Give an Ovation: The Restaurant Guest Experience Podcast with Zack Oates
Give an Ovation: The Restaurant Guest Experience Podcast is your backstage pass to the minds of hospitality leaders, innovators, and operators who are redefining what it means to serve. Hosted by Zack Oates, founder of Ovation, each episode dives into real-world tactics and inspiring stories from restaurant pros who know how to create five-star guest experiences—both in-store and off-premise.
From fast casual to fine dining, catering to curbside, learn how to drive loyalty, empower your staff, and deliver hospitality that hits home. Whether you're a restaurant owner, operator, marketer, or tech partner, this podcast will leave you with practical insights and plenty of reasons to celebrate and Give an Ovation.
Give an Ovation: The Restaurant Guest Experience Podcast with Zack Oates
Harmonizing Taste and Tech With Jordan Cusner
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Step into the dynamic world of hospitality as Jordan Cusner shares how he transitioned from musician to lawyer, and now guest insights as he executes enhanced dining experiences with data-driven creativity. Jordan reveals his philosophy on cultivating ideas and reflects on the industry's most mouth-watering advancements, this is an episode you don't want to miss!
On this episode you'll learn from Jordan about:
- Guest centricity
- Sharing objectives across organizations
- Innovating connecting with guests
- More!
Thanks, Jordan!
Guest Insights Improve the Restaurant Experience
Speaker 1Welcome to another edition of Give an Ovation , the restaurant guest experience podcast , where I talk to industry experts to get their strategies and tactics you can use to create a five star guest experience . This podcast is sponsored by Ovation , a two-question SMS-based real-time guest feedback platform that helps restaurants measure and improve their guest experience . Learn more at ovationupcom . And today's guest we have Jordan Kuzner . Welcome to Give an Ovation . How are you , man ? I am well . Thanks for having me , zach . I am stoked to have you on because , aside from being really into the data , I'm fascinated to dive into your thoughts and feelings on the guest experience and the data that you're finding . But aside from that , jordan , you have a crazy interesting educational background . You're a JD MBA with a BA from the Berkeley College of Music . What in the random ? Tell me about what was supposed to be going on ? Are you supposed to be managing Taylor Swift ? And then you accidentally fell into guest experience . Like how'd this happen ?
Speaker 2No , I'm still holding out for the Steely Dan gig and if I get that , I'm out of here . Yeah , I don't know . I think it's actually benefited me quite a bit Having an eclectic background , certainly getting my foot in the door in terms of making my way into insights . I had a very unique background that I think set me apart from some of the other applicants . For me , I don't know , it was kind of natural . I was a musician , I went to Berkeley .
Speaker 1I was playing . You can't just drop on , musician .
Speaker 2Oh the guitar , there we go , yeah the cool one and I thought I would get a gig with Steely Dan or Kristi Nagyulara . And then I met my now wife after my first semester and suddenly I realized like , oh no , I need to get a real job . And so it did the law school thing and I contemplated being in music for a hot second , but I had an internship at an entertainment law firm and it was really very boring . Then I had an internship at the Attorney General's Office in Massachusetts and that was even worse and I realized maybe I want to do this law thing after all , got hooked up with some brain strategy folks during the MBAs practicum or internship and the rest is history .
Speaker 1Well , I always look at food as art . So in a way you've maintained your roots in the artistic industry . But it's just so rare to find someone who you know Berkeley College of Music , jdmba and you're not managing a band . So tell me a little bit about what does the head of guest insights actually do ? Like what is that job ?
Speaker 2So it's a little bit of everything outside of analytics , which is a separate part of the organization . So it's custom research , brand tracking , innovation you know our innovation pipeline optimizing those concepts , thinking about our copy development and optimizing those commercials , our digital spots , qualitative work , talking to our guests , building out frameworks to help us understand who the guests are and why they come to our restaurant , how to improve the guest experience obviously relevant for today's conversation . Yeah , I mean , I could go on . There's probably , oh , taste testing , sensory work . So working with our culinary team to take the ideas that we have , that we validate , turning it into actual food and then making sure that it delivers against that promise that we have to deliver great meals to our guests .
