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
Grilling up Top-Tier Customer Service With Laura Rea Dickey
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Discover the secret sauce behind creating an unforgettable guest experience with Laura Ray Dickey, the CEO of Dickey's BBQ Pit. Dickey's BBQ is a legacy brand that began in 1941. In this episode, Laura pulls back the curtain on what it takes to serve up mouthwatering barbecue and lays bare the critical decisions that shape a beloved brand.
On this episode, you'll learn from Laura about:
- Innovative metrics of success
- Turning feedback into stepping stones
- The importance of trust
- More!
Thanks, Laura!
Five-Star Guest Experience in Restaurants
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 could use to create a five star guest experience . As always , this podcast is sponsored by Ovation , a two-question real-time feedback platform that helps restaurants measure and improve their guest experience . Learn more at ovationupcom . And I am so excited today . I know you can't see what I'm wearing for those of you that are listening , but I am wearing a beautiful barbecue shirt with a black snapback Dickie's BBQ pit hat and because we have the CEO of Dickie's BBQ , Laura Ray . Dickie and Laura we've known each other for a while and we have yes .
Speaker 1Yeah , we've been in the same circles . We've been eating dinner at neighboring tables . And we finally got a chance to hang out at this last conference and you are just such a joy to be around and I am so grateful that you came on the podcast . How are you ?
Speaker 2I am great . Thank you so much for having me . I'm so , so glad that we finally got to connect and make this happen .
Speaker 1I know this has been a long time in the works because I have been a Dickie's BBQ fan for a long time . I eat a lot of barbecue , Laura , I mean like a lot , and a lot of barbecue places will either have like good meats or good sides . You find a way to scale both being good . I even told you at one point there was a place that was by Dickie's and I love their fatty brisket . They did some like really good fatty brisket so I would go , I'd get a little bit of brisket from there , I'd go bring it to Dickie's and I'd get a full meal at Dickie's meats and sides . And I was like man , why can't ? Why can't people just like do good at both ? Like how have you been able to do good at both ?
Speaker 2You know that's such a good question . I think with barbecue it's both truly an art and a science , right ? It's a passion food , so you really have to be committed . It is , you know , there's . We have a lot of amazing folks in the industry . So much respect .
Speaker 2I love our industry , I love food , I love restaurants , but barbecue is so much more complicated than a lot of other foods for preparation . So I think sometimes folks get in there and they will decide that they will be the master of one thing instead of , you know , kind of the jack of all trades . And I get that approach because if you want to be known for something and you know , when you're talking about a four hour investment for ribs or a 14 hour investment for full pork or at least 14 hours for that good fatty brisket like that takes , you know , concentration . There's the science of the recipe but there's kind of that art of the pit master , and so I think in a lot of barbecue restaurants it's easy to forget the sides .
Speaker 2And so we made an intentional choice , an intentional decision that we were going to have a full meal , that it was going to be equally as amazing that when you think about barbecue , probably a lot of times , hopefully , you think about dickies , but you might think of , you know , growing up and being in the backyard barbecue and kind of those great celebration moments . But you also think about all those good sides . You know , maybe your aunt's potato salad or your favorite , whatever , and to me that's part of the whole experience . And so we wanted to intentionally say if we were going to , you know , stay barbecue , stay with our roots . It had to be a full meal and we've . You know , we've added and dropped sides over our 82 years of history , for sure , but we think both are important .
Speaker 1What was it ? What was a side that you dropped ? That was like really hotly debated internally .
Speaker 2Oh , oh , my gosh . I mean I have a little PTSD just thinking that journey . Still a debate is the potato salad . So Dickies had historically had two potato salads . We had a mustard based potato salad , which you'll see in most restaurants today , and we had a dill potato salad . And it is so thoughtly debated , especially and this is one of those things , being a national chain , that you have deep regional sentiment and we really thought , and the numbers , the data , this is one of those kind of catch 22 , where the data will tell you one thing , but maybe you have to look at , are the numbers telling you the whole story ? But having two potato salads didn't make sense , right ? Because just a guest is not going to double up , right ?
Speaker 2So they're going to make a choice if they want potato salad , so it makes so much more sense to have one . But then the numbers said that just eaked out more popular mustard base , but the following in love for the dill potato salad still lives today . That has been over almost 12 years and I still get emails about the dill potato salad .
