November 10, 2025 • 16 mins
Zack Oates welcomes Brock Weeks, CEO of Savi, to talk about using AI to measure and improve in-store guest experiences. Brock explains how Savi transforms existing security footage into actionable insights that help operators understand consistency, cleanliness, and engagement in real time. Together, Zack and Brock discuss the connection between AI, feedback, and the human side of hospitality.
Zack and Brock discuss:
- Using AI to measure consistency and guest interactions
- The “time to engage” metric and what it reveals
- Why data only works when it fits real workflows
- How AI empowers frontline workers instead of replacing them
- Why consistency builds trust
Thanks, Brock!
Links:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/brock-weeks-7b7471a/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/savi-solutions/
https://getsavi.com/
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
Welcome to another edition of Give and Ovation, the
Restaurant Guest ExperiencePodcast.
I'm your host, Zach Oates, andeach week I get to chat with an
industry expert to uncover theirstrategies and tactics to help
you create a five-star guestexperience.
This podcast is powered byOvation, the feedback and
operations platform built formulti-unit restaurants.
Learn what is actually happeningin your restaurants and exactly
(00:22):
how to improve while drivingrevenue.
Learn more at ovationup.com.
And today I'm joined by my goodbuddy Brock Weeks, CEO of Savvy.
What's up, Brock?
All right, Zach.
Thanks for having me on, man.
Finally, do you know what?
This is kind of funny.
We were talking about thisbefore the show.
This is like the third time thatBrock and I have tried to record
this podcast, but every time weget on to record it, we just
(00:45):
start talking.
And then all of a sudden it'slike, okay, well, now we only
have five minutes to record, solet's rebook.
And here we are, finally there.
And only because we only talkfor 15 minutes of our 30 minutes
that we have booked.
So we're doing a power podcasttoday.
Brock, talk to us about Savvy.
What is Savvy?
SPEAKER_01 (01:05):
Yeah, I was loud at your intro.
I was like, oh, it's kind ofthere's a reason why we uh work
so well together, very alignedthere.
Savvy, we just believe that theanswers to most of the questions
that operators have are foundwithin the four walls of the
restaurant.
It's just really hard to get tothe root cause of what's going
on, right?
There's great tools like ovationthat are giving you that pulse
(01:26):
check.
We want to help give you theleading indicators of what's
going on by establishingbaselines of the guest
experience using tools that arealready in place, which is your
surveillance cameras.
Most people have bought those asput them in as an insurance
policy.
But with AI and cloud computing,you're able to start to
structure all of that data toactually gather baselines of
(01:46):
what secret shoppers would do,but all the time, every single
guest experience.
How long does your actualexperience with a guest take to
go through your order process,interact with your guest?
How long does it take them toactually engage with your guest
and be greeted?
Because as you look at, you knowthis better than me, most
negative reviews that preventguests from coming and visiting
(02:07):
these stores has nothing to dowith the quality of the food.
A lot of it is the guestexperience.
And when we analyzed it, most ofit was actually around the speed
and consistency of the service,right?
Cleanliness of the restaurant,order accuracy, things of those
nature that now with AI, thosesurveillance video clips can
actually be structured to giveyou baselines and understand
(02:28):
context to all of that.
SPEAKER_00 (02:29):
I love that because you have to know what's going on
in your restaurants.
You have to know the experiencethat people are having.
One of the things I love aboutSavvy is that you focus so much
on the in-store experience andlike seeing exactly what's
happening.
And while ovation does capture alot of that feedback in-store,
primarily the biggest use isoff-prem, where people can
understand what's happening oncethey leave the store.
(02:51):
And you combine these two thingstogether and you get a complete
picture in-store, off-prem ofwhat the guest is experiencing.
And I love to your point aboutthat consistency because if you
aren't consistent, you lose thetrust of the guest.
And the reason that you're inbusiness is because you have
(03:12):
good food.
Your food has passed thethreshold of owning two or three
locations.
So when you're in like 50, 60locations, what's it about?
Consistency.
SPEAKER_01 (03:24):
Yeah.
Someone uh forgot, I think itmight have actually been Leon
from Dave's Hot Chicken at FSTech, um, or maybe it was
Richard from Bojangles.
