January 27, 2025 • 15 mins
In this episode of Give an Ovation, we welcome Ming-Tai Huh, Head of Food and Beverage at Square and a restaurateur with over a decade of experience through Cambridge Street Hospitality Group. Ming brings a unique perspective, blending his deep industry knowledge with cutting-edge restaurant technology to help operators thrive in an ever-evolving market.
Zack and Ming discuss:
- The intersection of hospitality and technology—how to use tech without losing the human touch
- Key lessons from the restaurant world that translate into successful tech leadership
- How to approach restaurant technology with a problem-first mindset rather than a solution-first approach
- The importance of feedback loops in creating an exceptional guest experience
- Strategies to balance expansion and maintaining quality across multiple locations
Tune in to hear Ming’s insights on how restaurants can leverage technology while staying true to their hospitality roots and delivering unforgettable guest experiences.
Thanks, Ming!
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
(00:20):
questions.
Learn more at OvationUpcom.
And today I have a good friendof mine who is someone that I
have hung out with what feelslike thousands of trade shows
Ming Tai he, who is the head offood and beverage at Square.
Not only that, he's not justlike a tech bro.
This guy has owned restaurantssince 2011 with Cambridge Street
(00:43):
Hospitality Group.
Owned restaurants since 2011with Cambridge Street
Hospitality Group Some amazingconcepts we're talking like not
just like your run-of-the-millfranchise.
We're talking about chefcurated, beautiful menus, great
interiors, great experiences,and so it's really cool, ming,
that you're on both sides ofthis and excited that you took
(01:04):
some time out of like your 14day jobs to come onto the
podcast.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Well, that's for sure , pretty busy these days, but I
think you hit something.
Really important is that Istarted in the restaurant
industry as an operator before Igot into the restaurant tech
space and a lot of the work thatI do really is customer centric
, in the sense of how can wehelp restaurants be better
performing, more profitable, andhow do you do that with
technology.
That's sort of like been thebasis and I'm really excited for
(01:29):
what I'm doing with Square andwith its thousands of millions
of merchants and so reallyexcited to talk with you.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
Well, I'm excited about that and first of all, I
would love to hear what are someof the lessons that have
translated from hospitality intotechnology.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
Yeah, a great point I'll kind of dive right into.
Like how do you manage a teamand be a great leader?
That's what's really importantin a restaurant.
You have a team all rowing inthe same direction and it just
happens to be about delivering.
Make sure the duck confit andthe cocktails taste great in the
restaurant space and you cantell when you have one server
(02:07):
having a bad day.
One line cook having a bad dayaffects the whole line, affects
the mood of all the otherservers and ultimately turns
into a poor guest experience.
And it can translate directlyinto running tech teams making
sure everybody is running in thesame direction, has aligned on
the strategy, understands whatwe're trying to accomplish.
So honestly working with peoplewhich is very much the core
(02:29):
what the restaurant industry isabout translates directly to
running teams in the technologyspace.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
Yeah, because I think that one of the things I always
tell my team and this is juston like our slide every year
when we talk about our missionis that we are not a technology
company selling into thehospitality industry.
We are a hospitality companyselling a technology.
And what would a hospitalitycompany do?
How would we treat this personif they were ordering a large
(02:58):
catering order from us or ifthey were coming in for dinner
with their friends?
Like, what would we do?
What's the right thing to do?
How do we want them to feel?
And that affects how we onboard,that affects how we connect
with our customers, and I'veheard this several times from
you and you alluded to it whenwe just kicked off.
But you believe that technologyplays an important role in the
(03:19):
restaurant, but it isn't justabout getting the technology and
a lot of people will go to atrade show.
They'll walk up and down theaisle and it's kind of like
going to the grocery storehungry, where it's like sure,
yeah, that looks good andthey'll get technology without
kind of the overarching strategy.
What recommendations do youhave for restaurant owners when
(03:42):
it comes to thinking abouttechnology in their restaurant?
Speaker 2 (03:46):
Yeah, well, I think one way to maybe put it simply
is don't go searching forsolutions.
Really think about the problemsthat you have and start with
that, because you can walk up toany booth and say like, oh,
this looks fancy, this is great,let me try it out.
