou've seen some of these brands
make that you're like, oh man,I just wish that brands would do
(01:33):
X, y Z better before I gotthere.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
Consistency.
I think consistency is 100%,and the only reason I say that
is because the brands I did workfor that had consistency had a
much more successful rate thanthose that didn't have that
consistency, those that didn'tstep over the opportunity, step
over the dollars to pick updimes.
Those are the ones who had thesuccess.
(02:00):
And I was with OutbackSteakhouse for 16 plus years.
I was in operations and so Isaw the operational side of
everything and then went intomarketing because I was annoyed
with marketing and I wanted toget into marketing to understand
why does that annoy me and howcan I change this?
Bringing me to marketing, and Iput that operational.
(02:22):
And so it has to be consistencyboth in messaging and execution
, and I wish every brand hadthat, but you can't in such a
fast paced world, so sometimesyou have to adjust.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
And I love that you're focused on a marketer
that comes from operations,because you understand the
importance of nailing it withthe messaging to the experience,
to the post experience.
For example, I'm looking at theposter behind you of the Jonas
Brothers and you could have allthe marketing pizzazz in the
(02:55):
world and you could do all themarketing stuff, but if the
window clings don't get up, ifthe table toppers don't get put
on, if the sundae isn't madecorrectly, then all of that
marketing effort goes to waste.
That you're doing it from anational scale.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
And there's one more piece on top of that.
Those are logistics.
Those are the things that couldbe done.
Done the excitement and thepassion that you give the team
also is what's incrediblyimportant.
They could put that poster up,but they gotta be excited.
They get to be singing to JonasBrothers.
If you don't have thatexcitement of the team member of
that fountain server or whoever, if you don't have that
(03:33):
excitement that is going toresonate to the guests, why
would the guests be excited ifyour server's not excited?
And so I can put a button onthem all day long and they'll be
like, okay, this is my button,hi, welcome to Friendly's.
Get a Jonas Brothers Sunday.
But when that girl is justgoing, oh my God, did you see
that Joe's three headed monster,and they get excited.
(03:54):
And they're like, oh my God,I'll get excited too.
It's contagious.
And I just think that if youdon't have that energy or the
team member, what's the point ofexecuting any of it and, by the
way, I love that contagious cannow be a good word again.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
We are five years past the start of COVID.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
You couldn't say that .
You couldn't say that, couldyou yeah?
Speaker 1 (04:13):
that word was pretty much persona non grata for the
last five years.
I love that.
Yeah, it's contagiously happy.
Right there you go, I love thatContagiously happy.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
I love that.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
Contagiously happy.
Yes, there you go.
I love that Contagiously happy.
I love that Contagiously happy.
Yes, awesome.
And obviously I love whentalking to operators who
understand marketing, becausethey get that, no matter what it
is.
It's about the guest experience, and so what do you think is
some of the most importantaspects of guest experience
nowadays?
Speaker 2 (04:39):
Genuine connection.
I had mentioned that on one ofthe panels that we had talked to
.
It's a genuine connection thatwhen they're getting a response,
when they're being heard,that's all they really want to
do is be heard.
We're in the world of socialmedia and email, heavy With the
guest experience.
They can go on and they can betough on social media you suck
you this, but then when you seethem face to face, you're like
(05:00):
you wrote that you have thatcourage, you have that keyboard
courage.
It's that experience and thatconsistency, but a genuine
connection to be like, okay, I'mlistening, yasmin's listening,
can I solve it?
Probably not, but they're alittle bit more.
As long as they're being heardand acknowledged, then it's okay
.
If you can't get the resultsand the solution immediately,
(05:22):
they understand that you'rehuman.
I think that's incrediblyimportant, plus being heard.
I am the worst person when Iemail somebody or I even call
somebody.
If you don't call or text meback, that kills me.
I'll response.
Just a response is what youneed and that's important.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
I love that because that connection it just helps
people understand that they'recared about.
I define hospitality as provingto the guest you care, yes,
right.
And if you prove to the guestthat you care, what happens is
connection means they care aboutyou because they know that you
care about them.
(05:59):
And I think about that even inour lives.
No-transcript need to meet theguests where they're at and
(06:29):
communicate that we care aboutthem in the way that they want
to.
And there may be someone who'sGen Z who wants a text message.
