September 9, 2025 • 19 mins
Justin Falciola, President of the Americas at Deliverect, joins Zack Oates to explore how technology and hospitality can work hand in hand. With leadership experience at Papa John’s and CKE, Justin has seen the restaurant industry from both the operator and vendor sides. He shares how Deliverect is helping brands scale profitably by connecting POS systems, delivery aggregators, and first-party digital platforms—all while keeping the guest at the center.
Zack and Justin discuss:
- Why Blockbuster failed and what restaurants can learn from it
- The critical role of GMs in shaping guest experience
- How data and curiosity help uncover guest insights
- Why operators should spend time working in restaurants
- The overlooked potential of the drive-thru
Thanks, Justin!
Links:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/justinfalciola/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/deliverecthq/
https://www.deliverect.com/en
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.
I'm your host, zach Oates, andeach week I chat with industry
experts to uncover theirstrategies and tactics to help
you create a five-star guestexperience.
This podcast is powered byOvation, the feedback and
operations platform built formulti-unit restaurants.
Learn what's actually happeningin your restaurants and how to
(00:21):
improve without just a longsurvey.
Learn more at OvationUpcom.
And I'm really excited today toinvite Justin Falciola on the
podcast.
Justin is not only an industryvet, but he's been on both sides
of the coin, both as a vendorand as an operator.
He was at Papa John's as theSVP, chief Insights and
(00:42):
Technology Officer, cke as theChief Technology and Growth
Officer and now President of theAmericas at DeliverAct.
Welcome to the podcast, justin.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
How are you Doing great, Zach.
Thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
First of all, we were commenting on Falsiola and Oats
.
I got a little bit of the longend of that stick.
I think Mine's pretty easy.
You got some vowels andconsonants in there together
that make it tough to say formost people.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
My mom always used to say it sounds like some strange
disease, but you got it.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
Well, I love it.
When I saw your last name, Iwas like I wonder if this guy is
a Jersey boy.
And then I saw that you went toRutgers and I'm like all right
there.
And so anyway, turns out,justin and I have the same area
code for a mobile number.
So that's a big deal.
There's not too many of us outthere and unless someone cracks
the code, I'll leave that asecret in terms of what it is.
(01:35):
But for those who don't knowJustin, I mean obviously
everyone's familiar with PapaJohn's and CKE.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
Talk to us a little bit about Deliveract and what
you guys do.
Yeah, a hundred percent.
Listen, the first shout outcertainly the East Coast, and
pasta and people and pizza, ofcourse.
Deliveract is just this amazingcompany.
I was so excited to join a fewmonths back.
For me, my passion is foodpersonally, professionally,
quite honestly, I love to eat.
I think about it all the time.
(02:06):
When I got into restaurantsmaybe a decade ago, zach, I
honestly was a little cautiousabout entering the industry.
I hadn't been in this kind ofindustry before franchise and
there's a lot that goes into, asyou know, a lot that goes into
making a successful experiencefor people each and every day,
and within a year, I was hookedand I said I never want to leave
(02:26):
.
Deliveract is, to me, one ofthe most exciting stories in
food tech today.
We're in 52 countries, the teamitself.
We're in about 12 countriesaround the world, but our
founders, Zong and the otherco-founders, have built this
amazing distributed culturewhere, 24-7, we're taking care
of customers and brandsthroughout the globe.
(02:48):
A big part of my focus isobviously my home, right here in
the US, and we'd love to chatmore with you today, certainly
about how we're driving digitaloutcomes for our customers.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
What are the problems that you're solving for your
customers?
Speaker 2 (03:03):
Let me take on a little bit of a journey of a
company quickly.
I mean, we're about six yearsold.
Where we started was connectingreally as many channels and
point of sales as we could.
That's the problem thatDeliverX set out to solve.
This was right before thepandemic and most of those
channels at that time wereaggregators.
So today there's over 100aggregators in the world that we
connect and over 400 point ofsales.
(03:23):
There's over 100 aggregators inthe world that we connect and
over 400 point of sales.
Pretty rapidly the company gotinto dispatching.
So think about maybe your ownwebsite or a phone order or your
own app.
How do I dispatch that?
Either through my own courierfleet or, more commonly, through
really large players likeDoorDash, uber, et cetera.
A few years back, about threeyears back, our customers and
(03:43):
partners.
One of the partnerships is howthe company was built.
They said listen, you'resolving these things menu
building, order injection,upsell, etc for us on third
party.
Can you take some of that sametech and that same team and
apply it to our first partyproblems?
