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
From Lost to Loyal: Winning Back Your Customers with Dan Pfister of Winback Labs
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Unlock the secrets to rekindling lost customer relationships with expert insights from Dan Pfister, Founder of WinBack Labs. Discover proven strategies for understanding why customers leave and how to effectively bring them back. Dan highlights the importance of strategic outreach and ensuring customers feel heard and valued. Learn how the peak-end rule can transform dissatisfied customers into loyal advocates through memorable final interactions.
Hear real-world examples from Marriott Hotels and Tylenol, demonstrating the powerful impact of effective problem resolution. Plus, get practical tips for responding to online reviews and uncovering the root causes of customer dissatisfaction to enhance your recovery strategies.
Thanks Dan!
Strategies for Winning Back Lost Customers
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 , an operations and guest recovery platform for multi-unit restaurants that gives all the answers without annoying guests with all the questions . Learn more at OvationUpcom . And today we have Dan Pfister , the founder of Winback Labs , the host of the Winback Marketing Podcast , the creator of great LinkedIn content . I found him on LinkedIn , was really curious about his profile , reached out to him and was like I got to get you on the podcast , man . We got to talk about guest experience , we got to talk about what you're doing and so welcome , Dan . Thanks for coming on .
Speaker 2Thanks so much for having me . Zach , Great to be here .
Speaker 1So talk to us about Winback Labs , first of all , the name is amazing , but talk to me about like , what is it ? What do you do ?
Speaker 2Yeah , so basically what we do is we help companies win back their lost customers and I got into it because I was solving my own problem and I can tell you a little bit about that , or we can just drive on , but that's basically what we do help companies win back their lost customers .
Speaker 1And so when you're looking at that and you're looking at what is winning back lost customers , what does that mean to you , like how do you know when a customer's lost ?
Speaker 2Well , if you're in a subscription business , like I was , you know , you know that they're gone when they don't re-up . You know it's different for consumer brands , right ? Maybe you have to wait six months , maybe you have to wait eight , wait eight months , and so it's . It's different you know for every industry , like what you consider a win back and what you consider like still new business or still old business . I play in the subscription market so you know a lot of SaaS and that sort of thing , so it's very easy for me to tell when you know it's time for a win back .
Speaker 1Yeah , and what do you see as being some of the biggest mistakes that people make when it comes to trying to win back lost customers ?
Speaker 2I think that they just think that some random act of outreach is win back . You know , hey , come back , here's a 5% discount or something like that . You've really got to be strategic , you've got to reach out . At least this is the way I do it . I reach out to my last customers and I try to find out why did you leave ? What would it take to win you back ? What would it take to keep you after we've won you back ? So we really dig deep . We do internal surveys with our teams , then we do external qualitative surveys to get the big rocks , and then we do external quantitative to find out the relative importance of those rocks . And then we use that information to craft our messaging and to craft our offer .
Speaker 1I like that because I think that's one of the things that we've found to be so critical in winning back guests and to what you're talking about is helping that guest feel heard and feel seen and feel important , and that is so critical . And so leading me to my next question , which is like what do you think is the most important aspect of guest experience or customer experience nowadays ?
Speaker 2You know it's so different depending on the type of business . But in terms of winning them back , what you said about having them feel appreciated , feeling heard , feeling valued , that's like everything . You know , that's how you turn an unhappy customer like into an advocate . You know you've got the peak end rule right , so you've got . You know the last touch has a disproportionately large impact on how they feel about you . So if they left unhappy , that's how they're going to keep feeling about you and that's how they're going to talk to you , talk to you about others , right ? So you come in with a nice new last touch . So you get the peak end rule working for you . So now that last touch was very positive , right ? So that has a disproportionately large effect on how they feel about you
The Importance of Service Recovery
Speaker 2.
Speaker 2Okay , and then when you do that outreach , you offer to fix it . You know you . You ask them . You know you , you do all the nice stuff , right . You ask them . You know where did where did things go sideways and such . But then you offer to fix it , you know , or ask how we could fix it . And when you do that , you kick in the pratfall effect , right , and that says that if you try to fix a problem with somebody that shows you care and your likability goes way up .
Speaker 2And I didn't realize how important that was until I saw this study from Marriott Hotels . And what they found was that customers who had a good customer experience 89% of them said they'd come back . People who had a crappy experience , that where nothing was done only 69% said they'd come back . People who had a crappy experience that where nothing was done only 69 percent said they'd come back . But people who had a bad experience where it was fixed 94 percent said they that they would come back . It was just like people like you more . If you did something wrong and you tried and you showed that you cared enough to fix it and you know it's like you've been through something together , like we're we , we're we're , you know we're comrades . We're not comrades , but we're , you know we're , we've been through something together and so that that that creates a bond . So it's just amazing . You know you can .