There may be someone who'solder who wants that manager to
come up and genuinely ask themhow everything was.
But we got to make sure that wemeet the guests where we're at
(06:51):
so that they know that we, as abrand, care about them.
And for those who say we can'tscale that, you will never be
able to build a brand biggerthan a couple locations if you
don't believe that.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
It's super that you even said that about the
different like with your twokiddos.
I take you always take yourpast experience of when did I
actually learn to do that?
And it's you literally 16 yearsof bartending.
It was 16 years of being behindthe bar and being like, okay,
this guy wants to be talked tolike this, this person wants to
be talked, this couple wants tobe like this.
And you have to tweak yourpersonality and your delivery to
(07:22):
each person and that, in itsown, is consistent experience,
because just because you have totweak your voice in the way you
present and you go forwarddoesn't necessarily mean that
you are changing the consistencyof what you're delivering.
It's just the way you'redelivering it.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
Yes, I think that's such a good thing because I
think about my wife.
She was a server for a longtime at a steakhouse and she's
like some people would come inthere and it was just like a
husband and wife and you couldtell they didn't really talk a
lot to each other and they kindof wanted to be entertained by
the server.
There are other people onbusiness meetings that they just
like just bring me my food.
There's other people who arejust like so in love that they
(08:00):
just in their own little worldand you do.
You have to tailor theexperience for them and make
sure, again, you're meeting themwhere they're at Now.
I know that that's a goodstrategy and, thinking about it,
what about some tactics?
What are some things thatyou've used to improve the guest
experience in your brands?
Speaker 2 (08:17):
So being in a franchise system, that's very
different.
That's the next thing.
That is, when you're in afranchise system and your
locations are owned by peoplethat have an investment in it
dollar investment it's verydifferent.
So you have to motivate themand so one of the things that we
implemented that I feel like itreally worked.
At first I was like, eh, maybenot, but when we noticed there
was a reward behind it, we dolike a ranking reward.
(08:39):
Number one how their responsetimes, how they even the
response rates based off of thatmeasurement, their Google
measurements there.
Are they abiding by the POP?
(09:00):
Are they doing that?
It's just the delivery and thenrewarding them and their team
at the end of that quarter withdollars to help them either a
celebrate or put back into theirbusiness that we help them with
for the local store marketingor whatnot maybe billboards,
maybe a vet setup something thatthey normally don't think about
, but it's almost a gift to saycongrats.
(09:23):
And when we did that, you sawthe scores go up.
You even may have seen it onthe ovation side.
It's just they start going upbecause they know that there is
a reward and from that rewardthey're seeing their sales and
their dollars are coming back,and so they're like well, if
that's our reward too.
So not only are you doing thatranking rewards program, and
(09:43):
then at the end of the year theybecome the best friendlies, the
best in class friendlies.
So Hocasin, delaware, becamethe best in class friendlies,
and they got t-shirts that saidbest friendlies in the United
States, and so they got to havethat noise.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
Oh, that's cool.
Wear the shirts in therestaurant.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
Customers see that and it goes back again to the
fact that the customers areseeing that and they're excited
because the team just gotexcited.
It's a rippling effect and Ithink that that tactic helped a
lot.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
So rewards like what are we talking about?
Is it like a free ice creamsundae?
Is it like a free, all expensepaid trip to Ireland?
Speaker 2 (10:20):
No, it's marketing dollars back to them to do what
they need to do to execute moreprograms.
So it's not just here's an icecream or a t-shirt, it's a the
recognition that they're thebest friendlies, but it's also a
return of their dollars that wecan say let's help you further
your business even more withthat, and so it's almost like a
(10:40):
kickback, a rebate, a rebatekind of program, like thing Got
it.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
Do you help them to spend that money, or like, do
you actually just like give them?
Speaker 2 (10:49):
that money.
We just don't give it to themand go.
We have a fantastic local storemarketing manager.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
So you invest more into their local store marketing
and give them the support to dothat if they win these rewards.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
Above and beyond what we do, and we already give bets
in our honor and we give thembets in class.
We give them even more of ahyper focus with it as well.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
That's really cool.
I love that because it's avirtuous cycle of not only do
they have the good feeling oflike we won something, we got
this award, but they also aregoing to drive more sales.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
I love that idea Because they see it and it's not
just like, oh, we're going towin it, this is great, we got
the T-shirt.