Speaker 1Is there . Can you share with us anything that didn't quite make it through the pipeline of kitchen innovations ?
Speaker 2Well , you know it's funny .
Speaker 2The answer I would say is no , and I'll tell you why .
Speaker 2I am not a believer of spinning our wheels and wasting time on bad ideas , so when something fails , it fails . But I'm also not a proponent of , you know , throwing out good ideas , and so my kind of MO , an orientation , is , when things don't do well , I often give feedback to the team and say , all right , well , like , let's keep working on this in a way that's appropriate , given that maybe it isn't hitting the mark right now , whether it's the way we've positioned it in an online test or the way it eats when we do a sensory test . So I think everything we put in front of our guests , even in a testing environment , we have a lot of confidence in for one reason or another , and if it's missing the mark in some way , like , let's keep thinking about it . So even our you know , quote , unquote bad ideas , I think are all really good ideas . And I'll tell you , like , my favorite day is stage gate , where the culinary team brings out what they're working on and I just gorge myself on the best food I've ever had . It's all the best .
Speaker 1Well , that apple pie . I'll tell you what . First of all , the spicy chicken sandwich . And a lot of people know about my feelings on the Popeye's spicy chicken sandwich . When done right , it is the best spicy chicken sandwich in the market . Like it is when it comes to chains , like there's not a better chicken sandwich out there and it is just . It is so when it's . I guess . When it's done right , it is just so perfect and the pickles are great and the sauce and the you know , the bun is just always so , because that's a big thing . Like I go to some other places and the buns are just gross . The buns are so bad I can't go back because of the buns . Popeye's buttered brioche so good . And the apple pie .
Speaker 2And another plug last week we launched the Popeye's trough chicken sandwich , so it's like a fancy version , if you will , with a truffle infused mayo . Okay . Yeah , in partnership with the trough brand , so really really awesome . New flavor , really exciting .
Speaker 1Check us out . Well , I know where I'm eating this weekend . So , jordan , what do you think is one of the most important aspects of guest experience nowadays ?
Speaker 2Yeah , and maybe this is maybe it's a bias that I have , but I think it's a recognition that everybody within my organization is working to improve the guest experience .
Speaker 2Whether you are in the marketing team or the culinary team or the finance team or HR , everything we do needs to be thinking about and centered on improving that interaction in our restaurant with our crew , and I think , as an insights person , my mandate is to infuse the organization with , you know , a guest-centric approach , and a lot of times that's very easy , right . So we think about our stage gator innovation process or copy testing and making sure that we're using guest insight to inform those decisions . But that's the easy one . But when you've got folks that are really a little bit further outside think about our legal team , for example , maybe a little bit further outside of that core work Well , ultimately we're all working towards the same goal and we all have to have a deep understanding of who our guest is and how the decisions we make and the actions we take impact those interactions . So I think the guest experience needs to be at the forefront of everything we do .
Infusing Guest Centricity in Organizations
Speaker 1And how do you get someone who's like what would you recommend ? Say , I've got 30 locations , and how do I infuse that guest centricity into my organization ? What are some ideas that you would have ? Maybe are there like reports that you would send out . Are there like weekly email updates , like what would you do ?
Speaker 2Yeah , well , we do all of that right . So the insights team we are tasked with building that understanding and being the maybe the curious people in the room , but also tasked with being the objective voice of the guest . So , newsletters , reports we do all of that , also thinking about taking those insights and delivering them throughout the organization . So we have frameworks like a guest segmentation that looks at who our guests are , how they think about our brand , who they are as people beyond just being guests of our restaurant . The goal is to share that information broadly across the organization , having an immersive space where everybody can put themselves in the shoes of our guests and really experience and see the world through their eyes .