One of the two talking aboutthis exact thing said, you know,
it's not so much about thespeed.
Yes, speed is important, butit's just what is the consistent
experience?
Like with certain brands, you'llget in that long line that you
know is going to take you 15minutes because you know it's
(03:46):
gonna take you 15 minutes.
But if it's like a gamble andyou're unsure, you're like, I
don't know what to expect there,you don't engage.
Really, really fascinating.
And our data from drive-offs andwalkouts and things like that
actually shows the same thing.
As long as it's a consistentexperience and the guest knows
what they're getting into,they're choosing to engage with
it.
SPEAKER_00 (04:05):
So yeah, I think that consistency is trust.
And the only way that you canfigure out are you being
consistent is either by beingeverywhere at once or leveraging
tools that'll summarizeeverything at once.
And I think that's it.
Those are the only two optionsyou have.
And I think that that's one ofthe things I love about what
you're doing.
Now, you work with a lot ofrestaurants and a lot of
(04:28):
locations.
I mean, I don't know, do youguys publish how many rooftops
you're on?
SPEAKER_01 (04:32):
We current count's not published.
We should probably end the yearcontracted in circa nine to ten.
SPEAKER_00 (04:39):
That's a big chunk of rooftops.
And so you're able to see a lot.
And what are you seeing as beingthe most important aspect?
We're talking about consistency,the most important aspect of
guest experience.
But what does that really mean?
What is your data showing aboutconsistency?
SPEAKER_01 (04:55):
Yeah, one of those it was interesting.
We were doing uh proof ofconcept, right?
Because a lot of folks have beentalking about AI, right?
And a lot of brands haverecognized that vision-based AI
has the opportunity to unlock alot of insights.
But a lot of pilots kind of fellin that, not fortunately, not
with us, but just generally AIpilots have struggled to get off
(05:15):
the ground, not just in therestaurant industry.
I think MIT and Harvardpublished that between 70 to 90%
of them never actually make itto fruition.
And there's this how do youconnect what the model can
actually do, the insight it cangrab, to an operational
workflow, right?
Because those are two very, verydifferent things.
The tech can work, but if itdoesn't work for your team and a
workflow, you're kind of justwasting your money.
(05:37):
So I give you that context tosay what we're seeing around
consistency.
This one brand, there's all ofthese different data points we
could gather.
What we found for this specificbrand, it was pizza chain.
It was time to engage, wasactually like one of the key
metrics.
Because we've all had theexperience where you walk in,
right, and you get a shout fromthe back.
Well, people, yeah, leave me ina moment, right?
(06:01):
And you're like, oh, and thenyou stand there, right?
And no one comes.
And after a couple of minutes,right, we've started to see that
once it gets to a if you waitmore than a minute and a half to
two minutes, that's when thewalkouts start to happen.
So that's lost revenue.
Just take your average ticketvalue, multiply that by how
(06:22):
often what percentage of salesthat's happening, and we're able
to start to actually quantifythat because it's interesting
with these brands.
So around that time to engage,we go in and we ask, and we're
like, okay, this is a key metricthat's driving all these
negative reviews.
You're spending so much money toget guests in the door.
And then what's like the firstthing that happens with them,
right?
Is the cleanliness of therestaurant and how quick a get
(06:43):
they're engaged with one of youremployees.
Those are like the two firstthings.
And we constantly ask, well, howdo you measure that?
And a lot of times the answer islike, uh, right, we're tracking
speed of service through thepoint of sale or through a loop
system in the drive-thru.
And it's like, okay, well, whatabout the other 30 to 60 percent
of your guests, depending onwhat percent are happening
on-prem?
And you actually look at reviewsand there'll be customers, it'll
(07:06):
be like, ah, you can tellthey're measuring how well they
take care of guests in thedrive-thru, because that's where
all the focus is at, right?
And these other guests areneglected and they start to walk
out.
How in the world is a multi-sitedistrict manager or above store
management team supposed toknow?
Because in your reviews, no onetakes the time to detail that
out.
I walked in, I waited two and ahalf minutes, and all I got was
(07:28):
a shout from the back, right?
Most people don't.
They just say it was nevergreeted and taken care of or
something to that nature, right?