They see the sales coming, theysee all their hard work and it
becomes a consistent habit.
You're making habits.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
I love that, and you do that on a quarterly basis.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
We do that on a period.
Yeah, quarterly basis is whatwe do.
We don't do it every quarter.
We do it basically the twomajor quarters in the middle,
but we still track them on aquarterly basis.
So just because you're notgetting that rebate reward,
you're being recognized nomatter what in that quarter.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
And a lot of times, just as a guest who has a bad
experience doesn't always needto get a full refund and a $20
gift card, sometimes they justwant to feel heard.
So too with our team.
Sometimes they just want to berecognized, and if you could
recognize a team and give themthat juice to feel like, hey,
yeah, that was really cool.
It works and, by the way,didn't mean to make the pun
(12:13):
about clean juice there, but oh,I'm getting used to it, don't
worry about it.
So, Yasmin, who is someone inthe industry that we should be
following?
Who's someone who deserves anovation?
Speaker 2 (12:24):
Okay, I think I mean if you're not following them
already, then you're silly.
I think Brazen Canes is kickingbutt and taking names.
I think they are.
I mean, if you're not alreadyfollowing them, you're nuts.
And that's only because theyonly have a couple of products.
They're really good at doingthat product and he's even said
it.
Todd Brazen said it.
Be really good at that.
(12:45):
But then it's the partnerships.
You can't go on Barstool, youcan't go on Post Malone and not
see these partnerships come intolife.
And then also their excitementwith their team members and
celebrating those team membersand the customers that come with
that.
I think that what they're doingis fantastic at what they're
(13:07):
besides us, we're awesome.
Don't even follow us.
We're doing amazing.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
Oh, of course.
Yes, totally agree.
I think that they do a goodproduct.
Well, actually, they do likethree good products, right, and
that's really.
All they need is three goodproducts and some friendliness,
and I think that's awesome.
Last question here, yasmin, isI can't leave without just
asking you how has Ovation beenhelpful for you?
Speaker 2 (13:31):
Oh, are you kidding me?
It's listening to the voice ofthe customer.
It's understanding.
I come from an environmentwhere it was very, very research
and development and customerinsights and research and guest
intercepts everything we live innow a world post-COVID that
it's fast, fast, fast, fast,fast.
How do we collect thatinformation and real-time
information and guest experienceand data?
(13:51):
And I feel like Ovation hasgotten to the point where I can
read through and hear whatthey're saying.
What are they saying?
What are their feedbacks.
It is my own quick way ofgetting that insight that I need
to be able to do more or updatewhat I need to do, and that is
100% where Ovation comes in, forthat.
(14:12):
You're my mini little researchfirm, is what you really are.
And, just like I said, seewhere we can even help
operations execute better.
Did this even work?
How did we do, demographically,just all of that?
It is an analytical tool that Iabsolutely love with Ovation.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
Awesome.
Well, I sure do appreciate thatand appreciate all that you do
for the industry and supportingand the ideas that you bring to
the table.
Where can people go to find andfollow you and Bricks?
Speaker 2 (14:53):
Friendly's and Bricks .
We do have of our brands.
We have our own Instagrams andFacebook pages with Friendly's
Ice Cream, clean Juice, so allof our handles are there as well
, so you can follow useverywhere where we like to be
very social and out there.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
And you do a great job with that too.
You could definitely followYasmin on, yasmin Stewart on
LinkedIn and Yasmin for thisbeing the cleanest and
friendliest podcast ever.
Today's Ovation goes to you.
Thank you for joining us andgiving Ovation.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
Couldn't do it without you guys.
Thank you so much, Zach.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
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-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 Give an Ovation, the restaurant guest
experience podcast.
I'm your host, zach Oates, andeach week I chat with industry
experts to uncover realstrategies and actionable
tactics you can use to create afive-star guest experience.
This podcast is powered byOvation, the feedback and
operations platform built formulti-unit restaurants.
It gives you the insights youneed without the annoying guest
(00:23):
questions.
Learn more at OvationUpcom.
Today I'm excited because wehave someone who and I'm excited
every week we do this, butespecially today because Yasmin
Stewart is not only an amazingindustry veteran and great human
, but she's also just so smartand she gets marketing and I'm
(00:43):
excited to have you on to talkabout the guest experience.