Speaker 1No way .
Speaker 2Absolutely , and especially in our markets and locations that feel really strongly about that . And it will go for a little while and it'll be kind of all quiet , and then I'll get one and it'll be like hey man , and it blah , blah , blah . It was good , but where's the dill potato salad ? And so it's still definitely a debate .
Speaker 1Well , you guys do such a good job and I worked right across the street from what I found out was one of the earlier locations right there in downtown Dallas , right across from the Tram LaCrobe building , and I would go there for lunch all the time and one thing that you guys do so well is your consistency With such a complicated menu in terms of the raw ingredients that come in . You're not just talking about ground beef and potatoes , you're talking about an incredibly complicated menu with so many skews , and so , with that in mind , what do you feel like is the most important aspect of guest experience , and how does dickies keep it consistent ?
Speaker 2Such a great question . I was thinking about that , thinking about our chat together , and I go back and forth between what I think are the competing , the two potato salads of guest service , if you will .
Speaker 2I think it's trust and quality and trust to me is maybe eeks out again , kind of like that mustard-based potato salad , because you've got to have trust with the guest . They have to know that they're coming in and what experience that you're going to deliver on that experience . But part of that trust is consistency . They want a consistent experience , they want their expectations to be met , they want a fair price , they want high quality . So I think that trust , but then equally and even though quality is a part of trust , delivering on that quality itself in the food . I mean , that is , you know we're in the food and the folks business . She can't care your folks , she can't care the food .
Speaker 2That is that's really what I think it's about and , as far as doing that consistently , it's making that the two focuses food and folks .
Restaurant Morning Call and Feedback
Speaker 2You know we don't start the day that we aren't literally on our 840 central time charge call here . I'm sitting in the office in Dallas and our original location is just across Max Anderson and we start every day here with a 20 minute phone call across the system . It's an opt-in , but everybody in the home office , everybody in the field , all of the restaurants that are opening , we start that , so we have our get together in the morning . It's really quick , it's 20 minutes , but we make sure that we have our focus right and that's food and folks . Every day , you know you could have all of these challenges or projects or things that you have to deal with , but in that moment when you unlock the doors , you've got to be food and folks , and so I think that's the trust and the quality .
Speaker 1I think that makes so much sense that that food and folks that love that idea of having that morning call , of just getting everyone aligned on what we're doing and reminding ourselves of the why and tips , because you guys have what ? 550 locations .
Speaker 2What do you guys have ? We do ? We actually have 550 traditional locations and then we're up to over 750 in all of our virtuals and non-traditionals and internet , holy cow .
Speaker 1And what's the split ? How many just corporate owned ? How many franchised ?
Speaker 2So we have nine corporate locations and everything else is branches .
Speaker 1That is bonkers , it's the consistency when you go one that next level to keep consistency and that focus on food and folks . I think that is just such a brilliant concept . It simplifies what we're doing right and it reminds everyone about that , because when you don't have as much control over it , you can't go in there and call up the line cook in Shabuigan and be like , hey , tony , like what's up , my man , you're relying on people who care , right , you're relying on people caring about that and making sure that they're passing on that care to their staff .
Speaker 2Absolutely Well . And there's a simplicity . I will say that we are barbecue , not rocket surgery , if you will right . So I think there's .
Speaker 2Sometimes we get over fancy with ourselves in the industry and I love tech and I love all the great things , but in the end , or maybe in the beginning , it's pretty simple what we're here to do and keeping that simple focus matters . And we scaled from a family-owned restaurant literally my grandfather and I that restaurant , still open and operating in Dallas . It's like the continuously oldest open and operating restaurant in Dallas that has never changed names , changed ownerships , changed locations . And we actually start our morning calls that I mentioned from that original shift mentality , like we're there , we're all together , we all line . Anybody watching , I'm sure , has a listening , has tons of restaurant experience , but that's kind of the staple in the industry . You start with a shift meeting and we've scaled that up to corporate . So again , no matter where we are , what we're doing , we all stop , we get together , we take a moment , we focus and we make sure we're aligned and have our self-right and minds right , our values in place , all those good things .
Speaker 1So a 700 plus location shift meeting . That's probably the biggest shift meeting in the world . I love that . Now , besides the shift meeting , which I think is a phenomenal tactic , any other tactics that you've used to improve the guest experience .