So things like kiosks, thingslike voice, ai, things like
websites, apps, and so that'swhat we started to do.
(04:04):
That's been the journey thepast few years and really we're
just getting started in the USmarket.
We only started focusing onthis market a few years ago and
it's been amazing what we'vebeen able to achieve with our
partners and especially ourcustomers.
We have some really excitingbrands that I've been privileged
to visit and privileged topartner with.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
It's amazing because when you really focus on and
this is something that I've beenlearning about but Blockbuster,
everyone talks aboutBlockbuster and the other day,
someone brought up somethingthat was actually like a novel
idea about Blockbuster that Ihadn't considered before.
Why did they go out of business?
And they didn't go out ofbusiness just because Netflix
(04:43):
came along or Redbox.
They went out of businessbecause they stopped focusing on
their customers' problems andwhat were they actually trying
to solve?
What were the problems theywere trying to solve?
And it wasn't a rental right,it was home entertainment for
families and individuals.
And if they would have focusedon that and been obsessed with
(05:03):
how do we constantly evolve thishome entertainment business and
helping families andindividuals to find enjoyment at
home on the weekends or on theweekdays or needing a break,
like they would have gotten tothat red box Netflix idea sooner
or at least would haveunderstood what that meant for
them.
And I think that in any company,be it a restaurant, be it a
(05:26):
tech partner, it's aboutunderstanding what are the
problems that you're solving andhow do you constantly use new
evolutions, new technologies,new insights to solve that
problem better?
And I think that's where peopleoften get confused is that they
focus too much on the solutionand not on the problem, and I
(05:46):
think that with every restaurant, it really comes down to the
guest experience.
Right, Everyone's trying tobalance the two aspects of I
want a more profitable brandwith a better guest experience,
and sometimes those things comein conflict.
But it's like how do you dothat?
And so in your experience,especially focusing on
technology, what do you think isthe most important aspect of
(06:09):
guest experience nowadays?
Speaker 2 (06:10):
Yeah, One thing that's really hard for
restaurants and I've only beenon this side of the table for a
few months and I love getting topartner with all these
different varieties ofrestaurants but, having been in
this space for about a decade,on the brand side, it's just in
that decade it at the top of thefunnel.
You think about marketingtechnology or marketing media,
(06:32):
right.
And then you work your way downthrough the funnel into
ordering experiences and thinkabout all the different ways
folks can order food today, allthe different ways folks can
sort of physically acquire thatfood Someone bringing it to them
(06:52):
, curbside, drive-through,walk-in, qr code, table side,
etc.
And then post-order.
There are so many things nowthat can go wrong and I'm not
saying that many of those thingsdidn't exist in the past, but
the complexity of theinteractions have really stepped
up.
If you're in a restaurant, it'sa low-margin business.
You're on your feet all thetime.
(07:12):
I've had a bunch of kids Zachand three of them are teenagers
and they've all worked inrestaurants.
You're going, going, going.
And if you're a GM mostimportant job in the industry,
right.
Typically we think of as the GMyou now are confronted with a
whole set of problems orexceptional cases that you
didn't have before, and again, alot of those, I think, are
(07:33):
linked to this explosion anddiversity of technology
enablement, and that sameenablement is making our life
great right and we're sothankful for it as consumers and
then certainly in therestaurant.
A lot of that same technologyis making your life easier, but
it's also made it verychallenging.
I think that's a unique problemthat for all of us in this
(07:53):
industry we get to help solve.
I think it's a privilege.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
Yeah, I love that and when you focus in on that and
when you focus in on what isthis doing for the guest and how
do we empower the GMs to bejust a hospitality machine?
That is something that I feellike is so critical and I think,
if you're looking at any pieceof technology for your
restaurant, the question isalways how does this help my GM
(08:21):
to create that better guestexperience or to improve
profitability?
Because the GM really is wherethe rubber meets the road.
I love how you call it the mostimportant position in a
restaurant brand, because ittotally is.
That's where you make or breakeach of the guest experiences of
restaurant brand because ittotally is.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
That's where you make or break each of the guest
experiences.
They are the hub, the lifeblood, and the culture that the GM
builds, I think, cascades toeveryone else.
So how can we make them reallysuccessful and allow them to do
what they do best, which isfocusing on their team and
focusing on their guests?
I was pulling up on my phonehere, so this is blind luck, but
this morning I'm sitting theredrinking coffee Zach, I probably
(08:58):
drank way too much coffee, butI'm flipping through LinkedIn
and colleague Sean over atFreddy's he runs technology over
there.