So that what we're seeing whenyou can actually measure it and
establish a baseline, it'snothing new.
We all know whatever is measuredis managed, and whatever is
managed is improved.
You can finally actually startto measure these things.
(07:49):
The AI models can look at adining room, make sure there's
no spills on the floor, there'sno the trash isn't overflowing,
that the tables aren't full ofjunk and left trash.
All of these things thatactually matter and affect the
guest experience.
I mean, if you're only able tocheck that once a month with a
secret shopper or the one time aweek, maybe that a district
manager can get out there, AIcan now just measure that pulse
(08:12):
every few minutes, every hour,depending on the cadence they
want to do it, but start toestablish baselines so you even
know what that experience is.
And it's been fascinating aswe've gone in and seen the
expectation versus the realityis typically quite a chasm, but
how quickly they can close thatchasm now that they have the
data, because the people thatwork, like store managers, shift
(08:35):
leads, district managers, likeprobably some of the hardest
working people in America,right?
That are running these routes,all that they're managing, dude,
they want to do an unreal job,right?
They want to continue to dowell.
You just need to give them thedata and a workable workflow
that they can actually dosomething with it.
SPEAKER_00 (08:53):
And that's the whole thing that we talk about.
No matter what we're talkingabout, what it really boils down
to are the frontline workers.
Everything that we're talkingabout, from obviously one of the
things that we both care a lotabout with our businesses and
looking at it two different waysis the guest experience, right?
You're this persistent secretshopper and we're a guest
(09:14):
connection platform.
And those two things combined,it's not like we're here to try
to replace frontline workers,but we're here to Tony Stark
them.
We're here to give them the IronMan suit to allow them to do
their job.
And when you empower yourfrontline people to both know
what they should do to improveand connect with the guest when
(09:36):
they don't, that actuallyincreases retention, increases
guest satisfaction becausepeople want to feel like they're
making a difference.
And if you could help themunderstand what to do to make
that difference and make it easyfor them, then they'll love you
for it.
And I think at the end of theday, I love what you're talking
about.
There's some of the hardestworking people in America
(09:56):
because the other thing is uhthey're working so hard and
they're not playing for equity,they're not playing for keeps.
Why are they doing this?
They're doing it because theywant to have a job and they want
to make people happy.
So, how can we do that better?
And and I love that this thisconcept of technology enabling
them to do that.
Are are there anything thatyou've seen?
(10:18):
I love that example of like timeto greet.
Are there any other tactics thatyou've seen that have improved
the guest experience?
SPEAKER_01 (10:25):
So we've been late, as you talk about, right,
amplifying the human element.
I'm laughing when you said thatbecause I have a presentation
pulled up on my computer thatI'm giving at a brand conference
next week.
And it's a picture of TonyStark, right, with Jarvis.
Oh, no way.
Yeah, it's all of the databasically showing him exactly
what he should be doing.
But think about all of themundane, repetitive tasks that
(10:48):
have to be completed and areessential, right?
We talked about cleanliness,things of that nature, right?
Making sure the restaurant isready for the day.
And there's these compliancechecklists and they go through
with the iPad, and those aregreat tools, right?
But like that is just brain suckwork.
It's not actually like a humanshouldn't be doing some of these
things.
And historically, we've beenfeeding them all of this data.
(11:13):
Here's your guest review score,here's even your speed of
service score, here's your lossprevention metrics, here's
right.
And it's all of this data that'sjust thrown at them.
And we're saying, hey, we knowyou're busy, and we know you're
not a financial analyst thatwants to stare at spreadsheets
and data numbers all day long,right?
And charts and graphs.
But that's what we're kind ofall asking them to do.
(11:34):
And we're all saying, oh, by theway, you need to log into our
platform.
And so you're gonna have 12 ofthese, you got to log into a day
like really talk about embeddinginto workflows.
Are we actually making their jobeasier and amplifying them?
Or are we requiring them to domore work?
And so our whole focus to get tothis consistency and things that
(11:54):
we're learning is how do youtake those data points and
instead of telling them to tryto go find something and figure
out how to fix it, we're tryingto bridge that gap to them to
show them the consistent metricsand correlate it, right?
That's why we integrate withpartnerships and things like
you, because you can say, here'sa negative review, this
(12:15):
experience, and you've heard ita couple times.
