Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome 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. Today I am so excited because we have Melissa Cummings, the VP of Digital Marketing at Tropical Smoothie Cafe, and formerly she oversaw one of the largest loyalty programs in the world for restaurants retailers over at Domino's. Melissa, thank you for joining us on Give an Ovation.

Speaker 2: 0:43

Thank you for having me. I'm so excited.

Speaker 1: 0:45

From the second that you popped onto the Zoom, I was like oh, we're going to have a fun chat. You just have such a great energy about you and I'd love to hear what drew you to Tropical Smoothie Cafe.

Speaker 2: 0:57

Sure. So, as we were talking in our pre-chat, there's some people who have their job and then clock out of their job chat. There's some people who have their job and then clock out of their job, and I'm one of those fortunate individuals that my job in the restaurant industry is my hobby, it's my passion, it's my obsession. So my poor husband calls it being married to the Zagat guide. I interrupt TV commercials, pause them, stand in front of the family. What was your takeaway? What brand was that? Would you purchase that item? So they have to deal with my passion for all things restaurant industry.

Speaker 2: 1:30

The whole time they've known me and what drew me specifically to Tropical Smoothie Cafe is I have been in the restaurant industry for almost 20 years and spent the majority of that with Domino's, as you mentioned, and just a brand that is as much or more a tech company than they are a pizza company. And so I fell in love and cut my teeth on the digital side of the restaurant industry and learning all of the ins and outs what makes the guests click on the digital experience and just had the opportunity for a brand my family loves. My kids are some of the rare birds that, for their birthday parties asked for a smoothie party instead of a pizza party. So it was our family's favorite brand and the door opened for an opportunity to bring those decades of experience of this very digital first brand and bring it to Tropical Smoothie Cafe, who was a couple of years further back on that journey, and bring some of that expertise and learning to that brand, which is just a great opportunity.

Speaker 1: 2:29

That is fantastic and, by the way, where are you based?

Speaker 2: 2:32

I'm out of Michigan, where there is a Tropical Smoothie Cafe. It seems like on every corner it is the number one market for the brand and is what made my family fall in love with it.

Speaker 1: 2:43

It wasn't just the accent that gave it away or the dominoes, but like you've got that very like Michigan friendly vibe to you.

Speaker 2: 2:49

So I didn't even say pop and you picked up on the accent. I know I was like I had to ask you.

Speaker 1: 2:56

I am like, so ADD that if I didn't ask you now, I'd be thinking about this whole entire conversation. So, talking about digital and restaurants, what are some things that you see brands get wrong?

Speaker 2: 3:08

I think what I learned from the decades at Domino's is how tempting it is, if you have scarce budget and resources, to just look at what others are doing, and those you would presume are the leaders in the space. So therefore they know what they're doing and say if Panera is doing this, if Chipotle is doing this, we should do that. They must have learned their way into it and the importance of always testing what works for your brand. You can certainly look to the industry for inspiration. They're doing something interesting on their homepage. I wonder if that helps or hurts.

Speaker 2: 3:45

The login experience makes it better for the guest Not just taking it at face value and instantly doing it for your brand, but the ease and flexibility with A-B testing tools that we have available at our fingertips for free or very low cost, to take a beat and test it for a week and see what was the impact. Did it make it easier for guests to order? Are you getting higher conversion? What did it do to your ticket? To say is that right or not right for my brand and my guests Is the harder way and it takes extra time, but that pays dividends in the long run learning what works precisely for you and your guests. And then you have that nugget, the insight of what about that experience worked, how do I do more of it if I worked or avoid it in the future if it didn't work? So it helps build a great roadmap of what you should be continuing to do to optimize your experience.

Speaker 1: 4:36

I love that because it's all about testing and it is so funny to see, because we'll do things at Ovation, because we'll see another company and they'll be like, oh, that's really cool that they did that. And then I'll talk to the CEO of that company and they'll be like, yeah, well, we started doing this thing because you started doing it. And it's really like it's just companies that are kind of like, oh, I'm doing this because they must be doing something cool. They're like, oh, ovation, they must know what they're doing. They do.