He posts on LinkedIn thisamazing three sentences.
This morning I'm on a ladderback house I'm just reading it,
back house in a restaurant,elbow deep in networking
equipment, getting the cable inplace, with my teeth trying to
get everything open on time.
(09:18):
Why, so we're open in time toserve guests.
I share this as a reminder.
Not everything we do isglamorous.
In fact, very little is.
Keep working hard, my friends.
That encapsulates a lot of whatI think is important for
technologists that are trying tounderstand how to serve
restaurants and also what makesa great GM, are trying to
understand how to serverestaurants and also like what
(09:38):
makes a great GM back to GM.
The details matter and when Ithink about our mission, both
when I was a CTO and now kind ofhaving the privilege of leading
this region for DeliverAct, itreally comes down to how do I
make it easier?
It has to be easier for arestaurant to scale profitably
and for us, a lot of our focusis on digital scale.
We have some things related toaccuracy solutions and other
(10:01):
solutions for the restaurant,but a lot of it is all around
first-party and third-partydigital scale.
But if it's not easier, it'snot gonna be good for the
restaurant because, again, it'sone of the hardest industries
out there and one of the lowestmargin industries out there.
And I think again it's theproblem with the proliferation
of solutions that we haven'tquite solved yet is how to
actually make it easier forrestaurant operators.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
Man, well, you sold me on this industry.
I feel like to be in thisindustry.
We got to have a couple ofscrews loose because there are
so many things that are toughabout this industry, but the
thing that I have found to beuniversal of people who love
this industry like we do is thatwe care about people, we care
(10:43):
about hospitality, we want tocreate these great experiences
and to have people leavingfilled and fulfilled and like
that is what it comes down toand like a place of connection,
and I think when you focus onthat and the hospitality of it,
all everything else falls inplace.
To that end.
I'd love to hear anything thatin your experience, some tactics
(11:05):
that you've seen to improve theguest experience.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
One is and I did make it sound like an insurmountable
problem it's definitely not.
It's just knowing the challengeand being excited by it like an
insurmountable problem, it'sdefinitely not.
It's just knowing the challengeand being excited by it.
One tactic is recognizing thateveryone can be an analyst and
should be an analyst, and thisis where I think we're really
just getting started.
Our ski tips are headed downthe slope in terms of analysis.
(11:29):
Years back, I used to work infinance and insurance healthcare
industries B boring right.
Well, that's what my kids said100%.
They're a lot more happy withwhat I'm doing these days, but
you have hundreds, thousands ofanalysts cranking away at data.
This stuff was really complex.
Of course, data's still prettycomplex, but the technology and
(11:52):
the platforms it's likeunbelievable to me how much
they've evolved in just 10, 15years and getting to the
buzzwords with AI here, butcertainly with the last two,
three years, what we've seen.
And so anyone can be an analyst.
How does that connect to theguest experience?
I really encourage people tolook at what you already have.
(12:12):
Guests are implicitly tellingyou something through data that
is recording or being emitted bythe platforms that they're
engaging in, and you want tobalance that with what they're
telling you through a platformlike Ovation or a separate
platform, right, and you look atthose things together and be
(12:33):
curious, be curious.
When I was working the otherside of the fence, a lot of
times we just weren't curious.
We'd see like the outcomemetric and we wouldn't look at
what was going into it.
Why did that happen?
And so you know the whole fivewhys.
Yeah, kaizen, baby, if you askwhy, enough, you get to the root
cause.
So yeah, number one thing becurious, be an analyst, and we
(12:54):
can do it and we can do it.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
I love that.
That curiosity is part of that,excitement is part of that,
love is part of that journey toalways be fulfilling the brand
promise and making sure that theguest feels seen, feels heard,
feels that unreasonablehospitality.
To come back and to share thatexperience and to make their day
a little bit better.
Because I love Kelly McPherson.
(13:17):
She was the CTO of Danny MyersUnion Square Hospitality Group
and I've been working with hernow for coming up on five years
and she is just a phenomenalperson and she's been CTO of
huge brands and led technologyat hard rock and planet
hollywood and oracle and justand, and and and one of the
(13:41):
things that she says.
And I bring all that up just tosay that this next quote from
her is something so interesting.
She goes we're not performingrocket surgery, we're delivering
hot food, hot and cold food,and the thing I love about that
is like she's able to take allof that and just break it down
to the fact of like it's notterribly complicated but there's
(14:04):
so many things that can make itcomplicated and there's so many
factors that go into it, but atthe end of the day, it's about
delivering on that experience.