She is the senior director ofmarketing at Bricks Holdings,
where she is at the helm ofmarketing for Friendly's, and
now she's working with CleanJuice as well.
It's pretty fun, yasmin, thatyou can with Bricks.
You don't have to just focus onone brand.
There's a family of brandsthere.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
And it's never a dull moment, and every brand has its
own personality.
It's like literally workingwith another office mate.
It's its own personality andyou have to shift that
personality.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
So it's never a dull moment, that is awesome Now,
okay, so you've had quite thecareer, though, in hospitality.
Bricks is not your first forayinto food, and as you're looking
at the brands that you'veworked at, what would you say
are some of the mistakes thatyou've seen some of these brands
make that you're like, oh man,I just wish that brands would do
(01:33):
X, y Z better before I gotthere.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
Consistency.
I think consistency is 100%,and the only reason I say that
is because the brands I did workfor that had consistency had a
much more successful rate thanthose that didn't have that
consistency, those that didn'tstep over the opportunity, step
over the dollars to pick updimes.
Those are the ones who had thesuccess.
(02:00):
And I was with OutbackSteakhouse for 16 plus years.
I was in operations and so Isaw the operational side of
everything and then went intomarketing because I was annoyed
with marketing and I wanted toget into marketing to understand
why does that annoy me and howcan I change this?
Bringing me to marketing, and Iput that operational.
(02:22):
And so it has to be consistencyboth in messaging and execution
, and I wish every brand hadthat, but you can't in such a
fast paced world, so sometimesyou have to adjust.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
And I love that you're focused on a marketer
that comes from operations,because you understand the
importance of nailing it withthe messaging to the experience,
to the post experience.
For example, I'm looking at theposter behind you of the Jonas
Brothers and you could have allthe marketing pizzazz in the
(02:55):
world and you could do all themarketing stuff, but if the
window clings don't get up, ifthe table toppers don't get put
on, if the sundae isn't madecorrectly, then all of that
marketing effort goes to waste.
That you're doing it from anational scale.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
And there's one more piece on top of that.
Those are logistics.
Those are the things that couldbe done.
Done the excitement and thepassion that you give the team
also is what's incrediblyimportant.
They could put that poster up,but they gotta be excited.
They get to be singing to JonasBrothers.
If you don't have thatexcitement of the team member of
that fountain server or whoever, if you don't have that
(03:33):
excitement that is going toresonate to the guests, why
would the guests be excited ifyour server's not excited?
And so I can put a button onthem all day long and they'll be
like, okay, this is my button,hi, welcome to Friendly's.
Get a Jonas Brothers Sunday.
But when that girl is justgoing, oh my God, did you see
that Joe's three headed monster,and they get excited.
(03:54):
And they're like, oh my God,I'll get excited too.
It's contagious.
And I just think that if youdon't have that energy or the
team member, what's the point ofexecuting any of it and, by the
way, I love that contagious cannow be a good word again.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
We are five years past the start of COVID.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
You couldn't say that .
You couldn't say that, couldyou yeah?
Speaker 1 (04:13):
that word was pretty much persona non grata for the
last five years.
I love that.
Yeah, it's contagiously happy.
Right there you go, I love thatContagiously happy.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
I love that.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
Contagiously happy.
Yes, there you go.
I love that Contagiously happy.
I love that Contagiously happy.
Yes, awesome.
And obviously I love whentalking to operators who
understand marketing, becausethey get that, no matter what it
is.
It's about the guest experience, and so what do you think is
some of the most importantaspects of guest experience
nowadays?
Speaker 2 (04:39):
Genuine connection.
I had mentioned that on one ofthe panels that we had talked to
.
It's a genuine connection thatwhen they're getting a response,
when they're being heard,that's all they really want to
do is be heard.
We're in the world of socialmedia and email, heavy With the
guest experience.
They can go on and they can betough on social media you suck
you this, but then when you seethem face to face, you're like
(05:00):
you wrote that you have thatcourage, you have that keyboard
courage.
It's that experience and thatconsistency, but a genuine
connection to be like, okay, I'mlistening, yasmin's listening,
can I solve it?
Probably not, but they're alittle bit more.
As long as they're being heardand acknowledged, then it's okay
.
If you can't get the resultsand the solution immediately,
(05:22):
they understand that you'rehuman.