And then you're then using thatto go find problems that may or
may not exist in yourrestaurant or may not exist in
(04:10):
your restaurant, and so I thinkthis is what's really important
is like really understandingyour business really well.
What are the areas ofopportunity?
Is it labor?
Is it food costs?
You know the traditional kindof things.
Is it repeat guests?
Is it staff retention?
I mean, there's numerous numberof them.
Stack rank those which are theones that are hurting you most,
and then start from there andthen ask a lot of questions as
to okay, hey, this is theproblem I have, can you help me
(04:32):
solve it?
Versus okay, feature X, featureY, feature Z oh, that looks
great, but ultimately it doesn'tactually solve the need.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
Yeah, and I think that the exact right way to do
it is like go with a grocerylist, right?
Hey, I want to have a Thaichicken tomorrow night, so let's
go to the grocery store andmaybe there's a new way to make
Thai chicken that you didn'tknow about, that you learn about
there, great.
But if you go there with afocus, if you go to a trade show
with a grocery list, so tospeak, of the main problems that
you're trying to solve andprioritize them, you'll have a
(05:07):
much more effective time attrade shows, them, you'll have a
much more effective time attrade shows and or just talking
to vendors in general.
I think that's a great rule ofthumb and I love how, especially
coming from your background Ishould say background, but I
mean like you're still involvedin the restaurants, like just to
be clear, right.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
Yeah, I mean, look, absolutely so I'm a general
partner of the restaurant group.
I don't have a day to day roleand I know some operators may
say like, oh well, you're notreally in the industry but I
definitely have many jobs.
But I have a wonderful team,great chef partner that I've
been working with basicallysince day one and I really trust
the team to really make greatdecisions.
But, yeah, like every Saturday,I'm spending two hours with the
(05:46):
management team.
Then during the week, you know,time with the ownership and the
partnership team, mainlyfocused on expansion, dealing
with landlords, quite like thebigger kind of pieces of the
puzzle and, well you know,obviously focusing on my day to
day job with Square.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
Yeah, I think that being able to balance both is
great, because sometimes if youget hyper focused on one thing,
you lose the creative juices ofhaving a couple of different
problems to be solving, and Ithink one of the biggest
problems that people are workingto solve in the restaurant
industry right now is the guestexperience.
What do you feel like is themost important aspect of guest
experience nowadays?
Speaker 2 (06:23):
Yeah, this is my favorite right, and I would say
because that's where I started.
My start for restaurantsdoesn't begin with my family on
the restaurant and washingdishes when I was 12.
So which I've heard that storyfor sure, but that's not my
story.
My story was I was a guest andI had a wonderful experience of
a restaurant no longer inexistence it closed called
(06:44):
Craigia Main here in Boston, inthe Cambridge area, actually
three blocks from my house.
So I think you're getting thepicture.
I was there a lot, and I had oneof those experiences where a
restaurant adopts a guest andkind of treats them like part of
the family and that really mademe feel like this is amazing
experience in the community.
I love it.
I love to be part of somethinglike this one day, and so that's
(07:07):
where I actually spend a lot ofmy time thinking with sort of
like the CMO hat of therestaurant is how do I make sure
my guest experience isphenomenal, wonderful, and we
have quick service restaurantsand full service restaurants in
the hospitality group, so thereare multiple ways to provide
that great experience, whetherit's a server at the table or
even that's what start from thebeginning being greeted at the
host stand.
And then the QSR experience,where a lot of people kind of
(07:29):
just want great food and want toget in, get out, and then how
do you make that a magical or atleast a great experience that's
consistent?
Continually looking at theseand understanding okay, how can
we make it better?
Is a big part of great makinggreat guest experiences.
I think one thing that peoplemaybe overlook is asking guests.
Sometimes you don't want tobother people, but actually like
(07:50):
asking people how was it?
What can we do better?
Was this great?
Did you get what you paid for?
Yeah, there are ways that youcan really sort of get at a core
, maybe like challenge orunderstanding that you're trying
to understand about yourbusiness.