It's about delivering on thatfeeling and I love that we're
talking about feelings, and hereI am a guy who's been finance
and IT and CTO, and here we aretalking about feelings because
(14:26):
we're hospitality folks, right,and that's what it's all about.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
An old boss at Papa John's, our CEO.
He had this quote that juststuck with me.
He's like where else do you getthe privilege, but also the
responsibility, of givingsomeone food?
So for us, a lot of times thatwas literally at their door.
A stranger is coming up to yourdoor, knocking on your door and
giving you food that you'retaking into your family.
(14:52):
That's like a pretty specialmoment.
Right, that's something thatyou're going to ingest.
That Food is a sharedexperience often.
You're right I mean what Kellysaid it should be simple at the
end of the day, and that's why Ithink back to like just being
in the restaurant.
For those of us in tech or dataor marketing or product or
whatever, your role is, maybeabove store, to just make the
(15:14):
time to go in and be a customer,be a consumer.
But also, if you have thechance or the privilege, work in
a restaurant.
You know, every once in a whileit's like the best way to build
empathy that might be.
My second suggestion is justwork in there for a little while
.
You know a fast, casual concept, pretty different than fine
dining, pretty different than anoff-prime or delivery type
(15:36):
business.
But we would encourage andactually, in some cases even
mandate our folks, like you have, to take a tour in the
restaurant One of the bestthings, I think, for our team.
The third thing I guess that I'dsay as a recommendation, zach,
is maybe peek around the cornera bit at some of those
interaction formats that don'thave necessarily the sex appeal
(15:57):
or all of the attention on thembut are still highly trafficked.
So if I gave just one example,to me it's the most glaring.
It's drive-through for QSR andincreasingly some of the fast
casual world.
Think about how much attentionwe put and money we put into the
digital experience on a website, as we should, or a search
(16:22):
engine optimization, searchengine marketing, as we should,
or an app experience.
But think how many consumersare going through your
drive-through.
For a lot of drive-throughconcepts it's often 50 to 70%,
at least you know.
Depending on day part it mightbe even higher.
And a lot of times thosespeaker posts aren't great, the
(16:42):
audio quality isn't great Ifthere is a digital menu board,
maybe glitchy or glaring, andthere's like a whole lot of like
physical and digital things andhuman things in that experience
.
It's just one example, but likeback to like loving the problem
, like that whole drive throughinteraction, that whole space.
That's a problem.
(17:03):
I think we could love you knowsome more in our industry,
because it's a complex one, butI don't know if we've paid it
enough attention.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
Yeah, I totally agree .
I think that there's somereally interesting solutions out
there.
But I think it's a matter of bethe consumer, because there are
so many times that, like, I'musing my iPhone and I'm like
does Tim Cook know the iPhonedoes this?
Is he using this?
Are people using the iPhone?
Because if so, how did theymiss that up?
There's just things like that,that I find, and so the more
(17:33):
that you're a consumer, the morethat you can see from your
guest's eyes.
But that's the whole reasonthat we started Ovation right
Was to help you see through theguest's eyes in a way that
doesn't require you to go everysingle day.
That doesn't mean that youshouldn't go.
There's different avenues toget that feedback.
So, justin, now you've had agreat career still having it.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
But you know a lot of people who is someone that we
should be following.
It's the end of summer and Idon't really want to end, zach,
so I'm going to chat out to someof my favorite summer foods
here.
We've got two amazing customersin the dessert space.
One is one started in Brooklynso I'm a Louisville guy but
originally from Jersey and theNew York city area and Van
Leeuwen if you're familiar withtheir ice cream and thousands of
grocery stores, I think at thispoint, and a lot of retail
(18:19):
outlets.
The founder of that company.
He is obsessed with productquality and he's obsessed with
everything we've been talkingabout, which is like the basics
matter, the details matter, soshout out to them.
I think it would be great tofill their doors before the
summer ends.
And listen, I'm a cobbler guyPeach Cobbler Factory is near
and dear to my heart and shoutout to our friends at Peach
(18:40):
Cobbler.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
Awesome.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
Well, Justin, how do people find and follow you?
I'm on LinkedIn like everybodyelse.
Our Deliver Act.
Linkedin is pretty easy to findas well.
Give us a shout.
We'd love to hear from you.
But, most importantly, we loveto celebrate restaurants.
So that's where it's at, and,zach, thank you for giving me
the opportunity to be here today.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
Yeah, man, well, like toppings and cobbler.