I think that's incrediblyimportant, plus being heard.
I am the worst person when Iemail somebody or I even call
somebody.
If you don't call or text meback, that kills me.
I'll response.
Just a response is what youneed and that's important.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
I love that because that connection it just helps
people understand that they'recared about.
I define hospitality as provingto the guest you care, yes,
right.
And if you prove to the guestthat you care, what happens is
connection means they care aboutyou because they know that you
care about them.
(05:59):
And I think about that even inour lives.
No-transcript need to meet theguests where they're at and
(06:29):
communicate that we care aboutthem in the way that they want
to.
And there may be someone who'sGen Z who wants a text message.
There may be someone who'solder who wants that manager to
come up and genuinely ask themhow everything was.
But we got to make sure that wemeet the guests where we're at
(06:51):
so that they know that we, as abrand, care about them.
And for those who say we can'tscale that, you will never be
able to build a brand biggerthan a couple locations if you
don't believe that.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
It's super that you even said that about the
different like with your twokiddos.
I take you always take yourpast experience of when did I
actually learn to do that?
And it's you literally 16 yearsof bartending.
It was 16 years of being behindthe bar and being like, okay,
this guy wants to be talked tolike this, this person wants to
be talked, this couple wants tobe like this.
And you have to tweak yourpersonality and your delivery to
(07:22):
each person and that, in itsown, is consistent experience,
because just because you have totweak your voice in the way you
present and you go forwarddoesn't necessarily mean that
you are changing the consistencyof what you're delivering.
It's just the way you'redelivering it.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
Yes, I think that's such a good thing because I
think about my wife.
She was a server for a longtime at a steakhouse and she's
like some people would come inthere and it was just like a
husband and wife and you couldtell they didn't really talk a
lot to each other and they kindof wanted to be entertained by
the server.
There are other people onbusiness meetings that they just
like just bring me my food.
There's other people who arejust like so in love that they
(08:00):
just in their own little worldand you do.
You have to tailor theexperience for them and make
sure, again, you're meeting themwhere they're at Now.
I know that that's a goodstrategy and, thinking about it,
what about some tactics?
What are some things thatyou've used to improve the guest
experience in your brands?
Speaker 2 (08:17):
So being in a franchise system, that's very
different.
That's the next thing.
That is, when you're in afranchise system and your
locations are owned by peoplethat have an investment in it
dollar investment it's verydifferent.
So you have to motivate themand so one of the things that we
implemented that I feel like itreally worked.
At first I was like, eh, maybenot, but when we noticed there
was a reward behind it, we dolike a ranking reward.
(08:39):
Number one how their responsetimes, how they even the
response rates based off of thatmeasurement, their Google
measurements there.
Are they abiding by the POP?
(09:00):
Are they doing that?
It's just the delivery and thenrewarding them and their team
at the end of that quarter withdollars to help them either a
celebrate or put back into theirbusiness that we help them with
for the local store marketingor whatnot maybe billboards,
maybe a vet setup something thatthey normally don't think about
, but it's almost a gift to saycongrats.
(09:23):
And when we did that, you sawthe scores go up.
You even may have seen it onthe ovation side.
It's just they start going upbecause they know that there is
a reward and from that rewardthey're seeing their sales and
their dollars are coming back,and so they're like well, if
that's our reward too.
So not only are you doing thatranking rewards program, and
(09:43):
then at the end of the year theybecome the best friendlies, the
best in class friendlies.
So Hocasin, delaware, becamethe best in class friendlies,
and they got t-shirts that saidbest friendlies in the United
States, and so they got to havethat noise.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
Oh, that's cool.
Wear the shirts in therestaurant.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
Customers see that and it goes back again to the
fact that the customers areseeing that and they're excited
because the team just gotexcited.
It's a rippling effect and Ithink that that tactic helped a
lot.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
So rewards like what are we talking about?
Is it like a free ice creamsundae?
Is it like a free, all expensepaid trip to Ireland?
Speaker 2 (10:20):
No, it's marketing dollars back to them to do what
they need to do to execute moreprograms.
So it's not just here's an icecream or a t-shirt, it's a the
recognition that they're thebest friendlies, but it's also a
return of their dollars that wecan say let's help you further
your business even more withthat, and so it's almost like a
(10:40):
kickback, a rebate, a rebatekind of program, like thing Got
it.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
Do you help them to spend that money, or like, do
you actually just like give them?