Speaker 2Some of some of our biggest advocates are people who are the most upset with us . To begin with , you know , because we reached out , we showed we cared , we , we , we did something that other people wouldn't do , and even and we'd even do it when we're not trying to get them back . We're saying listen , we , we let them know we appreciate your feedback . You've given us this feedback even though you're not a customer . We wanted to let you know we really appreciate what you did for us . And then they'll say geez , you don't not even a customer , you're doing this . So , anyway , I'm going a mile a minute here , zach , I'm probably telling you more than you're looking for .
Speaker 1No , I think that it makes a lot of sense . I think about Tylenol and about how they became so popular . And one of the things they did was there was someone who had contaminated some bottles of Tylenol and so , even though it wasn't their fault , even though it was something that somebody was doing to them , they still recalled all of these Tylenol bottles . They went way above and beyond what was kind of justified to do and trust increased and their brand improved . And even though they lost millions and millions of dollars of product that they just threw away millions and millions of dollars of product that they just threw away , the trust that was increased by showing how Tylenol handled a negative situation just propelled them forward and increased so much brand loyalty for them . And I think that's so critical to understand and we talk about that all the time at Ovation and about the service recovery paradox , where what you're saying is a guest who has a negative experience in proper service recovery is more likely to be loyal than a guest who never had the service failure in the first place , because it gives you a chance to stand out . It gives you to show we're human , we make mistakes but , guess what , you can trust that we will make things more at our establishment , and that's what creates that trust , because everyone knows that there's always going to be a mistake .
Speaker 1But why do I buy from Amazon ? Because when I order something wrong , when something goes wrong with the product , I just ordered some hair product and they shipped me one and the other one was supposed to be shipped with it and they didn't get shipped . So what'd they do ? They let me keep the hair product I got . Then they refunded me for both hair products . Right , and so what does that do for me and Amazon ? I have the trust that they're going to do things right , and because they won me back right .
Speaker 2Yeah Well , trust is a sales . Sales is a trust game , right . And so the deeper that trust is , the more loyal you're going to be . And the more loyal you're going to be and the more forgiving you're going to be if there's a screw up on their side .
Speaker 1Yeah , because we're all human and I think that's the one thing that , like as businesses , we try to portray ourselves as being perfect . Right , yeah , yeah , yeah , but no one's perfect and the more that you can show . And that's why I think it's so important to respond to online reviews and so many people will say to me oh , zach , I don't want to respond to Dan . Dan was like such a jerk in his review and he's never going to like you know , he's never going to come back and I always tell him I go . 20% of why you're responding is for Dan , 80% is to see to show other people how you react and how you respond right , A hundred percent .
Speaker 2It is so important . Yeah , it not only , you know , negates so much negative word of mouth , but it creates positive word of mouth . Look at how Zach responded . I haven't seen , I didn't see that . For you know company A , B and C , it's massively important .
Speaker 1Massively important . So what would you say to someone who's saying , all right , I want to improve my guest recovery , my guest recovery of my brand . What would you recommend to them ? What are some tactics that they can do to help improve their guest recovery ?
Speaker 2Well , I guess you know . The first thing is , like you know you're halfway down the path to fixing a problem by understanding what the problem is Right , and so you know it would be . Just like I said before , that trio of surveys really understand where they're unhappy , why they're unhappy . When did it start ? Is it a series of small things that stack one on top of the other ? Was it something that was even in your wheelhouse ? Is it even something that you can fix ? And so you fix what's fixable , you mitigate what is mitigatable and you come back and you show them this is what we did . What do you think ? And guaranteed you're going to be better than 95% of anybody else out there , because that's been my experience .
Speaker 1Right , and I think that's one of the beauties , dan , I love what you talked about better than 95% , because the bar to win back a guest is so low . I mean , it is like , you know , I don't want to get into politics , but it's like running for president of the United States low , like there's a very low bar that you need to hurdle before you can help a guest feel heard and feel cared about Right . And why is that ? Why is the bar so low ? Do you think ?
Speaker 2You know , I think that , well , there's so many answer that question . I think it . You know , I don't want to say that people are lazy . I would like to say that there's , it's cultural right . Like , this is the way we've done things forever . This is what got us from , you know , zero to 100 million in sales . Why would we mess with that ? We hired our salespeople based on that . We hired our marketing people based on that . We hired our customer success people based on that . Why would we mess with it ? You know , there's just not enough innovation .
