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
Rewiring Customer Perception with Melissa Hughes
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Dr. Melissa Hughes joins Zack to explore the neuroscience behind the guest experience. As a keynote speaker and author, Melissa breaks down why small missteps in a restaurant can have an outsized impact, and how operators can respond to reviews with empathy and intention.
Zack and Melissa discuss:
- How the brain's negativity bias affects guest perception
- Why noise can ruin a meal regardless of food quality
- The power of thoughtful responses to negative reviews
- Why most feedback contains hidden truth
- How service recovery can create more loyal guests
- How personalization and empathy influence customer retention
Tune in to hear how Melissa’s brain-based insights can transform the way you handle feedback and build guest loyalty.
Thanks, Melissa!
Meet Dr. Melissa Hughes, Neuroscience Expert
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 Dr Melissa Hughes with us . She's a keynote speaker , she's an author , she's a self-proclaimed neuroscience geek but she is all about the science of neuro and she's written some amazing articles , some great books and super excited to have you on the podcast , melissa . How are you today ?
Speaker 2I am great . Thank you for having me . I'm super excited to be here .
Speaker 1Now , this is going to be a unique podcast because normally we have people that come on and they talk about the guest experience from a restaurant perspective . And while you do have quite a bit of restaurant experience , especially through marriage Christopher Siebes being your husband and he's an awesome guy just bit of restaurant experience , especially through marriage Christopher Siebes being your husband and he's an awesome guy just an amazing restaurant veteran but you come at it from a neuroscience perspective . First of all . What got you into neuroscience in the first place ?
How the Brain Works and Quirks
Speaker 2Well , so my roots are in education . I started my career in a fourth grade classroom . At the end of that first year I sat down with my mentor , kind of did a little postmortem what do I need to work on for next year ? And my overarching question was how can I be a great teacher if I don't understand how the brain works and how the brain learns and those factors that impact creativity and problem solving all those places in the brain that we want our kids to hang out right ? So I'm going to fast forward a whole bunch of years , and that was actually where my journey in neuroscience research began .
Speaker 2And as I traveled along that path called life , what I discovered was that understanding how the brain works is far more important after you leave the classroom , because there's no teacher guiding you to the right answers or to how to learn or what to learn . And , all things being equal , we all have the same access to information . Now , If you have internet access , you can get the information you need . So the difference between the best of us and the rest of us is understanding what's going on up here and how to create the conditions we need to get our mind to do what we want it to do . That's how I got here .
Speaker 1Your quest for a PhD . In this , though , I mean , like it's one thing to be like hey , this is interesting , but how'd you decide ? Oh no , I think I want to do a PhD .
Speaker 2So I was that geek in school . I didn't want to know what it took to get an A , I wanted to know what it took to get an A plus . And I just loved learning . And when I really kind of dove into the neuroscience of how we think and it wasn't just how the brain works and how we think , that fascinated me , it was the way the brain quirks that fascinated me .
Speaker 2Like , why are we so irrational sometimes ? Why is it that when we go into a restaurant , the food can be amazing , but we walk out of that restaurant and we have a negative perception of the experience ? What is it that made that happen ? So that's just one example of there are lots of factors that influence our perception that we are not even aware of . Most of our thought processes , most of our brain function happens in our subconscious , and so until you really start to dig into that and figure out , well , what is it that's making me irritated about this meal ? I mean , it has nothing to do with the steak and the baked potato . The steak and the baked potato are fantastic , but I'm irritated about this meal . Now , what I know is maybe it's the noise , because restaurant noise is the biggest complaint among guests , and that is the thing that can really create a negative perception of the meal . Now , the noise has nothing to do with the quality of the food or way it's prepared , or even the way it's served to you . The server , the chef , they did all their jobs , but still noise creates this negative perception .
Negativity Bias in Guest Experience
Speaker 1Interesting . So there's all of these other things going on that formulate this guest experience , and I always tell people you have to get a thousand things right in order to have a good experience , but one thing wrong can really outweigh it , unless , of course , you have some kind of a personal connection to either the brand , the manager there , somebody working there . Once you build that personal connection , there's more that could be forgiven . But if I'm going into a restaurant and I'm paying $50 for a meal for me and my kids , I want to make sure that I'm getting what I'm paying for and I'm having the experience that I expected . When I go to McDonald's , into the play area , I'm expecting there to be a lot of noise , right . What I'm not expecting is for them to put onions on my burger when I specifically asked for no onions .
Speaker 2So two things are happening there , right ? So the first thing is what you mentioned is that one negative thing far outweighs all the positive things that happen in that experience , right ? And that is an ancestral hand-me-down . We are wired to tune in to the negative . It's called a negativity bias , and that's why we've survived like a bazillion years , because when their caveman ancestors were walking through the tundra , they didn't pay attention to the rustling in the bushes . It could mean like the end for them , right ? So that was hardwired into us and we've just kept it , and so now we're not escaping saber-toothed tigers . But the brain is as amazing as it is . It doesn't actually differentiate between psychological threat and physical threat . So that physical threat has carried over and as our brains have evolved , now we know what psychological threat feels like . And the brain does the same thing . It's always on the lookout for that negative thing . Where's the danger ? What can hurt me physically or psychologically ?