You would then in our system,right, because of the
integration, you just clickright on that order ID and go
right to the experience andwatch and see exactly what the
team was doing.
Because typically the review isthe lagging indicator, the
service breakdown is the leadingindicator.
When you can marry thosetogether and you're basically
just telling the manager, thisis exactly what happened, and
(12:37):
here's the result.
Just click right here and gowatch the root cause.
And then they can go takeaction, right?
They're just reviewing what thedata has told them to do and
doing what only humans canuniquely do, which is coach and
train, right?
And help improve.
Machines don't do that and theycan't do that.
So I think it's behooven upon usas tech companies to really
(13:01):
understand the life that a storemanager and a district manager
is living on a day-to-day basis,and how do we make our systems
operate for them in that Jarvistype workflow that just tells
them what they need to reviewand approve to take action
versus overlowing them withdata.
Like if we're trying to tellthem to do more than three to
(13:23):
four things, it's not gonnawork, it's gonna fail.
SPEAKER_00 (13:26):
Yeah, I totally agree, which is why you know,
one of the things that we alwaysfocus on innovation is like,
let's give the GMs one goal, onething to focus on, and have them
focus on that one thing really,really well and track the
improvement of that over time.
And we track the improvementbased on how the guest
experience has been, and you'retracking the improvement based
(13:46):
on what's happening in thestores.
And so, like, I feel likethere's a beautiful marriage
here.
But what I would love to dothough is obviously I see you at
a lot of trade shows, you know alot of people.
Who is someone that deserves anovation in the restaurant
industry?
SPEAKER_01 (14:00):
Oh man, that's there is so many.
I'm gonna use a couple.
One actually Tyler Marfs atScooter's Coffee.
Yeah.
Talk about a guy that won theirteam, dude, how hardworking they
are, what they're doing, and thegrowth and all of that.
But every time we meet withthem, it's a true partnership,
(14:20):
right?
We've all had those companieswe're fortunate to work with,
but it's almost kind of justlike a let's check in every once
in a while, status quo is good,where he's like, Look, how can
we improve?
How can we be better to workwith?
Help me understand how we couldutilize your tech better.
And everything is around howthey can make the tools that
they've chosen easier, better touse, more affordable for the
(14:44):
franchisee, right?
Consolidating vendors, things ofthat nature, just relentless in
that pursuit of like, we'll hitthe goal.
And then it's like, okay, great.
Now how else can we improve?
Right?
Like there's no stopping.
He's one, one that we actuallydon't work with, but um, I know
you guys work with him, butshout out to the genuineness of
the hospitality industry is uhJim Biddocks at Dave's Hot
(15:06):
Chicken.
It's not hard to tell and do thecorrelation why that brand has
done so well.
Everyone I've been able tointeract with at different
conferences and shows, they'regenuine in the fact of like take
time to come say hello, taketime to come connect, ask
questions about you, right?
Like, and you I just sit andobserve and watch, right?
And it's fascinating to watch aguy who's leading a brand,
(15:27):
right, that just sold for abillion dollars.
But you watch the amount of timehe takes to go engage with
people and spend time on theroad for the brand and with his
team and highlighting his team.
Just super impressed by it.
There's so many I could justkeep, but those are two that
stand out.
SPEAKER_00 (15:42):
Love that.
Well, Brock, always appreciateyou hanging out, whether or not
we actually hit record.
But where can people go to findand follow you and savvy?
SPEAKER_01 (15:51):
Yeah, uh, get savvy.com and it's S A V I.
We're on LinkedIn.
Pretty fair, try to be active onthere.
And then we're at the differenttrade shows.
We'll be at Create coming upthis weekend, RFDC that's coming
up in the next little bit, and afew others.
So look forward to connectingwith you.
Please reach out.
SPEAKER_00 (16:07):
Awesome.
Well, Brock, for showing us howto be the eye in the sky without
the creepiness.
Today's ovation goes to you.
Thank you for joining us onGivenovation.
Oh, that's gonna be our newtagline.
Without the creepiness.
SPEAKER_01 (16:18):
Yeah, without the creepiness.
I love it, dude.
I love it.