Thanks for showing us that techand hospitality go together,
and for that today's ovationgoes to you.
Thank you for joining us andgive an ovation, justin.
Thanks, zach.
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.
(19:21):
Again, this episode wassponsored by Ovation, a
two-question, sms-basedactionable guest feedback
platform built for multi-unitrestaurants.
If you'd like to learn how wecan help you measure and create
a better guest experience, visitus at OvationUpcom.
Welcome to another edition of Give an Ovation the
restaurant guest experiencepodcast.
I'm your host, zach Oates, andeach week I chat with industry
experts to uncover theirstrategies and tactics to help
you create a five-star guestexperience.
This podcast is powered byOvation, the feedback and
operations platform built formulti-unit restaurants.
Learn what's actually happeningin your restaurants and how to
(00:21):
improve without just a longsurvey.
Learn more at OvationUpcom.
And I'm really excited today toinvite Justin Falciola on the
podcast.
Justin is not only an industryvet, but he's been on both sides
of the coin, both as a vendorand as an operator.
He was at Papa John's as theSVP, chief Insights and
(00:42):
Technology Officer, cke as theChief Technology and Growth
Officer and now President of theAmericas at DeliverAct.
Welcome to the podcast, justin.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
How are you Doing great, Zach.
Thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
First of all, we were commenting on Falsiola and Oats
.
I got a little bit of the longend of that stick.
I think Mine's pretty easy.
You got some vowels andconsonants in there together
that make it tough to say formost people.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
My mom always used to say it sounds like some strange
disease, but you got it.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
Well, I love it.
When I saw your last name, Iwas like I wonder if this guy is
a Jersey boy.
And then I saw that you went toRutgers and I'm like all right
there.
And so anyway, turns out,justin and I have the same area
code for a mobile number.
So that's a big deal.
There's not too many of us outthere and unless someone cracks
the code, I'll leave that asecret in terms of what it is.
(01:35):
But for those who don't knowJustin, I mean obviously
everyone's familiar with PapaJohn's and CKE.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
Talk to us a little bit about Deliveract and what
you guys do.
Yeah, a hundred percent.
Listen, the first shout outcertainly the East Coast, and
pasta and people and pizza, ofcourse.
Deliveract is just this amazingcompany.
I was so excited to join a fewmonths back.
For me, my passion is foodpersonally, professionally,
quite honestly, I love to eat.
I think about it all the time.
(02:06):
When I got into restaurantsmaybe a decade ago, zach, I
honestly was a little cautiousabout entering the industry.
I hadn't been in this kind ofindustry before franchise and
there's a lot that goes into, asyou know, a lot that goes into
making a successful experiencefor people each and every day,
and within a year, I was hookedand I said I never want to leave
(02:26):
.
Deliveract is, to me, one ofthe most exciting stories in
food tech today.
We're in 52 countries, the teamitself.
We're in about 12 countriesaround the world, but our
founders, Zong and the otherco-founders, have built this
amazing distributed culturewhere, 24-7, we're taking care
of customers and brandsthroughout the globe.
(02:48):
A big part of my focus isobviously my home, right here in
the US, and we'd love to chatmore with you today, certainly
about how we're driving digitaloutcomes for our customers.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
What are the problems that you're solving for your
customers?
Speaker 2 (03:03):
Let me take on a little bit of a journey of a
company quickly.
I mean, we're about six yearsold.
Where we started was connectingreally as many channels and
point of sales as we could.
That's the problem thatDeliverX set out to solve.
This was right before thepandemic and most of those
channels at that time wereaggregators.
So today there's over 100aggregators in the world that we
connect and over 400 point ofsales.
(03:23):
There's over 100 aggregators inthe world that we connect and
over 400 point of sales.
Pretty rapidly the company gotinto dispatching.
So think about maybe your ownwebsite or a phone order or your
own app.
How do I dispatch that?
Either through my own courierfleet or, more commonly, through
really large players likeDoorDash, uber, et cetera.
A few years back, about threeyears back, our customers and
(03:43):
partners.
One of the partnerships is howthe company was built.
They said listen, you'resolving these things menu
building, order injection,upsell, etc for us on third
party.
Can you take some of that sametech and that same team and
apply it to our first partyproblems?
So things like kiosks, thingslike voice, ai, things like
websites, apps, and so that'swhat we started to do.
(04:04):
That's been the journey thepast few years and really we're
just getting started in the USmarket.