Speaker 1: 5:00

Everyone thinks that everyone knows what they're doing, but the truth is everyone's backyard is on fire. Everyone is living in a total disaster. We're all just trying our best, and I think that I love getting the inspiration. Like, for example, I look at McDonald's and this $5 meal. I mean it's been a long time since in my recent memory, I don't have any recollection of them doing like an adult value meal like this. It's a matter of why did McDonald's do that, what can we learn from that and what can we test from that, not just like great $5 meals. That's what we need to push. That might not work for your brand, but if you have higher ticket items, it may be time to look at doing like more bundled things if you haven't done it before, and I think it's about understanding that, yes, they have millions of dollars, that they're paying giant consultants to do a bunch of research for them, but, at the end of the day, your brand is your brand and it needs to resonate with who you are and who your customer is right.

Speaker 2: 6:00

Yeah, and what somebody else? A $5 value meal. When you apply that to our brand and our guests, the insight might be there that everyone is looking for value in this economy, but there's so many different ways to provide value outside of just a price point that you have to take that insight, see if it reigns true for your guests at this time and figure out what is the tropical for us version of that that makes the most sense for our franchisees, has to work for our guests. It has to fit that whole package and work for everybody.

Speaker 1: 6:30

Yeah, and I love that you talk about how it needs to work for the guests, because really, everything that we do is about the guest experience, and so what would you think, melissa, is the most important aspect of guest experience nowadays?

Speaker 2: 6:41

I kind of have two thoughts to this question. So one is because we're not a full nationwide brand right now. I want to make sure that listeners of your podcast know who we are as a company. So a little bit of a background about us and the guest experience that we're trying to create. First, putting the guest at the center of what we do is what I do in digital marketing, what my counterpart does in digital experience, what our brand team does. And we have this unique flair to it, a tropical flair, that we think that if we can deliver on our unique experience it'll make this destination and this special moment that guests literally can't get anywhere else. And it all starts with our roots, as you can tell by my background, it's not just for show. We were literally born on a beach. It's not a figure of speech for us.

Speaker 2: 7:29

But literally the first cafe was on a beach, as a smoothie stand on a beach in Florida. On that beach we learned that there's this different, unique, better way to live and we want to share that with as many people as possible. And from those roots it came this simple and compelling offering of freshly made better for you bowls, smoothies and food, and it delivers a vacay vibe. And that's who we are. I was telling you about my coworkers with palm tree and smoothie earrings. It permeates everything we do as a business that we want to deliver to our guests Every day, everything we're doing. We want to spread sunshine to our guests, to our franchisees. We want to allow our franchisees to inspire better in the communities that they serve. And my goal is that whenever a guest comes into our cafe or takes a sip of a smoothie, that it's a five-minute vacation in a hectic day, it's their tropical escape, that coming to visit us is your way of having a little vacay in every single day. So that's kind of the positioning of what we want our guests to experience. And you ask what's the most important aspect to deliver that guest experience? And I have very fresh, recent, relevant intel on that because we just surveyed our loyalty audience in a very extensive survey about what's important to them, and I oversee the loyalty program and email. So we asked them how do brands earn your brand's loyalty? And even though I wish it was all about the loyalty program, I wish that was their answer. That's just one small sliver of it. It's so much more than that. They told us for a brand to earn our loyalty, it's getting my order right is the most important thing. Offering a worthwhile rewards program was number two, and then providing a consistent experience. So you go to one tropical smoothie cafe and the other, or you go to one and you return the next day, and it's that same experience. So you go to one Tropical Smoothie Cafe and the other, or you go to one and you return the next day, and it's that same experience. And then exclusive products were important to them. So it was just this like fit back absorb. Really interesting moment for us, for the leadership team, for all departments of the company, as a reminder that loyalty is not just the marketing you do, the branding or the rewards program that you have.