SPEAKER_00 (16:22):
Thanks for joining us today.
If you like this episode, leaveus a review on Apple Podcasts or
your favorite place to listen.
We're all about feedback here.
Again, this episode wassponsored by Ovation, a two
question SMS based actionableguest feedback platform built
for multi unit restaurants.
If you'd like to learn how wecan help you measure and create
a better guest experience, visitus at ovationup.com.
Welcome to another edition of Give and Ovation, the
Restaurant Guest ExperiencePodcast.
I'm your host, Zach Oates, andeach week I get to chat with an
industry expert to uncover theirstrategies and tactics to help
you create a five-star guestexperience.
This podcast is powered byOvation, the feedback and
operations platform built formulti-unit restaurants.
Learn what is actually happeningin your restaurants and exactly
(00:22):
how to improve while drivingrevenue.
Learn more at ovationup.com.
And today I'm joined by my goodbuddy Brock Weeks, CEO of Savvy.
What's up, Brock?
All right, Zach.
Thanks for having me on, man.
Finally, do you know what?
This is kind of funny.
We were talking about thisbefore the show.
This is like the third time thatBrock and I have tried to record
this podcast, but every time weget on to record it, we just
(00:45):
start talking.
And then all of a sudden it'slike, okay, well, now we only
have five minutes to record, solet's rebook.
And here we are, finally there.
And only because we only talkfor 15 minutes of our 30 minutes
that we have booked.
So we're doing a power podcasttoday.
Brock, talk to us about Savvy.
What is Savvy?
SPEAKER_01 (01:05):
Yeah, I was loud at your intro.
I was like, oh, it's kind ofthere's a reason why we uh work
so well together, very alignedthere.
Savvy, we just believe that theanswers to most of the questions
that operators have are foundwithin the four walls of the
restaurant.
It's just really hard to get tothe root cause of what's going
on, right?
There's great tools like ovationthat are giving you that pulse
(01:26):
check.
We want to help give you theleading indicators of what's
going on by establishingbaselines of the guest
experience using tools that arealready in place, which is your
surveillance cameras.
Most people have bought those asput them in as an insurance
policy.
But with AI and cloud computing,you're able to start to
structure all of that data toactually gather baselines of
(01:46):
what secret shoppers would do,but all the time, every single
guest experience.
How long does your actualexperience with a guest take to
go through your order process,interact with your guest?
How long does it take them toactually engage with your guest
and be greeted?
Because as you look at, you knowthis better than me, most
negative reviews that preventguests from coming and visiting
(02:07):
these stores has nothing to dowith the quality of the food.
A lot of it is the guestexperience.
And when we analyzed it, most ofit was actually around the speed
and consistency of the service,right?
Cleanliness of the restaurant,order accuracy, things of those
nature that now with AI, thosesurveillance video clips can
actually be structured to giveyou baselines and understand
(02:28):
context to all of that.
SPEAKER_00 (02:29):
I love that because you have to know what's going on
in your restaurants.
You have to know the experiencethat people are having.
One of the things I love aboutSavvy is that you focus so much
on the in-store experience andlike seeing exactly what's
happening.
And while ovation does capture alot of that feedback in-store,
primarily the biggest use isoff-prem, where people can
understand what's happening oncethey leave the store.
(02:51):
And you combine these two thingstogether and you get a complete
picture in-store, off-prem ofwhat the guest is experiencing.
And I love to your point aboutthat consistency because if you
aren't consistent, you lose thetrust of the guest.
And the reason that you're inbusiness is because you have
(03:12):
good food.
Your food has passed thethreshold of owning two or three
locations.
So when you're in like 50, 60locations, what's it about?
Consistency.
SPEAKER_01 (03:24):
Yeah.
Someone uh forgot, I think itmight have actually been Leon
from Dave's Hot Chicken at FSTech, um, or maybe it was
Richard from Bojangles.
One of the two talking aboutthis exact thing said, you know,
it's not so much about thespeed.
Yes, speed is important, butit's just what is the consistent
experience?
Like with certain brands, you'llget in that long line that you
know is going to take you 15minutes because you know it's
(03:46):
gonna take you 15 minutes.
But if it's like a gamble andyou're unsure, you're like, I
don't know what to expect there,you don't engage.