We only started focusing onthis market a few years ago and
it's been amazing what we'vebeen able to achieve with our
partners and especially ourcustomers.
We have some really excitingbrands that I've been privileged
to visit and privileged topartner with.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
It's amazing because when you really focus on and
this is something that I've beenlearning about but Blockbuster,
everyone talks aboutBlockbuster and the other day,
someone brought up somethingthat was actually like a novel
idea about Blockbuster that Ihadn't considered before.
Why did they go out of business?
And they didn't go out ofbusiness just because Netflix
(04:43):
came along or Redbox.
They went out of businessbecause they stopped focusing on
their customers' problems andwhat were they actually trying
to solve?
What were the problems theywere trying to solve?
And it wasn't a rental right,it was home entertainment for
families and individuals.
And if they would have focusedon that and been obsessed with
(05:03):
how do we constantly evolve thishome entertainment business and
helping families andindividuals to find enjoyment at
home on the weekends or on theweekdays or needing a break,
like they would have gotten tothat red box Netflix idea sooner
or at least would haveunderstood what that meant for
them.
And I think that in any company,be it a restaurant, be it a
(05:26):
tech partner, it's aboutunderstanding what are the
problems that you're solving andhow do you constantly use new
evolutions, new technologies,new insights to solve that
problem better?
And I think that's where peopleoften get confused is that they
focus too much on the solutionand not on the problem, and I
(05:46):
think that with every restaurant, it really comes down to the
guest experience.
Right, Everyone's trying tobalance the two aspects of I
want a more profitable brandwith a better guest experience,
and sometimes those things comein conflict.
But it's like how do you dothat?
And so in your experience,especially focusing on
technology, what do you think isthe most important aspect of
(06:09):
guest experience nowadays?
Speaker 2 (06:10):
Yeah, One thing that's really hard for
restaurants and I've only beenon this side of the table for a
few months and I love getting topartner with all these
different varieties ofrestaurants but, having been in
this space for about a decade,on the brand side, it's just in
that decade it at the top of thefunnel.
You think about marketingtechnology or marketing media,
(06:32):
right.
And then you work your way downthrough the funnel into
ordering experiences and thinkabout all the different ways
folks can order food today, allthe different ways folks can
sort of physically acquire thatfood Someone bringing it to them
(06:52):
, curbside, drive-through,walk-in, qr code, table side,
etc.
And then post-order.
There are so many things nowthat can go wrong and I'm not
saying that many of those thingsdidn't exist in the past, but
the complexity of theinteractions have really stepped
up.
If you're in a restaurant, it'sa low-margin business.
You're on your feet all thetime.
(07:12):
I've had a bunch of kids Zachand three of them are teenagers
and they've all worked inrestaurants.
You're going, going, going.
And if you're a GM mostimportant job in the industry,
right.
Typically we think of as the GMyou now are confronted with a
whole set of problems orexceptional cases that you
didn't have before, and again, alot of those, I think, are
(07:33):
linked to this explosion anddiversity of technology
enablement, and that sameenablement is making our life
great right and we're sothankful for it as consumers and
then certainly in therestaurant.
A lot of that same technologyis making your life easier, but
it's also made it verychallenging.
I think that's a unique problemthat for all of us in this
(07:53):
industry we get to help solve.
I think it's a privilege.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
Yeah, I love that and when you focus in on that and
when you focus in on what isthis doing for the guest and how
do we empower the GMs to bejust a hospitality machine?
That is something that I feellike is so critical and I think,
if you're looking at any pieceof technology for your
restaurant, the question isalways how does this help my GM
(08:21):
to create that better guestexperience or to improve
profitability?
Because the GM really is wherethe rubber meets the road.
I love how you call it the mostimportant position in a
restaurant brand, because ittotally is.
That's where you make or breakeach of the guest experiences of
restaurant brand because ittotally is.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
That's where you make or break each of the guest
experiences.
They are the hub, the lifeblood, and the culture that the GM
builds, I think, cascades toeveryone else.
So how can we make them reallysuccessful and allow them to do
what they do best, which isfocusing on their team and
focusing on their guests?
I was pulling up on my phonehere, so this is blind luck, but
this morning I'm sitting theredrinking coffee Zach, I probably
(08:58):
drank way too much coffee, butI'm flipping through LinkedIn
and colleague Sean over atFreddy's he runs technology over
there.
He posts on LinkedIn thisamazing three sentences.
This morning I'm on a ladderback house I'm just reading it,
back house in a restaurant,elbow deep in networking
equipment, getting the cable inplace, with my teeth trying to
get everything open on time.