Speaker 1I think the immersive component and by that I mean posters and other types of collateral that are tangible , that our entire staff can interact with and understand- I think that is such an interesting concept because we've talked a lot about the guest experience in this podcast over the years , but not a lot about how to translate that to the rest of the team . I love that idea of like these posters . What would you put on these posters if we were to put them up there ? I think it's such an interesting idea like be the voice . It's not just voice of the customer , but it's about translating that voice to other people to make sure that they understand what's going on , they understand who our customers are and what they should be thinking about . So what are some things you'd even like recommend they do to engage the ?
Speaker 2Yeah so I think it's a really complicated process , but maybe the output looks and seems very simple . I think that's the key it needs to be really simple and easy to take in . So the ideal structure for these types of things is a very pithy but meaningful descriptor for who this person is . What's the title for this group , this segment ? What's a one or two sentence descriptor of how this person thinks about QSR and how QSR quick serve restaurants and fits into their broader day-to-day routine ? Then some other detail that brings to life who they are as people , beyond just being people who are eating QSR Because , listen , qsr is a fact of life .
Speaker 2Eating in these restaurants is something that everybody does , but that's not how the average person thinks about themselves and defines themselves . Most people don't really think about restaurants all that much . They think about it when it's lunch or dinner and they want to go grab a bite , but it's not something that they orient their whole life around . I think a good segmentation appreciates that these are real people . Of course , I didn't say this , but we need to be empathetic and understand who our guests are . More than justice one-dimensional someone with a credit card behind their chicken . It's about who are they ? What makes them tick . How do we use that information to build authentic relationships ?
Speaker 2So , when you think about what that asset looks like . It's who they are , how they think about QSR , where it fits into their life and other really important rich detail about who they are as people , beyond just that particular activity .
Speaker 1I think that is so smart , because one of the things I always remind people is that you're not serving customers , you're not even serving guests . You're serving humans , yeah , humans who are on their way to work , humans who are on their way home from picking up their kids at soccer practice , humans who are looking for a break , humans who need an apple pie and a spicy chicken sandwich because they had a rough day . Like . It's not that someone is , and if you look at the retention rates , we see that , on average , people will dine at a restaurant once every eight months if they're coming back , and it might be different in your particular brands , but one of the things that we've seen is that people don't define themselves by like oh , I'm like a Popeyes guy .
Speaker 1There's gonna be very few people that get the Popeyes logo tattooed on their calf Now . There will be some of them , but that's not what makes Popeyes Popeyes . What makes Popeyes Popeyes is this convenience factor of appealing to a broad number of people who can swing by and get that spicy chicken sandwich and apple pie when they wanna indulge a little bit , as opposed to like oh , let me stop by for lunch every single day , like . That's not what's driving the business .
Speaker 2Well , I will not correct that particular descriptor , but I think that the people who come to Popeyes are broader than just convenient . But I think that's a fair estimation . But what I would say also is the other side of it . Besides recognizing that they're humans , which I think is obvious , you know a very good point . The other piece is quoting from Byron Sharp , who wrote how brands grow your consumers .
Speaker 2No one cares about your brand as much as you do . We have this fantasy that people care deeply . Oh , they're loyal to our brand , but truth is they don't . And there , to your point , there are other factors that influence why and when someone chooses to eat in any restaurant and the idea that I think you're right . There's a small subset of people , myself included , who are Popeyes superfans , like I can't drive past a Popeyes half the time without stopping in , and I think there are people like that . But the average person has a million other factors that influence when and why and how they choose to make or eat their food and dinner , lunch for themselves , for their families , and so appreciating that we are not really top of mind in the way that . You know , breathing is for people , you know we're not saying people are really coming about .