Speaker 2Like I mean , you take a look at some of these super big brands who do win back all the time . Like I mean , there's a reason why they do that . And you know , maybe you could take it like you just got , just got some major funding . Congratulations , by the way , thank you . Now , a lot of CEOs , when they're going , when they're going out in front of a you know , a PE group or a VC group , they're not asking you you know how many customers did you win back ? They're asking you about how many net new logos they are You've got right and so , right from the get-go , you're encouraged or you're pushed into net new and win back , and all this sort of stuff already goes into the background before you even start . So I'm trying to shoehorn a couple of things in there , but because we have very limited time . So yeah .
Speaker 1So there , I think that makes so much sense when you're thinking about the pressure and the , you know , quite frankly , like the sexiness of getting a new customer as opposed to winning one back . Like we just human nature , we're always pushing for something new , something more interesting , right , and winning something back it's kind of like , oh okay , well , that's like whatever , right , no one wants to talk about the ex that is back in their life . They want to talk about the new person they just met at the party that they're going on a date with , right , yeah , these guys already rejected you , why would you want to go back there ?
Speaker 2let's try something fresh that's not emotionally I'm not gonna , you're not gonna emotionally crapped on . You know they , they , they don't . They obviously left us because they don't like us , which is another thing which is , like , massively incorrect . People leave for all kinds of reasons . Right , they leave because they were some bright , shiny object . Right , because a competitor offered them something special . They left because their situation had changed . You know , and even if they left because of something that you did , something that reaching out to them is the only way you're going to recover them . It's the only way you're going to mitigate all that negative word of mouth and you learn more from your unhappiest . What's that quote ? Your unhappiest customers are your greatest source of learning . Embrace that , embrace that . And if you're afraid of getting crapped all over which you won't , in my experience anyway have a third party to do it , or have , or just have your customer success manager do it , or your , your sales manager , do it , somebody who wasn't directly involved in a sale , somebody who's not emotionally involved with it .
Speaker 1Yeah , and there's two things that we could do when we get that bad news . We could either like sulk or get angry and have these negative emotions , or , to your to your point , we could learn from it . And but it takes humility , Dan , I know that you're we talked about this before hitting the record button , but you know you're in Canada and so I feel like wind back labs is something that could have only come out of Canada , because people up North you just you're kinder people , Like there's just a different culture up North of more hospitality and more friendliness . Why is that ? Why is there such a friendly nature up north that I think breeds so well this ?
Speaker 2concept of Winback Labs and what you're doing . I'm going to push back on that . I found that Americans are the friendliest people I've . I've traveled all over the place . You know . I took a year off when I was younger and I traveled the world , met Americans all over the place , friendliest , most charitable people , so- .
Speaker 1Oh , wow . Well , hey , of course a Canadian would say that because you're so nice .
Speaker 2It's true , zach , it really is it really is .
Speaker 1Oh well , thank you , because I have found that my time up in Canada I've just , you know , people are so ironically warm and I I think it's you know , and there there's a politeness of like being a it's okay to say sorry , you know , and here I feel like sometimes we're like , no , like we're right , and I think that we could all do with a dose of humility , no matter where we're from , to understand that it's okay to win some and it's okay to learn some , and it's easy to lose sight of that when someone is insulting your grandma's recipe , you know .
Speaker 2Definitely recipe . You know Definitely , and you know I will say one thing about Canadian culture that is nice is that two people bump together and they both say I'm sorry and that diffused . I just think you know that diffuses so many potential fights , you know , so that that is , that is a nice thing about this culture .
Speaker 1I love that . So where can people go or who is someone that we should be following ? Who's someone in , maybe , the customer experience space that you think is worth a follow on LinkedIn ?
Speaker 2Oh man , see , what you're doing here is you're getting me to give one person happy and 20 people angry .
Speaker 1Okay , so I'll fall into your little trap sack , I'm sure you'd apologize to the other 19 pretty quickly . You know what .
Speaker 2Leon Hughes yeah , he's in a PE firm . They're the biggest private equity firm for consumer brands in the UK and they do some amazing work . So , yeah , follow . He's a brilliant man , follow him Cool .
Speaker 1And where can people go to learn more about you and what you're doing ? At Winback Labs .
Speaker 2LinkedIn . For a long time I posted a lot on LinkedIn , so just check out LinkedIn . There's a lot of great stuff there . My podcast , winback Marketing Podcast and I've got a book coming out in the middle of September where I basically share everything I've learned . I've learned so much from so many brilliant people right From my podcast , from my study . You know 170 people have contributed to that . So yeah , there you go .
Speaker 1Awesome , super cool . Well , I'm so grateful that you came on , dan , and I'm grateful for your insights and what you're doing and for giving us the keys to some of the elements that you're cooking up in the laboratory of Winback . Today's ovation goes to you . Go ahead , team , and check out Winback Labs and the Winback Marketing Podcast . Dan , thank you for joining us on Given Ovation . Thanks so much , zach , it's been a blast . 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 .