Especially in the early days,if you're trying something out,
it's really important, just likebuilding software, just like
get that feedback and then makechanges that are for the better.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
I love that.
I think that's such a greatsegue into the next question.
But just to double click onthat, one of the things that we
found is that people are willingto give you feedback.
What they don't want to do,because people are like, oh, no
one's going to give me feedback.
It's like, yeah, nobody wantsto fill out your 20 question
survey right Now.
(08:32):
People do want to tell you,especially if they got delivery
and they ordered five burgersand only four show up.
And now one of their kids islike really pissed off.
And that is something that, yes, they definitely want to give
you feedback.
And what we found is that a lotof people don't skew towards
(08:52):
leaving negative reviews.
They just won't come back, andthe reason that they don't want
to leave you a negative reviewis because they don't want to
hurt your business, becausethey're like, whatever, I don't
care enough to give thatfeedback to like, go through all
the effort, all the hoops toleave a review or to take your
20 question survey, but if youmake it easy for them, they'll
(09:18):
tell you.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
And then the key is, if you ask, listen right, like
do something about it.
And I think that's reallyimportant.
Yeah, I would say, for instanceand hopefully this doesn't like
get abused, but like if a guestever has an issue with our
restaurant, especially if it'sunsatisfactory, like, oh, I
didn't like your dish.
And in the world of deliveryright, where we can't just make,
make it right immediately,because that's what we would do
in a full service restaurant.
We'd take the plate away, right.
They would say, ok, we'llremake this or we will give you
(09:39):
something different.
I meet your needs.
In the world of delivery, nowtake out.
Our policy is like we will givethat person their money back
immediately.
Potentially, if they were theonly person to complain about
that one thing that day and webatched it and we know that
potentially it's fine, it wasn'tfine for them, we give them
their money back.
Yeah, I love that.
And it's like back to the earlyside, which is we want them to
feel like we're people First ofall it's a people business and
(10:04):
are incentivized to come backagain and try again.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
And I think that one of the things that we found is
that if you tie that feedback tosomething like their mobile
number, well then you can trackto see is this someone who's
going to be a consistentcomplainer?
Are they going to come in everyweek and complain about
something to try to getsomething for free?
You discover that reallyquickly phone number.
(10:27):
Then you don't have to be asconcerned about being hospitable
and about giving them a bigrefund with an apology and maybe
even a $5 off coupon for thenext order.
The first time, the second timemaybe you could be a little
more skeptical.
The third time, apologize, butyou don't have to keep giving
them stuff, and I think that'sreally the key is like
(10:48):
hospitality does not meanletting someone abuse generosity
, right.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
Yeah, look, I think we're one of the most accessible
businesses in hospitality thatyou get, and so, like there's
going to be a few bad appleshere and there, but that
shouldn't really spoil themajority of experiences where
people are looking to besatisfied, satiated and even
loud, depending on, maybe, thelevel of experience.
Yeah, and I think what we'retalking about here is like the
(11:16):
touch points is really important, and I think the touch points I
think maybe what we can dig infurther is either they're
changing where, when I startedthis business, no one got text
messages from restaurants.
Yeah, well, one, like not manypeople had smart phones, but
nowadays, like it's, I don'twant you calling me.
Why would you call me?
I don't even pick up numberswho don't have my phone numbers.
(11:36):
You can't call me.
Yeah, why would you call me?
I don't even pick up numberswho don't have my phone numbers.
You can't call me.
And then your address.
It's kind of like I don't knowif I'm going to read it.
There's a lot of things in myinbox that I ignore.
I got a text message that islike highly relevant, like hey,
you were just here, you had this.
How was it?
I make a decision, yes or no,do I want to answer this, but
maybe I do.
That's like you know, I didn'tlike that.
(11:56):
Let me tell you why I didn'tlike it.
Click, click, click, click,click, click, click, click done.
That's so helpful for arestaurant to be able to get
that feedback in that moment,and it wasn't really that much
weight, yeah no-transcript.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
Would rather have a business text them than reach
out to them in any other way,because that's where people
they're on their phones.
But emails, yeah, to your point.