Speaker 1Interesting , because data shows that people are three times more likely to leave a negative review than a positive one right , and so that's that negativity bias that you're talking about . So what can restaurateurs do to combat
Responding to Negative Reviews Effectively
Speaker 1that ?
Speaker 2Well , when I am talking to restaurateurs , I always say that negative review is a gift , it's a total gift . So here's the thing the person that walked out of your restaurant , who was irritated because of the noise or because I don't know they got French fries instead of a baked potato , or whatever their irritation is . That review is your chance to not just make a personal connection with one of a bazillion customers that you have over the course of the week . It's your chance to tell the whole world how you feel when one of your customers' expectations are not met . Because here's what I think people kind of miss in the negative review thing .
Speaker 2I don't think people expect restaurants to be perfect . We know restaurants are not going to be perfect , we know things happen . But they expect that the restaurant will listen to me when I have a complaint . And , like you said , people are three times more likely to sit down and pound out a negative review and I've been there . I mean I've done that too right . But the part that is the most telling is after that negative review is written , how does the restaurant respond ? Because if the restaurant doesn't respond at all , that's worse . If the restaurant comes back and says well , you're just a lunatic . I don't need your business anyway . Okay , that's awful , but in both of those cases you're going to lose me as a customer . But what is also happening is every other person that checks the reviews before they try your restaurant is going to see that either you responded like an ass or you didn't respond at all , and so , as a new customer , I'm like whoa , they don't care when things go wrong .
Speaker 2But if you sit down and write a thoughtful response and I wrote a blog post about here's the anatomy of a thoughtful response to a bad review it's not that hard . It's really pretty simple . All people want is to be heard and they want to be acknowledged that things didn't go as planned . And if you do that , then people are much more forgiving and also they're much more likely to think the restaurant's okay . The person that wrote that review must be a nut job .
Speaker 1Yeah , and that's the thing , melissa , is that when I look at public reviews , it's really hard to win people back who have left a public review . But the thing is is that I say 5% of it is winning back that individual customer . 95% is sharing your story , is making sure that when people read that , they read that . Number one you're human , you acknowledge it , you understand it . You wrote this great article .
Speaker 1The one that you referenced is turn negative reviews into loyal guests . And when you talk about it , it's like number one is hearing the customer . Number two is taking responsibility . Even if the guest was partially at fault is what you say . And number three is offer a solution of we'd love to invite you back and make this right . And when you look at this , the problem with online reviews , when you're posting this publicly , is a lot of people say I don't want people to know that if they leave a negative review , that I'm going to give out a free hamburger . And that's one of the reasons that we created Ovation was because we want to make sure that if you can keep it private and if you can track who that guest is , it's so much more powerful because you don't have to wonder in the back of your mind . Are they just trying to get something for free ? You actually posted how to not respond to a negative review .
Speaker 1And this owner kind of goes unhinged and is like , oh , it's all about the money . But if you're able to track how often has that person complained with us and if it's their first time ever complaining and they've been in 10 times and we treat them like they're trying to steal our kid's college tuition , then yeah , it's going to paint a really bad picture for the person reading that response and for the person who's giving you that feedback , because , at the end of the day , 99% of feedback , there's truth in there . There's honesty .
Speaker 1There's something that honestly betrayed their trust . They trusted to have
The Service Recovery Paradox
Speaker 1an experience with your brand and they didn't get it . And so they have that primeval betrayal feeling and they want to feel heard . They want justice , right .
Speaker 2Right , and you mentioned earlier . You mentioned expectations , and it is all about trust and expectations . In that particular example of that restaurant that I actually clipped . I clipped the , I screenshotted the review and included that in my article . And here's what I want restaurateurs to pay attention to In that particular case .
Speaker 2If you look at that restaurant , there is scathing review after scathing review after scathing review and they're not all the same person . And so as a restaurant person , I'm like , okay , if everyone's carping about the weight like I had a 7.15 reservation , I didn't get seated until 8.15 , then that's my cue to pay attention to how I'm scheduling reservations . Right , if one person has a bad experience with the wait time , maybe it's that person , maybe it was an off night , maybe something happened to the reservation , but you know , those are the kinds of things that a guest who's looking at reviews to decide . Do I wanna come and spend $100 at your place on Friday night ? If everybody's kind of complaining about the wait time , then I'm going to be like they have a terrible wait time , everybody's complaining about it .