Speaker 2Sure , definitely Talk to Dickies . For us , that is what we call our overarching guest program . We actually use a metric that may be unique to us , but we call it sales per complaint . Right , it is to us as important as any sales metric , growth metric , profitability metric but our we measure daily by location , by region , by system , by every piece and part of sales per complaint . So how many complaints are we getting per sales dog ? And so we have a benchmark that we know that if the system is in a good place or not , if any individual location is in a good place , so we look at that sales per complaint and manage that . And why that's so effective for us is when it peaks and valleys really well according to the fluctuation of your business and the seasonality . So you are able to hide , maybe , a problem that you don't run into when it's a little bit slower pace . So if that consistent average is there , you know that you have a well-trained pit crew , you know that you have a pit master that knows what they're doing , you know that you have a good recipe , discipline . You have all of those things happening when you have that metric .
Speaker 2But our Talk to Dickies is also such an open part of our culture . We have a person that manages nothing but our Talk to Dickies program and that is our touch point , whether that's website , app , social media . However , a guest reaches out to us , that is funneled to one person and the team below them and they review every single Talk to Dickies feedback , good or bad . We also use a few different kind of sentiment analysis tools that supplements that . So we're listening across social media . We pay a huge amount of attention and weight star ratings . That's something that has been an evolution for us . You know , I think folks can sometimes not love restaurant review sites . You know you'll have that one really passionate person on Yelp that was having a bad day , that had the worst thing that ever happened to them served to you at their restaurant . We've all had , you know , seen those type of reviews . Right , they're great .
Speaker 2They're a great click bait , but I think that's missing . The exception for the rule of what a star rating is for you and we look at it as a complaint is another way to make it right . A complaint is another way to retain or win back a guest , to save that experience . And so we embrace those and we work through them , both here at the home office and with locations , and we literally focus on . I would so much rather someone say what their challenge is and let us make it right than to , you know , try to ignore complaints or dismiss them . So that's a little bit about how we handle it .
Speaker 1That makes so much sense and I love that idea of you need to normalize it across the board . You need to normalize the feedback because you're going to get different performing stores , and one of the things that we found is that a guest who had a it's called the service recovery paradox a guest who has a negative experience with proper service recovery is going to be four to eight times more valuable than the average guest , and so and so that's one of the big things that we focus on here at Ovation is like how do you win back those guests , how do you get them to give you feedback , and then how do you make it easy to respond to that feedback and then how do you break that down into actionable items so you're not you're not harassing your guests with a 34 question survey that nobody wants to take Right .
Speaker 2Exactly , If three questions . That's what's on our survey . If it's more complicated than three questions , then we're making our job too complicated . You know , it was literally . Our survey is was it good , Would you come back and was it hot and delicious ?
Speaker 1I love that . Very simple , and it's so so important to keep it simple , simple , simple , simple . So who is someone in the restaurant industry that deserves an ovation ? Who's someone that we should be following ?
Speaker 2Okay , you know well a couple brands that I love . I love Raising Canes , I love Chick-fil-A and I love Jersey Mikes . I think they all do an excellent job and they're interesting to watch . And I think someone that I have enjoyed watching is the COO of LaMadeline , christine Johnson . They're here . They're Dallas based . She was our former general counsel , actually for several years , and she joined LaMadeline and has worked up and taken over as COO for the brand and I think she's pretty incredible . I loved when our careers overlapped , but I also think if I were going to go out and buy a brand you know , lamadeline and maybe Waffle House would be on that shortlist , because I think they have such potential and such interesting places in the market . So I think she's doing a pretty great job and they're a pretty great brand .
Speaker 1Yeah , and what a great brand . And yeah , I've heard nothing but amazing things about her . So thanks for thanks for propping her up . Absolutely , Laura . Where can we go to learn more about Dickies ?
Speaker 2Dickiescom , first and foremost , and then you can always find us on all your favorite social channels . You can also find us on Twitter , on Facebook and Instagram , but definitely Dickiescom , that's the place to find us .
Speaker 1Awesome . Well , laura , for having sides that match the meets that match the joyous personality . Today's Ovation goes to you . Thank you for joining us on Give it Ovation .
Speaker 2Thank you .
Speaker 1Thanks 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 .