Speaker 2: 9:49

Every single person in our organization is responsible for building brand loyalty. Every aspect has to feel like this tropical escape behind me. If you're ordering in the cafe, it has to be consistent and tropical and feel the same as sitting at home with the app in your hand and ordering there. That guest interaction. When a guest walks in, we want the crew to treat them like the crew member is a host of a tropical resort and they're welcoming the guests into the cafe. Speed If we tell you your order is going to be ready at a certain time, everyone better be hustling to get that order ready on time. Taste it better be cold and refreshing smoothie. The food better be hustling to get that order ready on time. Taste it better be cold and refreshing smoothie. The food better be made delicious. And accuracy is key for us for customizations of extra items added into smoothies supplements. Getting that customization and order accuracy down is critical for our brand and in today's competitive environment in this economy, every single touchpoint along that guest thread is just absolutely paramount and critical.

Speaker 1: 10:53

I love that. So Get Order Right a loyalty program, consistency, and then what was the fourth thing?

Speaker 2: 11:01

Exclusive products. What does that mean? So this is for brand loyalty. If I am a loyalty member of your program, there has to be something that's in it for me. I can't just get what everybody else is offering. So I either come to you because your brand has something your competitors don't offer and I have to come to your brand or, above and beyond, just what you offer for all of your guests. There's some sort of exclusive layer that I know I'm getting extra value from, whether I'm a formal loyalty member or I'm ordering on your digital platform versus in cafe. So this prop that you get for having something really exclusive in nature to make you a sought out destination.

Speaker 1: 11:45

I love that, and after this, let's share some notes here, Melissa, because one of the things that we found is that that's the people that answered that survey right, so those are the people who really care about Tropical Smoothie Cafe. One of the things we found to be really interesting is are you familiar with the term service recovery paradox?

Speaker 2: 12:04

Yes, service recovery. Yes, but the paradox behind it no.

Speaker 1: 12:08

So service recovery paradox is basically something that's been proven out time and time again of a guest who has a service failure and proper service recovery is more likely to become loyal than a guest who never had a service failure in the first place.

Speaker 1: 12:22

We actually put some data to that and we found that a guest with proper service recovery so they're more than twice as likely to come in in a given year they spend $5 more per visit, they come in four times more frequently and they're 12 times more likely to leave you a five-star review. The silent winner in all of this are those mess-ups, because when you could mess it up and you empower your team to not only hear about it so make it easy for the guests but also resolve it, that guest is going to be your most loyal subset of customers. I love that interesting concept of getting your order right and that consistency because we always talk about.

Speaker 1: 13:03

There's convenience, which is like it's got to be worth the effort, and then there's consistency, and then there's consistency, and then there's connection, and that those three rungs in the ladder of loyalty will get you up over that wall to become more than just like a cool place to go, but a generational business. And you obviously the Tropical Smoothie Cafe brand has done such a good job of getting people to care, because the more that guests and employees care, that's how you build the brand. But if an employee doesn't care, they're not going to get the order right, they're not going to be consistent, and I think that's something that goes into the why operations and marketing and innovation. We got it from CJ Ramirez over at dog house. He calls it markerations, because in the restaurant industry you can't pull those two things apart.

Speaker 2: 13:52

Yes, for us it is every day. My core group I live within is marketing and operations and IT and analytics and that stool, putting the guests at the center. All of those things form this critical piece, and what do we want to do that we think will put the guests at the center and make it better for them Operationally? Can we handle it? How do we empower the crew to deliver it? How do we measure it? Analytics team, the new thing that we're doing in IT. If it involves new tech, can you support it and help get that feature down on time? And it is constantly that work between the four groups to make sure that we're able to keep putting the guests in the center and optimizing for them all the time.

Speaker 1: 14:37

Love that. So of this group and of what the things that you're doing, what are some tactics that you guys have used at Tropical Smoothie Cafe to improve the guest experience?