Really, really fascinating.
And our data from drive-offs andwalkouts and things like that
actually shows the same thing.
As long as it's a consistentexperience and the guest knows
what they're getting into,they're choosing to engage with
it.
SPEAKER_00 (04:05):
So yeah, I think that consistency is trust.
And the only way that you canfigure out are you being
consistent is either by beingeverywhere at once or leveraging
tools that'll summarizeeverything at once.
And I think that's it.
Those are the only two optionsyou have.
And I think that that's one ofthe things I love about what
you're doing.
Now, you work with a lot ofrestaurants and a lot of
(04:28):
locations.
I mean, I don't know, do youguys publish how many rooftops
you're on?
SPEAKER_01 (04:32):
We current count's not published.
We should probably end the yearcontracted in circa nine to ten.
SPEAKER_00 (04:39):
That's a big chunk of rooftops.
And so you're able to see a lot.
And what are you seeing as beingthe most important aspect?
We're talking about consistency,the most important aspect of
guest experience.
But what does that really mean?
What is your data showing aboutconsistency?
SPEAKER_01 (04:55):
Yeah, one of those it was interesting.
We were doing uh proof ofconcept, right?
Because a lot of folks have beentalking about AI, right?
And a lot of brands haverecognized that vision-based AI
has the opportunity to unlock alot of insights.
But a lot of pilots kind of fellin that, not fortunately, not
with us, but just generally AIpilots have struggled to get off
(05:15):
the ground, not just in therestaurant industry.
I think MIT and Harvardpublished that between 70 to 90%
of them never actually make itto fruition.
And there's this how do youconnect what the model can
actually do, the insight it cangrab, to an operational
workflow, right?
Because those are two very, verydifferent things.
The tech can work, but if itdoesn't work for your team and a
workflow, you're kind of justwasting your money.
(05:37):
So I give you that context tosay what we're seeing around
consistency.
This one brand, there's all ofthese different data points we
could gather.
What we found for this specificbrand, it was pizza chain.
It was time to engage, wasactually like one of the key
metrics.
Because we've all had theexperience where you walk in,
right, and you get a shout fromthe back.
Well, people, yeah, leave me ina moment, right?
(06:01):
And you're like, oh, and thenyou stand there, right?
And no one comes.
And after a couple of minutes,right, we've started to see that
once it gets to a if you waitmore than a minute and a half to
two minutes, that's when thewalkouts start to happen.
So that's lost revenue.
Just take your average ticketvalue, multiply that by how
(06:22):
often what percentage of salesthat's happening, and we're able
to start to actually quantifythat because it's interesting
with these brands.
So around that time to engage,we go in and we ask, and we're
like, okay, this is a key metricthat's driving all these
negative reviews.
You're spending so much money toget guests in the door.
And then what's like the firstthing that happens with them,
right?
Is the cleanliness of therestaurant and how quick a get
(06:43):
they're engaged with one of youremployees.
Those are like the two firstthings.
And we constantly ask, well, howdo you measure that?
And a lot of times the answer islike, uh, right, we're tracking
speed of service through thepoint of sale or through a loop
system in the drive-thru.
And it's like, okay, well, whatabout the other 30 to 60 percent
of your guests, depending onwhat percent are happening
on-prem?
And you actually look at reviewsand there'll be customers, it'll
(07:06):
be like, ah, you can tellthey're measuring how well they
take care of guests in thedrive-thru, because that's where
all the focus is at, right?
And these other guests areneglected and they start to walk
out.
How in the world is a multi-sitedistrict manager or above store
management team supposed toknow?
Because in your reviews, no onetakes the time to detail that
out.
I walked in, I waited two and ahalf minutes, and all I got was
(07:28):
a shout from the back, right?
Most people don't.
They just say it was nevergreeted and taken care of or
something to that nature, right?
So that what we're seeing whenyou can actually measure it and
establish a baseline, it'snothing new.
We all know whatever is measuredis managed, and whatever is
managed is improved.
You can finally actually startto measure these things.
(07:49):
The AI models can look at adining room, make sure there's
no spills on the floor, there'sno the trash isn't overflowing,
that the tables aren't full ofjunk and left trash.
All of these things thatactually matter and affect the
guest experience.