(09:18):
Why, so we're open in time toserve guests.
I share this as a reminder.
Not everything we do isglamorous.
In fact, very little is.
Keep working hard, my friends.
That encapsulates a lot of whatI think is important for
technologists that are trying tounderstand how to serve
restaurants and also what makesa great GM, are trying to
understand how to serverestaurants and also like what
(09:38):
makes a great GM back to GM.
The details matter and when Ithink about our mission, both
when I was a CTO and now kind ofhaving the privilege of leading
this region for DeliverAct, itreally comes down to how do I
make it easier?
It has to be easier for arestaurant to scale profitably
and for us, a lot of our focusis on digital scale.
We have some things related toaccuracy solutions and other
(10:01):
solutions for the restaurant,but a lot of it is all around
first-party and third-partydigital scale.
But if it's not easier, it'snot gonna be good for the
restaurant because, again, it'sone of the hardest industries
out there and one of the lowestmargin industries out there.
And I think again it's theproblem with the proliferation
of solutions that we haven'tquite solved yet is how to
actually make it easier forrestaurant operators.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
Man, well, you sold me on this industry.
I feel like to be in thisindustry.
We got to have a couple ofscrews loose because there are
so many things that are toughabout this industry, but the
thing that I have found to beuniversal of people who love
this industry like we do is thatwe care about people, we care
(10:43):
about hospitality, we want tocreate these great experiences
and to have people leavingfilled and fulfilled and like
that is what it comes down toand like a place of connection,
and I think when you focus onthat and the hospitality of it,
all everything else falls inplace.
To that end.
I'd love to hear anything thatin your experience, some tactics
(11:05):
that you've seen to improve theguest experience.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
One is and I did make it sound like an insurmountable
problem it's definitely not.
It's just knowing the challengeand being excited by it like an
insurmountable problem, it'sdefinitely not.
It's just knowing the challengeand being excited by it.
One tactic is recognizing thateveryone can be an analyst and
should be an analyst, and thisis where I think we're really
just getting started.
Our ski tips are headed downthe slope in terms of analysis.
(11:29):
Years back, I used to work infinance and insurance healthcare
industries B boring right.
Well, that's what my kids said100%.
They're a lot more happy withwhat I'm doing these days, but
you have hundreds, thousands ofanalysts cranking away at data.
This stuff was really complex.
Of course, data's still prettycomplex, but the technology and
(11:52):
the platforms it's likeunbelievable to me how much
they've evolved in just 10, 15years and getting to the
buzzwords with AI here, butcertainly with the last two,
three years, what we've seen.
And so anyone can be an analyst.
How does that connect to theguest experience?
I really encourage people tolook at what you already have.
(12:12):
Guests are implicitly tellingyou something through data that
is recording or being emitted bythe platforms that they're
engaging in, and you want tobalance that with what they're
telling you through a platformlike Ovation or a separate
platform, right, and you look atthose things together and be
(12:33):
curious, be curious.
When I was working the otherside of the fence, a lot of
times we just weren't curious.
We'd see like the outcomemetric and we wouldn't look at
what was going into it.
Why did that happen?
And so you know the whole fivewhys.
Yeah, kaizen, baby, if you askwhy, enough, you get to the root
cause.
So yeah, number one thing becurious, be an analyst, and we
(12:54):
can do it and we can do it.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
I love that.
That curiosity is part of that,excitement is part of that,
love is part of that journey toalways be fulfilling the brand
promise and making sure that theguest feels seen, feels heard,
feels that unreasonablehospitality.
To come back and to share thatexperience and to make their day
a little bit better.
Because I love Kelly McPherson.
(13:17):
She was the CTO of Danny MyersUnion Square Hospitality Group
and I've been working with hernow for coming up on five years
and she is just a phenomenalperson and she's been CTO of
huge brands and led technologyat hard rock and planet
hollywood and oracle and justand, and and and one of the
(13:41):
things that she says.
And I bring all that up just tosay that this next quote from
her is something so interesting.
She goes we're not performingrocket surgery, we're delivering
hot food, hot and cold food,and the thing I love about that
is like she's able to take allof that and just break it down
to the fact of like it's notterribly complicated but there's
(14:04):
so many things that can make itcomplicated and there's so many
factors that go into it, but atthe end of the day, it's about
delivering on that experience.
It's about delivering on thatfeeling and I love that we're
talking about feelings, and hereI am a guy who's been finance
and IT and CTO, and here we aretalking about feelings because
(14:26):
we're hospitality folks, right,and that's what it's all about.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
An old boss at Papa John's, our CEO.
