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. And today we have Jonathan Chen, the co-founder and CEO of 5 in 5. And he was previously the head of strategy at 5 in 5 and took over last year as a CEO Been doing some amazing things over there. Obviously, he's been there for a while. He actually, if you dig deep into his LinkedIn, you see he's no noob to the restaurant industry. He's been around the food and Bev space for a while, so don't let the brains fool you. But, jonathan, welcome to the podcast man.

Speaker 2: 0:53

Thank you for having me Excited to be here. I'm humbled. What an introduction, honestly.

Speaker 1: 0:57

Well, all I did is read what you've done, man. You've done some great things and for those who aren't familiar with Five and Five, you want to explain to us a little bit about what it is.

Speaker 2: 1:06

Yeah, absolutely so. 5.5 is a food service introduced. Premier IT and digital managed services company really kind of support brands end to end from everything from RFP to SaaS, implementation to POS and platform management, and our focus really is on making sure that brands have really the ability to make the right technical decisions versus sometimes what is the easiest decision. So really every brand that we work with has a completely bespoke to W with us. They decide how little or how much support they want from us, and we support all the major point of sale systems and tend as well. So really here I'm kind of making sure that we are there to support our brands and whatever they're looking for new technology, transitions, additions, whatever that may be that's exactly what we're here for.

Speaker 1: 1:46

So what are some problems that you're solving? When brands come to you and they're like ah, jonathan, we need some help because we have this problem. Where are you like? Yeah, we nailed that for you.

Speaker 2: 1:56

Yeah, I would say COVID sparked a lot of this. But as everything kind of continues to become more and more digital, a lot of this means adding more and more technology to the solution stack and what was two or three pieces now is 15, 16, 17 pieces. And oftentimes brands are really excited to add these solution stacks in and then don't realize it all has to connect together for it to work seamlessly to get really kind of the true value out of it. And it gets to a point where there's too much and they're really trying to figure out well, exactly what do we actually need? What do we need to do? How do we fix the things aren't working? How do we make sure we are getting the value out of the solutions that we signed up for?

Speaker 2: 2:31

And oftentimes it kind of comes to us in just this historic whatever. There's some tribal knowledge, some people know it's happened, some people don't, and so it's really kind of us figuring, figuring out from what is this very black box of what exactly is happening and really how can we kind of pull this together? So I would say most of the times around commerce and saying, hey, we know that there's opportunity, we just need to kind of help figuring it out. So it's not always kind of a clear cut. You know you need exactly why or exactly x. Some of our brands do come to us and say hey, look, we want to redo our menu and we know that redoing the menu is going to impact the point of sale system, it's going to impact loyalty, it's going to impact online ordering. How do we make sure we don't break everything? Then other times it's hey, we just know things aren't working and we need someone to come and dig in and figure out what's going on.

Speaker 1: 3:18

Yeah, and I think that that is something where it's often with consulting.

Speaker 1: 3:23

When I was a consultant, it was one of those things where, before I got into consulting, I was like consulting is a joke. You're going there, you charge a lot of money to do a simple project, but really what it comes down to is a lot of times there's projects where it's too expensive to hire someone in or hire a team in full time to handle it, and that team would be doing things for the first time. And so when you work with advisors, consultants, teams, it allows you to solve a problem that's very specific with experts who have done it several times. So you have the benefit of not only keeping up with your competition, but going faster than them and making sure that you're getting these critical pieces of infrastructure in place the right way. Because, oh my gosh, jonathan, how many times do you have to go in and clean up what someone tried to figure out for the first time, where all they had to do was make a call, and now they're paying twice as much to go half as fast?

Speaker 2: 4:21

Absolutely. And I think the really interesting part is cost is always kind of this top of mind thing for brands, especially now. I mean the last few years I think we've all seen the industry brands continue to figure out ways to kind of cut on G&E expense, really kind of balancing really kind of the economic situation of where we're sitting from an industry standpoint, and oftentimes we kind of talk about whether it's a consulting resource or kind of 18-inch services. It oftentimes, surprisingly, it works out better, partly just kind of what you mentioned. It's kind of an expert resourcing you have at the ready, that's done this process quite a few times, that's going to come in and fix the problem really fully, versus kind of duct tape the solution.