I mean, if you're only able tocheck that once a month with a
secret shopper or the one time aweek, maybe that a district
manager can get out there, AIcan now just measure that pulse
(08:12):
every few minutes, every hour,depending on the cadence they
want to do it, but start toestablish baselines so you even
know what that experience is.
And it's been fascinating aswe've gone in and seen the
expectation versus the realityis typically quite a chasm, but
how quickly they can close thatchasm now that they have the
data, because the people thatwork, like store managers, shift
(08:35):
leads, district managers, likeprobably some of the hardest
working people in America,right?
That are running these routes,all that they're managing, dude,
they want to do an unreal job,right?
They want to continue to dowell.
You just need to give them thedata and a workable workflow
that they can actually dosomething with it.
SPEAKER_00 (08:53):
And that's the whole thing that we talk about.
No matter what we're talkingabout, what it really boils down
to are the frontline workers.
Everything that we're talkingabout, from obviously one of the
things that we both care a lotabout with our businesses and
looking at it two different waysis the guest experience, right?
You're this persistent secretshopper and we're a guest
(09:14):
connection platform.
And those two things combined,it's not like we're here to try
to replace frontline workers,but we're here to Tony Stark
them.
We're here to give them the IronMan suit to allow them to do
their job.
And when you empower yourfrontline people to both know
what they should do to improveand connect with the guest when
(09:36):
they don't, that actuallyincreases retention, increases
guest satisfaction becausepeople want to feel like they're
making a difference.
And if you could help themunderstand what to do to make
that difference and make it easyfor them, then they'll love you
for it.
And I think at the end of theday, I love what you're talking
about.
There's some of the hardestworking people in America
(09:56):
because the other thing is uhthey're working so hard and
they're not playing for equity,they're not playing for keeps.
Why are they doing this?
They're doing it because theywant to have a job and they want
to make people happy.
So, how can we do that better?
And and I love that this thisconcept of technology enabling
them to do that.
Are are there anything thatyou've seen?
(10:18):
I love that example of like timeto greet.
Are there any other tactics thatyou've seen that have improved
the guest experience?
SPEAKER_01 (10:25):
So we've been late, as you talk about, right,
amplifying the human element.
I'm laughing when you said thatbecause I have a presentation
pulled up on my computer thatI'm giving at a brand conference
next week.
And it's a picture of TonyStark, right, with Jarvis.
Oh, no way.
Yeah, it's all of the databasically showing him exactly
what he should be doing.
But think about all of themundane, repetitive tasks that
(10:48):
have to be completed and areessential, right?
We talked about cleanliness,things of that nature, right?
Making sure the restaurant isready for the day.
And there's these compliancechecklists and they go through
with the iPad, and those aregreat tools, right?
But like that is just brain suckwork.
It's not actually like a humanshouldn't be doing some of these
things.
And historically, we've beenfeeding them all of this data.
(11:13):
Here's your guest review score,here's even your speed of
service score, here's your lossprevention metrics, here's
right.
And it's all of this data that'sjust thrown at them.
And we're saying, hey, we knowyou're busy, and we know you're
not a financial analyst thatwants to stare at spreadsheets
and data numbers all day long,right?
And charts and graphs.
But that's what we're kind ofall asking them to do.
(11:34):
And we're all saying, oh, by theway, you need to log into our
platform.
And so you're gonna have 12 ofthese, you got to log into a day
like really talk about embeddinginto workflows.
Are we actually making their jobeasier and amplifying them?
Or are we requiring them to domore work?
And so our whole focus to get tothis consistency and things that
(11:54):
we're learning is how do youtake those data points and
instead of telling them to tryto go find something and figure
out how to fix it, we're tryingto bridge that gap to them to
show them the consistent metricsand correlate it, right?
That's why we integrate withpartnerships and things like
you, because you can say, here'sa negative review, this
(12:15):
experience, and you've heard ita couple times.
You would then in our system,right, because of the
integration, you just clickright on that order ID and go
right to the experience andwatch and see exactly what the
team was doing.
Because typically the review isthe lagging indicator, the
service breakdown is the leadingindicator.
When you can marry thosetogether and you're basically
just telling the manager, thisis exactly what happened, and
(12:37):
here's the result.
