Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to another edition of Give an Ovation the restaurant guest experience podcast. I'm your host, zach Oates, and each week I chat with industry experts to uncover real strategies and actionable tactics to help you create a five-star guest experience. This podcast is powered by Ovation, the feedback and operations platform built for multi-unit restaurants. It gives you the insights you need without annoying your guests with endless questions. Learn more at OvationUpcom. Today we have Jane Abel with us, who is the owner, executive, chairwoman, chief purpose officer at Donato's, a brand that her father actually started. She's also the author of the Missing Piece Doing Business the Donato's Way. She's been on the show Undercover Boss and has pioneered some really innovative collabs, such as selling Donato's Pizza at Red Robin, which is really amazing. But, jane, welcome to the podcast.

Speaker 2: 0:52

Thank you, I appreciate being on. It's an honor to be a guest of yours.

Speaker 1: 0:56

Well, and it was so fun to go because I've known you from afar, but it's been fun to dive into the history and the things that you've been doing and the history and just the everything that Donato's is about. It's so much beyond pizza. It's a lot about family. I mean, most of the time before this recording, we were just talking about our families, and so I'd love to understand your philosophy on how do you maintain the core of what Donato's is while bringing in innovation. How do you stay true but also stay fresh?

Speaker 2: 1:30

That's a really great question, and actually a question that I think we asked ourselves way early on when we decided we were going to grow, is how do you keep the soul of your business and be able to grow and keep really make it still feel like a family business but be able to provide opportunities as you continue it still feel like a family business but be able to provide opportunities as you continue to grow? And if you know our business, my dad's also an inventor, so he's all about innovation. He's all about automation, and part of that is to make sure that everything we do, every piece of automation, is about making sure the customer has the exact same pizza every single time, no matter where you buy it, and so he's got a couple of patents on some equipment. That's really allowed us to do that, which then led us into the Red Robin expansion. But I would say, for us, it's making sure, as a franchise company, that we're bringing on the franchise partners that truly create a family and their own restaurants.

Speaker 2: 2:22

So it's not just me and dad or my dad, or my son and myself, or even our CEO. It's not about that. It's about having family. That's in business. We have franchise partners that are now on their third generation. Family businesses allows you to be part of the community and your community to know who you are, rather than this big corporate chain where the reality is they'll never know me the same way they're going to know their franchise owner in their local neighborhood and I think this question really dovetails in, and I stumbled over a little bit your title because I wanted to say chief people officer, which you were for a number of years, but it's the chief purpose officer.

Speaker 1: 3:05

I'd love for you to tell us what does a chief purpose officer do, and it seems like you play a huge role in making sure that you keep the soul of Donato's as things may change on the exterior.

Speaker 2: 3:19

Well, I think what do I do? I annoy a lot of people. So I think you know, just like anything, and if you know the story, we were family business. We grew it. Mcdonald's approached us. We sold our family business to McDonald's in 99.

Speaker 2: 3:35

That was never our intention.

Speaker 2: 3:37

We didn't grow up thinking that was going to happen, but we thought we'd have a great opportunity to build out really our family business and we believe in building a business based on the power of love and so we thought what a great opportunity to be able to do that.

Speaker 2: 3:49

Anyway didn't work out, and so I think it was a great valuable lesson for me and I talk about it in my book, because I lost my soul during that time and I went from working in a family business where you could make long-term decisions and you could impact your own business by making sure you're making the right decisions versus nothing against public companies. During McDonald's, it was all about that quarter, all about EPS, all about what the shareholder thinks, and I don't think that's a bad thing, but it was just different for us, and so I think for us is. And then when my dad and I ended up buying the company back is how do you build your brand and, I said earlier, keep your soul, and one of the things we believe in doing is what we refer to as agape capitalism.

Speaker 1: 4:35

And agape being the truest highest form of love.

Speaker 2: 4:36

And so if you can build your business based on the power of love, you can do really good things with that money and give back to the community which we have a nonprofit we started. But our three tenants and just to hopefully answer your question to keep true to who we are, our lead with love, the golden rule. So always treat others the way you want to be treated. And if you do those two things, you end up doing the right thing. And so we have these coins. I don't have our logo on them, they're just our ethos, our values, who we are, what we represent and what we want to build in business, and we hope it. I'll send you one.

Speaker 2: 5:08

We hope it's like a little ripple effect my dad will call it cryptocurrency and that you give energy to it every time you make a decision with it. But we use it in our boardroom meetings, we use it in our personal lives and it's just having the power and the pause just to stop and say this is difficult. Am I leading with love? Am I fulfilling the golden rule? And if, am I doing the right thing? And so simple basic practices, whether it's a customer service experience, whether it's an associate experience, whether it's a spouse experience, it's just a way for us and what we believe and my dad has another sister company. It's a manufacturing company. That's just how we believe in doing business, of manufacturing company.