Speaker 2: 14:47

Sure.

Speaker 2: 14:47

So I'll start first, not with what we've done, but what I see in the industry that I love. As the restaurant industry nerd that I am, my recent obsession is the technology that empowers cafes I call them cafes, restaurants or stores to know a guest and make it easy for them hearkening back to the days of walking into Cheers, where it would be a small restaurant. They know you, how do you empower a cafe or restaurant that services so many more guests every single day to have that same Cheers-like vibe? So my obsession is the brands that have those little touchscreen tablets on their countertops and that touchscreen, when I walk up to the register, prompts me to identify. So, put in your phone number, I can see my loyalty point status. That reinforces to me. Oh yeah, I've visited this brand. I have value, I've been accruing points with this brand. It tells me if I have rewards and if I want to apply a reward to that order. And when I talked about order accuracy being paramount, as the cashier is ringing up the order, it's telling me this smoothie, this supplement added, add spinach. And I am a customization queen. My husband hates going out to eat with me because when the waiter comes over he shakes his head like I know what this order is going to be. But to be able to see a screen that tells me they're getting it right, they're inputting exactly what I wanted for customizations, is key to me. And then I like the twofold benefit of this technology. I like it as a gas for all the reasons I just said, but I like it as much, or more, for the crew being on this side of the table.

Speaker 2: 16:27

In the restaurant industry, that tech can take so much burden off of the crew. There's so much we and I'm guilty of this at the support center are asking the crew to do with every guest. We say please, as you're taking the order, ask the guest if they want to make a donation today, ask them if they want to add a supplement to their smoothie, ask them if they're a loyalty member and if they want to scan or sign up and make sure to read the order back to them. And, by the way, speed is paramount, as we talked about. So do it all faster than you used to do it a couple of days ago. It's a lot, and I am the biggest fan and proponent of letting that counter tablet technology take that burden off of them and do the work for them.

Speaker 2: 17:10

And then, in terms of what we specifically have tried for the guest experience, we have recognized the need is greater now than it ever has been to really stand out in the industry and we are on a mission to create a digital program that works for the brand financially and benefits our franchisees and puts the guests in the center. So we literally, hot off the presses, just built this North Star that we want loyalty, digital marketing and our digital experience programs to deliver on. And that North Star for us is we want to leverage guest insights to create easy breezy guest experiences that build brand love and maintain long-term financial growth and profitability. Everything we do inspires guests to live better and experience the fun and freedom of a tropical getaway in their everyday lives. And then that North Star. Once we wrote that I'm getting goosebumps because once we put it on the wall, the easy breezy phase has become a daily dialogue and part of our mantra.

Speaker 2: 18:17

And it's the key Is the way I'm doing it today. Is that enough? Is it okay? Someone in the room will say is it easy breezy for the guests? If it's not, we need to improve it. And then my favorite part of how much it's permeated even outside of marketing. Is that unsolicited? My IT counterpart in e-commerce picked up the phone and called me. I won't do his New Zealand accent because I butcher it Sounds English. He said I was placing an order. Today I noticed that redeeming a reward was not as easy breezy as it should be. Can we hop on the phone? Do you want to brainstorm some options together? That's like a marketer's dream is, when IT has adopted that North Star, they're noticing something in the guest experience related to marketing or loyalty that could be better and saying I noticed it and I want to support you. So that's been a big game changer and unlock for the four pieces of the stool I was talking about.

Speaker 1: 19:22

I love that because it's all about when you think about a vacay. When you think about that, you think about at least my version of it is low stress, it's easy, it's frictionless, yes, and that whole concept of frictionless is something that is so important to remember, and the more friction that we remove for our guests, for our team members, the better the experience can be, the more human connection we can have, the more that we can focus on serving people as opposed to just getting an order done. I just had Will Guder on the podcast and we talked about the difference between what is giving someone food and what is hospitality what is?