There's like a few days go byuntil it's sent, a few days
until I see it, a few days toreply, a few days to see it, and
now all of a sudden you're aweek and a half down the road
and this frustration of a $12pizza and soda, all of a sudden
(12:52):
you're like I don't care, I'mjust not going back, right.
But as things are tangible andthey just had an emotional
experience, if you can connectwith them in that moment, boom,
like you got someone for lifethere.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
Yeah, look, the medium is just different.
Like when people get emailsfrom us, they expect us to talk
about three pages of a new wineand a new dish in the country we
visited to source theinformation for it.
Like, it's like a differentmedium, right?
Whereas the text message islike hey, I was up comes down.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
Yeah, totally Well.
I mean, I know we'reapproaching time here.
Who is someone in therestaurant industry that
deserves an ovation?
Who's someone that we should befollowing?
Speaker 2 (13:28):
Who do I love?
I mean Eli Sussman, chef like,I love his feed on Instagram
because it's just so funny,because it's true it's
definitely an industry.
And then look, another that Ithought about, which is a thread
that I enjoy on Instagram, isPreston Lee 30% rule.
I'm not really sure how deeplyfounded the work is, but I just
(13:49):
love his approach to hey, thereare like things that you
actually need to do as arestaurant that are kind of no
brainers and you got to do thosethings and I think that's
really important for theindustry at large.
It's like, hey, there arebasics in the industry.
You're never going to get to 10percent margin unless you do
those things and so focus on notmaking own goals and mistakes
(14:10):
that really can hurt you in thebusiness.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
Love that, and where can people go to find and follow
you?
Speaker 2 (14:16):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Linkedin is probably where Ipost the most, especially about
the industry and what we're upto, and then obviously follow
Square on LinkedIn and Instagram.
We feature both Square products, but then also our sellers, our
restaurants that are doingamazing things in the market,
especially amazing wonderfulthings for places that are under
some challenge, like LA, forinstance.
(14:38):
We have a lot of greatcustomers there that were
affected, and then those thatare under some challenge, like
LA, for instance.
We have a lot of greatcustomers there that were
affected, and then those aretrying to support others in
their community, really tryingto really speak and blow that
out in a way that people can getthe help that they need.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
I love that Well Ming for showing us that at times it
is hip to be square.
Today's ovation goes to you.
Thank you for joining us onGive an Ovation Awesome.
Today's Ovation goes to you,thank you for joining us on Give
an Ovation.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
Awesome Thanks for having me.
Really appreciate it.
Let's do it again.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
Absolutely.
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.
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
(15:25):
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
(00:20):
questions.
Learn more at OvationUpcom.
And today I have a good friendof mine who is someone that I
have hung out with what feelslike thousands of trade shows
Ming Tai he, who is the head offood and beverage at Square.
Not only that, he's not justlike a tech bro.
This guy has owned restaurantssince 2011 with Cambridge Street
(00:43):
Hospitality Group.
Owned restaurants since 2011with Cambridge Street
Hospitality Group Some amazingconcepts we're talking like not
just like your run-of-the-millfranchise.
We're talking about chefcurated, beautiful menus, great
interiors, great experiences,and so it's really cool, ming,
that you're on both sides ofthis and excited that you took
(01:04):
some time out of like your 14day jobs to come onto the
podcast.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Well, that's for sure , pretty busy these days, but I
think you hit something.
Really important is that Istarted in the restaurant
industry as an operator before Igot into the restaurant tech
space and a lot of the work thatI do really is customer centric
, in the sense of how can wehelp restaurants be better
performing, more profitable, andhow do you do that with
technology.
That's sort of like been thebasis and I'm really excited for
(01:29):
what I'm doing with Square andwith its thousands of millions
of merchants and so reallyexcited to talk with you.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
Well, I'm excited about that and first of all, I
would love to hear what are someof the lessons that have
translated from hospitality intotechnology.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
Yeah, a great point I'll kind of dive right into.
Like how do you manage a teamand be a great leader?
That's what's really importantin a restaurant.
You have a team all rowing inthe same direction and it just
happens to be about delivering.
Make sure the duck confit andthe cocktails taste great in the
restaurant space and you cantell when you have one server
(02:07):
having a bad day.