Speaker 2: 4:58

But part of this is also just, oftentimes, because the expertise is there, you don't really sometimes need that full resource. We have brands that come to us and say, hey, just help us clean stuff up and then just make it manageable and we can take care of it. So really being able to kind of equip brands with the ability to say, cool, what do I actually need? Where should this spend actually go? That's what we're here for. So where it could be a project, it could be an ongoing retainer. But for us, what do you actually need and really, how do we clean this up for this to actually be sustainable long term, with or without a resource, If that's not some of the brand needs at this moment because of where they are in terms of their brand growth?

Speaker 1: 5:32

I'm a nerdy guy. I like technology. I'm guessing by your AirPod Maxes, you're kind of a nerd too. So, as we're sitting here talking about the tech stack and these different techs to implement, I think one of the things that it's always critical to remember and I know that from our teams have been talking, I know that 5 and 5 believes this very strongly it's really about the guest experience. And if the technology is not enhancing the guest experience in the end because a lot of times you could implement technology and it helps with the bottom line or top line and that allows you to invest more in the guest experience, but if the end result doesn't all flow to the guest experience, it's not a worthwhile endeavor. So what do you look at, how do you marry technology and guest experience and what do you think the most important aspect of guest experience nowadays is?

Speaker 2: 6:25

Yeah, that's a great question. I mean I would say this is kind of really obvious, but I think, from the position we stand in, we really feel like it's oftentimes forgotten versus being the focus. But I'd say the most important aspect of the guest experience is brands providing really the simplest, least complicated way to place an order.

Speaker 1: 6:41

Oh my gosh, Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Can we just pause there and just celebrate that moment? Right, Remove the friction. If people want to send money with you, let them. 97% of people have recently backed out of a purchase due to friction. I love that, Jonathan. I just want to spend money with you. Let them. 97% of people have recently backed out of a purchase due to friction.

Speaker 2: 7:00

I love that, jonathan.

Speaker 1: 7:01

I just want to celebrate you for saying that man. Thank you.

Speaker 2: 7:04

And look, I get that it's not the least or it's not the most exciting or flashy innovation. It's not the thing that we really want to be spending time talking to. It's not what makes the newsletter, the publications, it's not the stuff that the CTOs are most proud of. But really, at the end of the day, it doesn't make a difference if this is in-store or digital. Every time we make something complicated, it really prevents the core of what the entire purpose of everything we're doing really is there for, which is how do we make this transaction happen when a store runs out of items, is it 86 fast enough with a customer placing transaction? Does it support digital payments? Can you one-click order? These are all kind of very straightforward things. Really.

Speaker 2: 7:43

Can a customer start the transaction and end in? How fast does it take for that kind of end-to-end process? And we were sitting here and saying, cool, how do I optimize everything from my POS to my panels to can a staff go in and easily place, modify orders based on customer requests? Is that applied to web and mobile? Look, at the end of the day, the way I see it is, the ordering experience can be pretty, but if it adds unnecessary components and complexity for a customer trying to place a transaction. I think the brand started to focus on the wrong things and really just focusing on cool. How do I go from the start of the transaction to the end? As simple, straightforward, least complicated as possible. From the start of the transaction to the end? As simple, straightforward, least complicated as possible is really where brands are going to start to win and, I think, where a lot of brands are starting to really focus their energy and attention.

Speaker 1: 8:26

It makes so much sense and it's so simple, right? And I think that that's the thing about so much of hospitality is you hear it and you think, well, no, duh. But here's the thing it's hard to implement because there's a thousand other things punching us in the face and we start to get away from the reason that we're in it, which is that human to human aspect, and we're there to fill people and help them feel fulfilled, and those are things that often get overlooked as you work with a lot of these brands. Typically, your average customer has quite a few locations. You're working with some of the biggest of the biggest brands. Yeah, and what is something that you would recommend? What are some tactics that you would recommend to improve the guest experience for both multi-unit brands? And then, what are some pieces of advice maybe for some of the smaller brands out there that are looking to grow into someone who can claim to be one of your customers?