Speaker 1Yeah , and , by the way , by convenience what I mean is that because you have to have that certain quality that's going to make sure that it's amazing , right , like your barbecue sauce , that tangy little bit of spice , a little bit of tang like that barbecue sauce is so good , right , the apple pie , so good , the fried shrimp and the beans and rice . Oh , my gosh , do I love the beans and rice ? And I grew up with a grandma who she's still alive she's my only grandma alive and she is obsessed with Popeyes and she like instilled in me this like , oh , we gotta go get their beans and rice . And I was , like you know , I grew up with beans and rice because I grew up in a Hispanic household , and those beans and rice , though , and Popeyes , they just hit different , and so , but again , you gotta have these things that are like so memorable , lovable , that can hook people .
Speaker 1But realizing that I love how you phrase that no one's ever gonna love your brand as much as you , and you gotta take a step back and realize holistically who is my guest and why do they care about me and when do they care about me and how do I make myself as convenient for them as possible to lower the effort to try me out , because the easier it is to try me , the more often people are gonna do it . If you've got table stakes of food service , impression Right .
Speaker 2Yeah , well , your grandmother should live and be well . And you know , you talk about convenience . It's a very interesting thing because you know , popeyes , we don't make sense . We make chicken . We do a lot of things in the back of house to ensure that what we're serving to our guests is high quality , handmade homemade chicken , which is not typical Most restaurants . The magic or the secret sauce is in finding shortcuts to deliver food as quickly as possible . We don't take shortcuts . We don't make sense . We just we wanna do it the right way . So you talk about convenience . I think it's a very fascinating thing that , yes , that's the primary driver for many people , and yet we at Popeyes never use the shortcut to make it more convenient for us , and yet we're delivering the food in a way that's convenient for our guests .
Speaker 1Amen , I think that's a great way to put it . So who's someone in the restaurant industry that deserves an ovation ? Who's someone that we should be following ?
Speaker 2Or in the guest experience industry .
Speaker 2Well , I'll give a shout out to Ben Kaplan , ceo over at Plant Burger . He and I met at a conference in Chicago . I love Plant Burger . My family loves Plant Burger . I think it's a really cool . It's got a really cool vibe as a small up and coming restaurant chain , obviously there focused on sustainable foods , and I think I think what we talked about in this sustainability space is it's not just for people who care about the environment . It needs to be for everyone . I think the challenge for years has been making that food delicious . It's always been idealistic , but is it really good ? I think they do a great job over at Plant Burger .
Speaker 1We love Plant Burger , love Ben , love his team over there , great friends with them . I sent them over a big neon sign and it said relentless curiosity . This whole concept of curiosity is so big over there and I love what they're doing . Their fans love them too . I don't think he would mind me sharing this , but they are well above the average restaurant in innovation in terms of how much people love them . Their love group is huge . They do a great job . As someone who is allergic to milk , I love being able to go there and get a milkshake in a burger .
Speaker 3There's so few places .
Speaker 1I could do that anymore .
Speaker 2Part of the . Obviously they're still small , so hugely popular within the audience that knows them , which is not nothing . I think it was a really smart integration with Whole Foods , where they've got a lot of their restaurants . I think it's a captive audience , people who are going to be at least interested in trying this , if not already predisposed to liking what you're doing . That certainly has helped Really really good , Awesome .
Speaker 1Jordan . Where can people learn more about you and see some of your musings ?
Speaker 2I don't know LinkedIn . I guess I'm not a huge LinkedIn guy . Maybe I try to go to the market research and QSR circuit . I was at TMRE last week and I was lucky enough to be on a panel with a number of other insights professionals talking about the industry . I guess that's probably the best bet , or things like this , which I do very , very rarely . But , Zach , you're very persuasive .
Speaker 1Well , I appreciate you coming on For transitioning from one artistic round to another . Today's Ovation goes to you . Thank you for joining us on . Give an Ovation , Jordan , my pleasure .
Speaker 3Thanks for having me , Zach . Thanks for joining us today . If you liked this episode , leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or your favorite place to listen . We're all about feedback here . Again , this episode was sponsored by Ovation , a two-question SMS-based actionable guest feedback platform built for multi-unit restaurants . If you'd like to learn how we can help you measure and create a better guest experience , visit us at ovationupcom .