One line cook having a bad dayaffects the whole line, affects
the mood of all the otherservers and ultimately turns
into a poor guest experience.
And it can translate directlyinto running tech teams making
sure everybody is running in thesame direction, has aligned on
the strategy, understands whatwe're trying to accomplish.
So honestly working with peoplewhich is very much the core
(02:29):
what the restaurant industry isabout translates directly to
running teams in the technologyspace.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
Yeah, because I think that one of the things I always
tell my team and this is juston like our slide every year
when we talk about our missionis that we are not a technology
company selling into thehospitality industry.
We are a hospitality companyselling a technology.
And what would a hospitalitycompany do?
How would we treat this personif they were ordering a large
(02:58):
catering order from us or ifthey were coming in for dinner
with their friends?
Like, what would we do?
What's the right thing to do?
How do we want them to feel?
And that affects how we onboard,that affects how we connect
with our customers, and I'veheard this several times from
you and you alluded to it whenwe just kicked off.
But you believe that technologyplays an important role in the
(03:19):
restaurant, but it isn't justabout getting the technology and
a lot of people will go to atrade show.
They'll walk up and down theaisle and it's kind of like
going to the grocery storehungry, where it's like sure,
yeah, that looks good andthey'll get technology without
kind of the overarching strategy.
What recommendations do youhave for restaurant owners when
(03:42):
it comes to thinking abouttechnology in their restaurant?
Speaker 2 (03:46):
Yeah, well, I think one way to maybe put it simply
is don't go searching forsolutions.
Really think about the problemsthat you have and start with
that, because you can walk up toany booth and say like, oh,
this looks fancy, this is great,let me try it out.
And then you're then using thatto go find problems that may or
may not exist in yourrestaurant or may not exist in
(04:10):
your restaurant, and so I thinkthis is what's really important
is like really understandingyour business really well.
What are the areas ofopportunity?
Is it labor?
Is it food costs?
You know the traditional kindof things.
Is it repeat guests?
Is it staff retention?
I mean, there's numerous numberof them.
Stack rank those which are theones that are hurting you most,
and then start from there andthen ask a lot of questions as
to okay, hey, this is theproblem I have, can you help me
(04:32):
solve it?
Versus okay, feature X, featureY, feature Z oh, that looks
great, but ultimately it doesn'tactually solve the need.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
Yeah, and I think that the exact right way to do
it is like go with a grocerylist, right?
Hey, I want to have a Thaichicken tomorrow night, so let's
go to the grocery store andmaybe there's a new way to make
Thai chicken that you didn'tknow about, that you learn about
there, great.
But if you go there with afocus, if you go to a trade show
with a grocery list, so tospeak, of the main problems that
you're trying to solve andprioritize them, you'll have a
(05:07):
much more effective time attrade shows, them, you'll have a
much more effective time attrade shows and or just talking
to vendors in general.
I think that's a great rule ofthumb and I love how, especially
coming from your background Ishould say background, but I
mean like you're still involvedin the restaurants, like just to
be clear, right.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
Yeah, I mean, look, absolutely so I'm a general
partner of the restaurant group.
I don't have a day to day roleand I know some operators may
say like, oh well, you're notreally in the industry but I
definitely have many jobs.
But I have a wonderful team,great chef partner that I've
been working with basicallysince day one and I really trust
the team to really make greatdecisions.
But, yeah, like every Saturday,I'm spending two hours with the
(05:46):
management team.
Then during the week, you know,time with the ownership and the
partnership team, mainlyfocused on expansion, dealing
with landlords, quite like thebigger kind of pieces of the
puzzle and, well you know,obviously focusing on my day to
day job with Square.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
Yeah, I think that being able to balance both is
great, because sometimes if youget hyper focused on one thing,
you lose the creative juices ofhaving a couple of different
problems to be solving, and Ithink one of the biggest
problems that people are workingto solve in the restaurant
industry right now is the guestexperience.
What do you feel like is themost important aspect of guest
experience nowadays?
Speaker 2 (06:23):
Yeah, this is my favorite right, and I would say
because that's where I started.
My start for restaurantsdoesn't begin with my family on
the restaurant and washingdishes when I was 12.