Speaker 2: 9:26

Yeah, absolutely. I think it is kind of similar and tied to kind of what we were just talking about. But a lot of this is kind of this like back to basics, which is kind of this approach that I feel like in general, a lot of brands are going to take and doesn't matter for small trying to go big or big and massive as an organization. A lot of this comes down to simplicity and that is what that looks like in terms of core execution and what success is going to kind of resemble ongoing. And I think a lot of this also combines a lot of the thematics we kind of continue to hear within the restaurant industry. Is there this buy versus build approach? Do I go and handpick an integration for every single point of my system or do I do this kind of all in one solution? And all of this kind of ties back down to brands are just starting to evaluate whether or not what they've chosen is actually what they need. Is every solution and technology stack necessary? Is it actually doing the value to's expected? Is it actually driving sales and actually making customer experience better? And I think a lot of this is what I mean by the back to basics approach is just being intentional and looking at the entire customer journey, Whether that's in store or online. We're really saying what do we need to make it better and faster for a customer? And I think this is applicable regardless of the brand size, Because I think when you're small going big, you start saying, look, how do I catch up to the big guys? The big guys have the fancy UIs on the front end. You have all these great destination platforms, etc. How do I add all this stuff in? But again, if you're not utilizing it correctly, it's not integrated properly. It doesn't matter that you have it, because you're not able to get the true value out of it. No-transcript, and I think we've even seen it. Really from a marketing perspective, right, we look at every single brand and, as they've been moving forward in this process of like, what is that? Back to basics, right, it doesn't matter if that's McDonald's looking at their value proposition. It doesn't matter if it's all these brands starting to do nostalgic LTOs or going back to brand aesthetics and historicals of saying, look, why do people like us to begin with? What made us as great a brand as we are today? That still applies very much to the technology stack.

Speaker 2: 11:48

I always say that, for all the work that we do, I still order from the Uber Eats and DoorDash and part of it is look, I know that I'm paying a premium, but ordering through these platforms guarantees me basic and unnecessary when I'm just trying to place a transaction. Secondly, I'm hungry. I just want to order something that I know is a consistent UI, no matter where I'm placing transaction from. If I run into a problem, I'm going to get an AI agent that immediately solves it or someone that's going to come take care of my problem. And the brands that are able to create a very similar experience are the ones that I choose to order from natively. Because your inability to ensure that a customer get from the start to the end as easy as possible no points, no loyalty program, no integration, no system is going to solve those issues. And really the best apps that exist are the ones that enable the kind of very seamless transition between in-store and digital, but still allow the ability to one recognize that you're a customer, yes, but also recognizing that as a customer, you just want to place a transaction. So, if I can make sure that you don't run into payment issues, you don't run into any weird UI issues, you don't run into order issues. That's where I think brands are going to again need to focus effort on to make sure they are capturing that market segment.

Speaker 2: 12:58

I would say for most of our brands really, especially this year, we have a lot. What is working, what isn't. How do we clean this up? How do you simplify it? Because it gets to a point where there's too much to manage and brands are struggling with really kind of justifying. Not only is it worth the cost, is it worth the ongoing effort to continue to maintain these systems? Are we actually getting true value? How are we measuring the return on investment? Is it really doing the things we thought it was supposed to do when we added it into our system?

Speaker 1: 13:25

And I think that's so appropriate that when you buy a technology, it's like buying a boat you don't finish, the expense is not signed when you pay for it upfront, right, you always have to maintain it, you have to use it, you have to train people on it. And I think a lot of times about we moved into a house and we put a nice big hood over our stove. My wife and I we'd never had a hood before. So we get there and when we start cooking our first meal, that's really smoky. Guess what we don't do? We didn't turn the hood on right Smoke detectors went off and it was a whole to do, but we had the hood, we just didn't use it.

Speaker 1: 14:08

And I think that's what happens a lot of times with technology is you get this new piece of technology and your staff forgets to do something simple like turn it on, to use it. Or I just talked to a brand recently and they were like yeah, we're trying to figure out all the stuff that was purchased, because we don't even know. We don't know what was purchased, because there were things that were purchased that were a marketing tool that we weren't even consulted on, and this was the head of marketing, and so these are things that we didn't really have to focus on and ensure that, like you said, we're not just buying the right technology, but that it's speaking together the right way and that we're talking to our people about it the right way to use it, and really do that evaluation. Go down Doge style, not to get political, but like line by line and see what's the value you're getting here.

Speaker 2: 15:02

Yeah, and I think a lot of where I'm incredibly grateful that we kind of sit in this very interesting position because, like we don't know any software and a lot of kind of our process has been super intentional and just saying, look, we're going to be agnostic, whatever our brands choose is really what we're going to be able to support. If they want to move elsewhere, we're going to be able to support that. But it's also in our kind of ability to work closely with our partners and say how do we make sure that our brands are getting the most value? Because, like half the time, a brand will sign up and say cool, this looks really good on paper, they'll get the sales process, the partner's excited, get them signed, and then there's no traction and then the brand eventually kind of falls off and the reality is it's the technology. There is just simply a disconnect with how is that brand getting value out of the system? Do they understand how it even works? Is it even integrated properly? These are question marks Because, look, if you talk from, I'm sure, your perspective and having the SaaS solution, it's sometimes really basic stuff that you expect was already done.