Just click right here and gowatch the root cause.
And then they can go takeaction, right?
They're just reviewing what thedata has told them to do and
doing what only humans canuniquely do, which is coach and
train, right?
And help improve.
Machines don't do that and theycan't do that.
So I think it's behooven upon usas tech companies to really
(13:01):
understand the life that a storemanager and a district manager
is living on a day-to-day basis,and how do we make our systems
operate for them in that Jarvistype workflow that just tells
them what they need to reviewand approve to take action
versus overlowing them withdata.
Like if we're trying to tellthem to do more than three to
(13:23):
four things, it's not gonnawork, it's gonna fail.
SPEAKER_00 (13:26):
Yeah, I totally agree, which is why you know,
one of the things that we alwaysfocus on innovation is like,
let's give the GMs one goal, onething to focus on, and have them
focus on that one thing really,really well and track the
improvement of that over time.
And we track the improvementbased on how the guest
experience has been, and you'retracking the improvement based
(13:46):
on what's happening in thestores.
And so, like, I feel likethere's a beautiful marriage
here.
But what I would love to dothough is obviously I see you at
a lot of trade shows, you know alot of people.
Who is someone that deserves anovation in the restaurant
industry?
SPEAKER_01 (14:00):
Oh man, that's there is so many.
I'm gonna use a couple.
One actually Tyler Marfs atScooter's Coffee.
Yeah.
Talk about a guy that won theirteam, dude, how hardworking they
are, what they're doing, and thegrowth and all of that.
But every time we meet withthem, it's a true partnership,
(14:20):
right?
We've all had those companieswe're fortunate to work with,
but it's almost kind of justlike a let's check in every once
in a while, status quo is good,where he's like, Look, how can
we improve?
How can we be better to workwith?
Help me understand how we couldutilize your tech better.
And everything is around howthey can make the tools that
they've chosen easier, better touse, more affordable for the
(14:44):
franchisee, right?
Consolidating vendors, things ofthat nature, just relentless in
that pursuit of like, we'll hitthe goal.
And then it's like, okay, great.
Now how else can we improve?
Right?
Like there's no stopping.
He's one, one that we actuallydon't work with, but um, I know
you guys work with him, butshout out to the genuineness of
the hospitality industry is uhJim Biddocks at Dave's Hot
(15:06):
Chicken.
It's not hard to tell and do thecorrelation why that brand has
done so well.
Everyone I've been able tointeract with at different
conferences and shows, they'regenuine in the fact of like take
time to come say hello, taketime to come connect, ask
questions about you, right?
Like, and you I just sit andobserve and watch, right?
And it's fascinating to watch aguy who's leading a brand,
(15:27):
right, that just sold for abillion dollars.
But you watch the amount of timehe takes to go engage with
people and spend time on theroad for the brand and with his
team and highlighting his team.
Just super impressed by it.
There's so many I could justkeep, but those are two that
stand out.
SPEAKER_00 (15:42):
Love that.
Well, Brock, always appreciateyou hanging out, whether or not
we actually hit record.
But where can people go to findand follow you and savvy?
SPEAKER_01 (15:51):
Yeah, uh, get savvy.com and it's S A V I.
We're on LinkedIn.
Pretty fair, try to be active onthere.
And then we're at the differenttrade shows.
We'll be at Create coming upthis weekend, RFDC that's coming
up in the next little bit, and afew others.
So look forward to connectingwith you.
Please reach out.
SPEAKER_00 (16:07):
Awesome.
Well, Brock, for showing us howto be the eye in the sky without
the creepiness.
Today's ovation goes to you.
Thank you for joining us onGivenovation.
Oh, that's gonna be our newtagline.
Without the creepiness.
SPEAKER_01 (16:18):
Yeah, without the creepiness.
I love it, dude.
I love it.
SPEAKER_00 (16:22):
Thanks for joining us today.
If you like this episode, leaveus a review on Apple Podcasts or
your favorite place to listen.
We're all about feedback here.
Again, this episode wassponsored by Ovation, a two
question SMS based actionableguest feedback platform built
for multi unit restaurants.
If you'd like to learn how wecan help you measure and create
a better guest experience, visitus at ovationup.com.
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