So which I've heard that storyfor sure, but that's not my
story.
My story was I was a guest andI had a wonderful experience of
a restaurant no longer inexistence it closed called
(06:44):
Craigia Main here in Boston, inthe Cambridge area, actually
three blocks from my house.
So I think you're getting thepicture.
I was there a lot, and I had oneof those experiences where a
restaurant adopts a guest andkind of treats them like part of
the family and that really mademe feel like this is amazing
experience in the community.
I love it.
I love to be part of somethinglike this one day, and so that's
(07:07):
where I actually spend a lot ofmy time thinking with sort of
like the CMO hat of therestaurant is how do I make sure
my guest experience isphenomenal, wonderful, and we
have quick service restaurantsand full service restaurants in
the hospitality group, so thereare multiple ways to provide
that great experience, whetherit's a server at the table or
even that's what start from thebeginning being greeted at the
host stand.
And then the QSR experience,where a lot of people kind of
(07:29):
just want great food and want toget in, get out, and then how
do you make that a magical or atleast a great experience that's
consistent?
Continually looking at theseand understanding okay, how can
we make it better?
Is a big part of great makinggreat guest experiences.
I think one thing that peoplemaybe overlook is asking guests.
Sometimes you don't want tobother people, but actually like
(07:50):
asking people how was it?
What can we do better?
Was this great?
Did you get what you paid for?
Yeah, there are ways that youcan really sort of get at a core
, maybe like challenge orunderstanding that you're trying
to understand about yourbusiness.
Especially in the early days,if you're trying something out,
it's really important, just likebuilding software, just like
get that feedback and then makechanges that are for the better.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
I love that.
I think that's such a greatsegue into the next question.
But just to double click onthat, one of the things that we
found is that people are willingto give you feedback.
What they don't want to do,because people are like, oh, no
one's going to give me feedback.
It's like, yeah, nobody wantsto fill out your 20 question
survey right Now.
(08:32):
People do want to tell you,especially if they got delivery
and they ordered five burgersand only four show up.
And now one of their kids islike really pissed off.
And that is something that, yes, they definitely want to give
you feedback.
And what we found is that a lotof people don't skew towards
(08:52):
leaving negative reviews.
They just won't come back, andthe reason that they don't want
to leave you a negative reviewis because they don't want to
hurt your business, becausethey're like, whatever, I don't
care enough to give thatfeedback to like, go through all
the effort, all the hoops toleave a review or to take your
20 question survey, but if youmake it easy for them, they'll
(09:18):
tell you.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
And then the key is, if you ask, listen right, like
do something about it.
And I think that's reallyimportant.
Yeah, I would say, for instanceand hopefully this doesn't like
get abused, but like if a guestever has an issue with our
restaurant, especially if it'sunsatisfactory, like, oh, I
didn't like your dish.
And in the world of deliveryright, where we can't just make,
make it right immediately,because that's what we would do
in a full service restaurant.
We'd take the plate away, right.
They would say, ok, we'llremake this or we will give you
(09:39):
something different.
I meet your needs.
In the world of delivery, nowtake out.
Our policy is like we will givethat person their money back
immediately.
Potentially, if they were theonly person to complain about
that one thing that day and webatched it and we know that
potentially it's fine, it wasn'tfine for them, we give them
their money back.
Yeah, I love that.
And it's like back to the earlyside, which is we want them to
feel like we're people First ofall it's a people business and
(10:04):
are incentivized to come backagain and try again.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
And I think that one of the things that we found is
that if you tie that feedback tosomething like their mobile
number, well then you can trackto see is this someone who's
going to be a consistentcomplainer?
Are they going to come in everyweek and complain about
something to try to getsomething for free?
You discover that reallyquickly phone number.
(10:27):
Then you don't have to be asconcerned about being hospitable
and about giving them a bigrefund with an apology and maybe
even a $5 off coupon for thenext order.
The first time, the second timemaybe you could be a little
more skeptical.