Speaker 2: 15:58

But someone on the brand said, yep, I did that task of making sure everything's connected and never happened.

Speaker 2: 16:02

And so you're getting half the amount of information that's needed for your platform to work effectively and the brand's not happy because they're not getting the results and everything seems kind of weird.

Speaker 2: 16:10

And so our role also is making sure that, if a brand signed up for something that our partners are also successful in that space, that's 100% we're here for it's, sitting here and saying, cool, what are you using? Does it make sense and are you getting the most out of it? Because I think oftentimes, like you said, brands are signing up and saying, cool, this is nice, pretty, I've turned it on, and then they forget that it's there. And when you forget that it's there and not utilizing correctly and yes, it's going to be very easy for you to sit here and say, cool, I'm not getting the value out of it when the reality is, you're just not simply utilizing really the full breadth of what that solution is there for and designed to be able to do for the brand as well, yeah, I think that one of the biggest things that I feel like is an issue with restaurants and technology.

Speaker 1: 16:51

Now that restaurants have really started to adopt technology since COVID, as you were talking about, the next big hurdle is implementing and utilizing that technology. There are so many vendors. I guarantee you right now in your brand you are working with a vendor who can solve a problem for you that you are paying for, that you don't know they can do so. As part of going through that audit of what is the value here, part of that is let's reconnect and let's make sure that you and that your vendor are chatting and understanding that, so you get the full breadth of what they can do, because there's so many things.

Speaker 1: 17:32

I just talked yesterday to someone who didn't know that you can use Novation phone number to text back and forth without submitting feedback. Right, that's a brand new thing for them, but something that we have. There's so many things that every vendor can do that it's hard to remember what they are and aren't using, what they have and haven't heard about, what they chose not to use, what they didn't know they can use, and so, yeah, I would say in that evaluation process, it's really powerful to go through and understand, and that's part of the benefit of using someone like you right, jonathan, is that you take it upon yourself to understand the scope and capabilities of these tech vendors. That's why I think it's so powerful to leverage someone who has that expertise. Now, I know we're running low on time here, and I do want to make sure that we hear this answer, because you know a lot of people in the restaurant industry, and so who is someone that you think deserves an ovation? Who's someone who we should be following?

Speaker 2: 18:29

I think a close friend of yours, but I'm going to throw the ovation of enough that Vicky, because I think a lot of what he does and this is what I have immense respect for is he's not creating content for the sake of it being content, and every post that he's posting is not sales. It is something that's really intentionally there. To kind of start the conversation is to add context to the conversation. He's super passionate about what he does. They have a beautiful platform. A lot of it is saying how do we add value to the conversation? How do I show brands what they can get out of it? And I think I mean this is a nice way LinkedIn has kind of like started to transform to like Facebook is what it feels like.

Speaker 2: 19:08

So to really kind of feel and see authentic content and really the way I see it is in meeting him. He posts the way he talks. He's not fluffing this up to be something else, and so his ability to be an expert in his space and also be authentic in the way he's approaching it in his voice shines through. There's a ton of value that I get just kind of seeing what he's posting about the brands that are working with this platform and really kind of how he's seeing the industry and technology continually evolve, that it feels like it's an actual honest conversation and it's adding canning to the fire versus it's just there to say something, to say something in a space. So I throw it to him, immense respect for him and kind of everything he's built with his team. But that's who I give the ovation to.

Speaker 1: 19:48

Awesome. Yeah, love Bicky, love Abhi. He does some awesome stuff. Great content, great human, very well deserved. Now where can people go to find and follow you, jonathan?

Speaker 2: 20:00

Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 1: 20:01

And 5 and 5.

Speaker 2: 20:02

And 5 and 5. You're welcome to follow me on LinkedIn. I don't host super frequently, so 5 and 5 probably is where you can get most of the updates, but you can search my name, jonathan Chen, on LinkedIn. Otherwise, in terms of 5 and 5, you can search us both on Facebook, alongside of Instagram and LinkedIn. On LinkedIn and Facebook, it'll be 5 and 5. On LinkedIn, it's 5and5, underscore com, and then our website is 5and5.com 5and5.com.

Speaker 1: 20:30

Awesome. Well, jonathan, for reminding us that the heart of the guest experience is not necessarily about technology, but simplicity. Today's ovation goes to you. Thank you so much for joining us on Give an Ovation. Thanks for having me Appreciate it. 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.