Speaker 1: 20:06

service and what is hospitality? I can give someone a smoothie, but how do they feel about how I gave them that smoothie? I remember one time I was in Japan and I went to a food court. I went to this restaurant there and I got a rice and chicken bowl. And Melissa, the way that this woman behind the counter prepared that rice and chicken bowl.

Speaker 1: 20:29

Honestly, I have paid $5,000 for dinners and not felt the way that I felt watching her. I mean the dome of rice that she put on there, the chicken that she placed so carefully, the sauce that she drizzled perfectly, the way she handed it to me and was so grateful that I picked her restaurant. She was an employee, she didn't own the place, it was in a mall cafeteria, like it was a food court. But it's about how you make people feel about it and I think that, to me, is so important. We always say, ah, I have a fast food, I got a fast casual, I can't afford to like, do all this hospitality crap. It's like you can't afford not to, because that's what people remember. That's the aftertaste that lingers longer than any food will obsessed with coming from the digital side of the world.

Speaker 2: 21:30

How do you infuse digital to help facilitate that interaction for the crew member? My dream is they know everyone that's walking in the door, they know what they're going to order, how they can help serve them. So that beautiful infusion of digital and AI and how that can completely change the hospitality game going forward is what excites me the most.

Speaker 1: 21:48

Love that. Well, Melissa, I know we're closing in on time here. Who is someone that deserves an ovation in the restaurant industry?

Speaker 2: 21:55

Am I allowed to have two?

Speaker 1: 21:57

Okay, I'll give you two, just because you're so great.

Speaker 2: 22:01

So my first one anyone that's in the digital space, like I am, has to say Wingstop. I mean their crazy growth trajectory, explosive sales and in their latest press release, how they said they're at 68% of digital sales, is like insert, jaw, drop here. And then the fact that they're there and they're like I'm doubling down, let's keep going. And they're making this massive investment in tech. I am someone that sits in the sideline and watches what they're like I'm doubling down, let's keep going, and they're making this massive investment in tech. I am someone that sits in the sideline and watches what they're doing, how they're using that investment. So they're definitely one that I watch very closely in the industry. And then my personal favorite guest experience as of late.

Speaker 2: 22:41

This is a small, subtle one, but it's the revolution that I think is going to be happening in the drive-through industry. So it's McDonald's and it's the new tech that they have, and all it is is at the speaker box, a piece of tech asks you are you going to be using your app today and get your code ready? Again, it delivers on my obsession of taking the burden off of the crew and not having them do just one more thing in the ordering flow. That small prompt guarantees every single McDonald's guest at the drive-thru A now knows that McDonald's has an app and B it gives the guest time to prepare. Like me. I'm like oh yeah, I opened my app, I'm getting my code out, I'm looking for the coupon reward and I'm ready when the cashier comes to the speaker. And that kind of step change is how you take this historically all drive-through in cafe restaurant ordering and you can turn it overnight into a truly digital first brand and I am loving it. Get it.

Speaker 1: 23:45

Love that. That is so awesome. It's almost like you're like in marketing or something. I don't know, something like that. Well, melissa, where can people go to learn more about Tropical Smoothie Cafe? Or maybe even if they want to follow you, because this has been such a great podcast, I know I'm excited to follow your posts.

Speaker 2: 24:00

Well, thanks, yeah, you can follow at Tropical Smoothie Cafe on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook and you know my favorite by downloading our app in the App Store or Google Play Store.

Speaker 1: 24:12

Awesome. Can people follow you on LinkedIn? Do you post there at?

Speaker 2: 24:15

all Absolutely Sure. We would love to. You can follow Tropical Smoothie Cafe on LinkedIn. You can follow me, Melissa Cummings, on LinkedIn as well.

Speaker 1: 24:22

Okay, awesome. Well, melissa, for giving me a healthy beach vacay. Every day I stop in a tropical smoothie cafe. Today's ovation goes to you. Thank you so much for joining us on Giving Ovation Awesome. 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.