He had this quote that juststuck with me.
He's like where else do you getthe privilege, but also the
responsibility, of givingsomeone food?
So for us, a lot of times thatwas literally at their door.
A stranger is coming up to yourdoor, knocking on your door and
giving you food that you'retaking into your family.
(14:52):
That's like a pretty specialmoment.
Right, that's something thatyou're going to ingest.
That Food is a sharedexperience often.
You're right I mean what Kellysaid it should be simple at the
end of the day, and that's why Ithink back to like just being
in the restaurant.
For those of us in tech or dataor marketing or product or
whatever, your role is, maybeabove store, to just make the
(15:14):
time to go in and be a customer,be a consumer.
But also, if you have thechance or the privilege, work in
a restaurant.
You know, every once in a whileit's like the best way to build
empathy that might be.
My second suggestion is justwork in there for a little while
.
You know a fast, casual concept, pretty different than fine
dining, pretty different than anoff-prime or delivery type
(15:36):
business.
But we would encourage andactually, in some cases even
mandate our folks, like you have, to take a tour in the
restaurant One of the bestthings, I think, for our team.
The third thing I guess that I'dsay as a recommendation, zach,
is maybe peek around the cornera bit at some of those
interaction formats that don'thave necessarily the sex appeal
(15:57):
or all of the attention on thembut are still highly trafficked.
So if I gave just one example,to me it's the most glaring.
It's drive-through for QSR andincreasingly some of the fast
casual world.
Think about how much attentionwe put and money we put into the
digital experience on a website, as we should, or a search
(16:22):
engine optimization, searchengine marketing, as we should,
or an app experience.
But think how many consumersare going through your
drive-through.
For a lot of drive-throughconcepts it's often 50 to 70%,
at least you know.
Depending on day part it mightbe even higher.
And a lot of times thosespeaker posts aren't great, the
(16:42):
audio quality isn't great Ifthere is a digital menu board,
maybe glitchy or glaring, andthere's like a whole lot of like
physical and digital things andhuman things in that experience
.
It's just one example, but likeback to like loving the problem
, like that whole drive throughinteraction, that whole space.
That's a problem.
(17:03):
I think we could love you knowsome more in our industry,
because it's a complex one, butI don't know if we've paid it
enough attention.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
Yeah, I totally agree .
I think that there's somereally interesting solutions out
there.
But I think it's a matter of bethe consumer, because there are
so many times that, like, I'musing my iPhone and I'm like
does Tim Cook know the iPhonedoes this?
Is he using this?
Are people using the iPhone?
Because if so, how did theymiss that up?
There's just things like that,that I find, and so the more
(17:33):
that you're a consumer, the morethat you can see from your
guest's eyes.
But that's the whole reasonthat we started Ovation right
Was to help you see through theguest's eyes in a way that
doesn't require you to go everysingle day.
That doesn't mean that youshouldn't go.
There's different avenues toget that feedback.
So, justin, now you've had agreat career still having it.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
But you know a lot of people who is someone that we
should be following.
It's the end of summer and Idon't really want to end, zach,
so I'm going to chat out to someof my favorite summer foods
here.
We've got two amazing customersin the dessert space.
One is one started in Brooklynso I'm a Louisville guy but
originally from Jersey and theNew York city area and Van
Leeuwen if you're familiar withtheir ice cream and thousands of
grocery stores, I think at thispoint, and a lot of retail
(18:19):
outlets.
The founder of that company.
He is obsessed with productquality and he's obsessed with
everything we've been talkingabout, which is like the basics
matter, the details matter, soshout out to them.
I think it would be great tofill their doors before the
summer ends.
And listen, I'm a cobbler guyPeach Cobbler Factory is near
and dear to my heart and shoutout to our friends at Peach
(18:40):
Cobbler.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
Awesome.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
Well, Justin, how do people find and follow you?
I'm on LinkedIn like everybodyelse.
Our Deliver Act.
Linkedin is pretty easy to findas well.
Give us a shout.
We'd love to hear from you.
But, most importantly, we loveto celebrate restaurants.
So that's where it's at, and,zach, thank you for giving me
the opportunity to be here today.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
Yeah, man, well, like toppings and cobbler.
Thanks for showing us that techand hospitality go together,
and for that today's ovationgoes to you.
Thank you for joining us andgive an ovation, justin.
Thanks, zach.
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.
(19:21):
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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