Speaker 2If one person complains about it , I'm going to forgive that . That's not a big deal In this case . If you go to that particular restauranteur's reviews . I mean this was like one of the lamest reviews out of the criticisms there . I mean I want to just call him and say dude like what happened in your childhood , Right and he's in my backyard .
Speaker 2I'm in Naples , florida , and he's in my backyard . And in that particular review it was written by someone who lives here year round . And also , if you read the edit , the update of that review , the person said I'm never coming back . But that's not who you have to worry about . I'm going to tell every person I know about my experience . Now , flip that around . Had he just responded thoughtfully and he didn't even have to give anything away . Just come on back and introduce yourself when you come back and introduce yourself when you come back . I really want to meet you . I want to apologize in person . Maybe it isn't even a free burger right . Then now she's going to say you know what I went in ? He introduced himself to me . It was . He's a really nice guy . It must've been an off night . I love that place now .
Speaker 1It's such a gift , it's such a gift .
Speaker 2It's such a gift because it's an opportunity to publicly tell everybody else how you handle guests .
Speaker 1And what's so incredible is they've done studies . That's called the service recovery paradox and it shows that a guest who has a negative experience with proper service recovery is more likely to become loyal than a guest who never had that service failure in the first place . And in fact , when we look at our data , we're able to see that that guest actually is twice as likely to come back . When they do come back , they come back four times more frequently , they spend more money on each subsequent visit and they're 12 times more likely to leave you a five-star review on a next visit . And so what we've found is that , quantifying it , one recovered guest is worth 24 average guests .
Speaker 1Yeah , and I tell people all the time , it's not that you need to manufacture mistakes , they're going to happen organically . It's about having that safety net and it's about handling it properly to make sure that you have the proper service recovery . And one of the biggest it properly to make sure that you have the proper service recovery . And one of the biggest things that we found is that if you're texting a guest or you're responding to a review , if you want it to be super powerful , use your name and use their name yes , by just saying hey , melissa , I'm Zach , the owner of Zach Shack .
Speaker 1I just wanted to say I am so sorry that you had an hour-long wait . We obviously messed up . We were super slammed that night , not how we want to portray it . I would love to invite you back in and give you a regular five-star experience , right ? Yeah , absolutely . I'm not asking you to rewrite your review . I'm not giving you something for free , but it's just an acknowledgement of human to human connection and not just like this faceless brand who made me wait an hour for my reservation , right .
Speaker 2You are so right . And when you think about what are the ingredients of a human to human connection , I mean the ingredients . It's not tough , it's being seen , being heard
Being Seen, Heard, and Valued
Speaker 2, being valued . Those three things make you feel connected to another person , whether it's a guest in a restaurant or in a relationship , or with your boss . Whatever Be seen , be heard , be valued , and restaurants can do that . So , simply by just what you said , that , just that I'm Zach . Hey , melissa , that personalization is worth gold when somebody is like I just want to be seen , heard and valued .
Speaker 1Right , yeah , oh , that's so powerful , and I love reminding people . We don't serve customers in restaurants and we don't even serve guests . Do you know who we serve , melissa ? We serve humans and it doesn't matter , like you said , is it a steak dinner or it's a restaurant or a marriage , but you still are dealing with humans and I love how you said that they want to feel seen , they want to feel heard . And what was the third one ?
Speaker 2Valued they want to be valued Melissa .
Speaker 1I know this was such an unorthodox podcast , but I've loved this conversation . I think it is so powerful to remind our teams about the power of recovery and making sure that we are telling our story publicly but we're taking ownership privately and that we're making sure that they feel seen , heard and valued . I think that's really powerful .
Speaker 2Yeah , there's another post on my website that talks about one restaurant that really turned a negative review around and it went completely viral and it was all kinds of press and people were rallying and it was because it was this nasty , nasty review and it was all in the way the owner responded and she didn't give anything away . She didn't give anything away . She responded sincerely and authentically and that's all people ask for .
Speaker 1And if you want to read more of Melissa Hughes' articles , which I think you absolutely should , you absolutely should . It's melissahughesrocks , Melissa . How else can people find and follow you ?
Speaker 2Well , I do a Neuro Nugget video every week because everybody wants to be a little bit smarter and know how their brain works , and so every week you can go to YouTube . You can subscribe to my YouTube channel and get a three to eight minute video in there somewhere in there and learn something fascinating about the human brain . I also send a NeuroNugget email out every Friday , and the one thing that I'm really terrible about is marketing . So I don't try to sell you anything , I just want to tell you about the brain . So the NeuroNugget you can subscribe to that on my website at melissahughesrocks .
Speaker 1Awesome . Well , I'm so excited that you came on . I'm so excited to have this perspective and to share this . But , melissa , for reminding us that a negative review is just a customer trying to save themselves from a saber-toothed tiger , today's ovation goes to you . Thank you so much for joining us on Give an Ovation .
Speaker 2Thank you , zach , it was a pleasure .
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 .