The third time, apologize, butyou don't have to keep giving
them stuff, and I think that'sreally the key is like
(10:48):
hospitality does not meanletting someone abuse generosity
, right.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
Yeah, look, I think we're one of the most accessible
businesses in hospitality thatyou get, and so, like there's
going to be a few bad appleshere and there, but that
shouldn't really spoil themajority of experiences where
people are looking to besatisfied, satiated and even
loud, depending on, maybe, thelevel of experience.
Yeah, and I think what we'retalking about here is like the
(11:16):
touch points is really important, and I think the touch points I
think maybe what we can dig infurther is either they're
changing where, when I startedthis business, no one got text
messages from restaurants.
Yeah, well, one, like not manypeople had smart phones, but
nowadays, like it's, I don'twant you calling me.
Why would you call me?
I don't even pick up numberswho don't have my phone numbers.
(11:36):
You can't call me.
Yeah, why would you call me?
I don't even pick up numberswho don't have my phone numbers.
You can't call me.
And then your address.
It's kind of like I don't knowif I'm going to read it.
There's a lot of things in myinbox that I ignore.
I got a text message that islike highly relevant, like hey,
you were just here, you had this.
How was it?
I make a decision, yes or no,do I want to answer this, but
maybe I do.
That's like you know, I didn'tlike that.
(11:56):
Let me tell you why I didn'tlike it.
Click, click, click, click,click, click, click, click done.
That's so helpful for arestaurant to be able to get
that feedback in that moment,and it wasn't really that much
weight, yeah no-transcript.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
Would rather have a business text them than reach
out to them in any other way,because that's where people
they're on their phones.
But emails, yeah, to your point.
There's like a few days go byuntil it's sent, a few days
until I see it, a few days toreply, a few days to see it, and
now all of a sudden you're aweek and a half down the road
and this frustration of a $12pizza and soda, all of a sudden
(12:52):
you're like I don't care, I'mjust not going back, right.
But as things are tangible andthey just had an emotional
experience, if you can connectwith them in that moment, boom,
like you got someone for lifethere.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
Yeah, look, the medium is just different.
Like when people get emailsfrom us, they expect us to talk
about three pages of a new wineand a new dish in the country we
visited to source theinformation for it.
Like, it's like a differentmedium, right?
Whereas the text message islike hey, I was up comes down.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
Yeah, totally Well.
I mean, I know we'reapproaching time here.
Who is someone in therestaurant industry that
deserves an ovation?
Who's someone that we should befollowing?
Speaker 2 (13:28):
Who do I love?
I mean Eli Sussman, chef like,I love his feed on Instagram
because it's just so funny,because it's true it's
definitely an industry.
And then look, another that Ithought about, which is a thread
that I enjoy on Instagram, isPreston Lee 30% rule.
I'm not really sure how deeplyfounded the work is, but I just
(13:49):
love his approach to hey, thereare like things that you
actually need to do as arestaurant that are kind of no
brainers and you got to do thosethings and I think that's
really important for theindustry at large.
It's like, hey, there arebasics in the industry.
You're never going to get to 10percent margin unless you do
those things and so focus on notmaking own goals and mistakes
(14:10):
that really can hurt you in thebusiness.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
Love that, and where can people go to find and follow
you?
Speaker 2 (14:16):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Linkedin is probably where Ipost the most, especially about
the industry and what we're upto, and then obviously follow
Square on LinkedIn and Instagram.
We feature both Square products, but then also our sellers, our
restaurants that are doingamazing things in the market,
especially amazing wonderfulthings for places that are under
some challenge, like LA, forinstance.
(14:38):
We have a lot of greatcustomers there that were
affected, and then those thatare under some challenge, like
LA, for instance.
We have a lot of greatcustomers there that were
affected, and then those aretrying to support others in
their community, really tryingto really speak and blow that
out in a way that people can getthe help that they need.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
I love that Well Ming for showing us that at times it
is hip to be square.
Today's ovation goes to you.
Thank you for joining us onGive an Ovation Awesome.
Today's Ovation goes to you,thank you for joining us on Give
an Ovation.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
Awesome Thanks for having me.
Really appreciate it.
Let's do it again.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
Absolutely.
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.
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
(15:25):
a better guest experience, visitus at OvationUpcom.
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Therapy Gecko
An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.