Speaker 2 (10:49):
that money.
We just don't give it to themand go.
We have a fantastic local storemarketing manager.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
So you invest more into their local store marketing
and give them the support to dothat if they win these rewards.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
Above and beyond what we do, and we already give bets
in our honor and we give thembets in class.
We give them even more of ahyper focus with it as well.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
That's really cool.
I love that because it's avirtuous cycle of not only do
they have the good feeling oflike we won something, we got
this award, but they also aregoing to drive more sales.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
I love that idea Because they see it and it's not
just like, oh, we're going towin it, this is great, we got
the T-shirt.
They see the sales coming, theysee all their hard work and it
becomes a consistent habit.
You're making habits.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
I love that, and you do that on a quarterly basis.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
We do that on a period.
Yeah, quarterly basis is whatwe do.
We don't do it every quarter.
We do it basically the twomajor quarters in the middle,
but we still track them on aquarterly basis.
So just because you're notgetting that rebate reward,
you're being recognized nomatter what in that quarter.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
And a lot of times, just as a guest who has a bad
experience doesn't always needto get a full refund and a $20
gift card, sometimes they justwant to feel heard.
So too with our team.
Sometimes they just want to berecognized, and if you could
recognize a team and give themthat juice to feel like, hey,
yeah, that was really cool.
It works and, by the way,didn't mean to make the pun
(12:13):
about clean juice there, but oh,I'm getting used to it, don't
worry about it.
So, Yasmin, who is someone inthe industry that we should be
following?
Who's someone who deserves anovation?
Speaker 2 (12:24):
Okay, I think I mean if you're not following them
already, then you're silly.
I think Brazen Canes is kickingbutt and taking names.
I think they are.
I mean, if you're not alreadyfollowing them, you're nuts.
And that's only because theyonly have a couple of products.
They're really good at doingthat product and he's even said
it.
Todd Brazen said it.
Be really good at that.
(12:45):
But then it's the partnerships.
You can't go on Barstool, youcan't go on Post Malone and not
see these partnerships come intolife.
And then also their excitementwith their team members and
celebrating those team membersand the customers that come with
that.
I think that what they're doingis fantastic at what they're
(13:07):
besides us, we're awesome.
Don't even follow us.
We're doing amazing.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
Oh, of course.
Yes, totally agree.
I think that they do a goodproduct.
Well, actually, they do likethree good products, right, and
that's really.
All they need is three goodproducts and some friendliness,
and I think that's awesome.
Last question here, yasmin, isI can't leave without just
asking you how has Ovation beenhelpful for you?
Speaker 2 (13:31):
Oh, are you kidding me?
It's listening to the voice ofthe customer.
It's understanding.
I come from an environmentwhere it was very, very research
and development and customerinsights and research and guest
intercepts everything we live innow a world post-COVID that
it's fast, fast, fast, fast,fast.
How do we collect thatinformation and real-time
information and guest experienceand data?
(13:51):
And I feel like Ovation hasgotten to the point where I can
read through and hear whatthey're saying.
What are they saying?
What are their feedbacks.
It is my own quick way ofgetting that insight that I need
to be able to do more or updatewhat I need to do, and that is
100% where Ovation comes in, forthat.
(14:12):
You're my mini little researchfirm, is what you really are.
And, just like I said, seewhere we can even help
operations execute better.
Did this even work?
How did we do, demographically,just all of that?
It is an analytical tool that Iabsolutely love with Ovation.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
Awesome.
Well, I sure do appreciate thatand appreciate all that you do
for the industry and supportingand the ideas that you bring to
the table.
Where can people go to find andfollow you and Bricks?
Speaker 2 (14:53):
Friendly's and Bricks .
We do have of our brands.
We have our own Instagrams andFacebook pages with Friendly's
Ice Cream, clean Juice, so allof our handles are there as well
, so you can follow useverywhere where we like to be
very social and out there.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
And you do a great job with that too.
You could definitely followYasmin on, yasmin Stewart on
LinkedIn and Yasmin for thisbeing the cleanest and
friendliest podcast ever.
Today's Ovation goes to you.
Thank you for joining us andgiving Ovation.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
Couldn't do it without you guys.
Thank you so much, Zach.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
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-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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