Speaker 1: 5:44

That's just how we believe in doing business. I love that. I mean my hat. It says do good, eat well and I'll send you a hat. I know, but your hair looks too good for hats.

Speaker 1: 5:57

But this is something that literally keep top of mind of. We're here to do good and eat well, and that's my whole philosophy with Ovation. And I love that what you're talking about here, because it's about building value first, it's about giving first and it's about what value you bring into the world and the world will pay you for your worth and what you're doing. But if you lead with that love, you can rarely make a wrong choice, because love doesn't always mean easy. Love doesn't always mean nice. Love doesn't always mean I'm going to give you your fifth pizza for free because you've come in and complained five times. Love means doing the right thing and inviting people to another place and upgrading employees to guests if need be, and I think that there's some of these things where we often get confused between love versus nice and kind, and I think it's important that you make the hard decisions both for the guests and for the employees. But I think that's a beautiful concept of leading with love. Agape capitalism.

Speaker 2: 6:57

That is amazing, I love that, jane, you know my dad will say no one ever said love in business ever. And why not? Because we are here to do good and we are in business to be able to give back to our communities, and so why not use the word love? It really captures an unconditional love, which is agape right. Why would you not want to be that kind of a person in business? Otherwise and my dad would say that too we don't really want to be a business. If you can't do it and really truly bring the biggest expression of love to business with you, then why ban it?

Speaker 1: 7:35

Amen, wow, here we go. Preach it, jane, here we go. I think that is just beautiful. When I hear you talk about that and now seeing your title of chief purpose officer, it makes so much more sense because that's not something that an outside hire is going to come in and get that they're going to come in and let's optimize. And yes, you got to do all those things, but the question through the filter of the agape love, I love that. So now let's boil this down to the guests, because obviously everything that we're doing now is to affect the guests and make a great guest experience. What do you think are some of the most important aspects of guest experience nowadays?

Speaker 2: 8:15

Wow, I think the most important experience and this is a hard question, right, because we've got a whole new generation of people. I didn't grow up just on technology and the phone, but our next generation, that's what they grew up with. And so the old days of pizza, right, you call the pizza shop and someone answers the phone and then they write down the order, which is when I grew up to today. So I think the guest is looking for a convenient experience, but a memorable one. And how do you make it memorable? And can you make it memorable with technology? And can you make it memorable with automation. And so right now we do find ourselves in that balance. Right, we want to automate.

Speaker 2: 8:55

So one for us is we really exploring and have rolled out last year, ai on the phones. And one it's great because the machine learning learns about the guests and knows better, right, no-transcript, the more consistent and convenient you can make it for the guests. But make it memorable. And I say that with some of the automation we're putting into the stores. We have now a smart saucer you push a button and it automatically sauces the pizza, and that invention my dad had 50 years ago, but now we're doing it in the stores as a pepperoni machine that automatically slices fresh pepperoni, sticks right onto the pizza, and we put over a hundred pieces of pepperoni on every large pepperoni pizza. So, wow, that's a lot of hand.

Speaker 2: 10:00

It's a lot but what we're finding is, especially, this next generation appreciates the technology, appreciates the automation. It's a lot more fun than sitting there putting it on by hand. They love the technology, but also taking the phones out of the stores and putting it in AI. It's a better experience for our associates so they can focus on the guest, and that's what I think has been really valuable. For how do you balance the automation and innovation with being a people-first company? And it's allowing. It takes the noise of the phones out. It takes the hard work out, just the repetitive tasks out, so they can have more freedom to spend more time with the guests and have more interaction with the guests. 100%, yeah, I think that's what's important, because we know the world's going to automation and innovation, but we have to be cognizant of the fact that one it's got to be good for the customer. You can't do it. It also has to be good for your people, because we know the old saying right your people are only going to treat their customers as well as you treat them.

Speaker 1: 11:02

Exactly.

Speaker 2: 11:03

So it has to be good for both.

Speaker 1: 11:05

By the way, is it public who you use for?

Speaker 2: 11:09

We're in the middle of transitioning. Actually, press release just went out about it today, so we're switching, but we've been happy with the process. It's been really good.

Speaker 1: 11:26

Okay, awesome. Well, congrats to the new partner there for the phones. I'll send it to you. I remember one time I was at a different pizzeria and I walk in and I wait in line for literally 20 minutes to place my order. I get up to the front and I'm greeted with a finger in the face and someone saying blah, blah, blah, how can I take your order? And it's like yo, I'm like right here.

Speaker 1: 11:49

That's why I tell people all the time the bad news is 30% of your phone calls aren't getting answered. The worst news is that 70% of your phone calls are getting answered and every time they answer that phone, they're creating a negative experience for someone that they could be helping, or you have to overstaff to manage the phones. And so, yeah, I think that there's so many powerful things in phones, ranging from full voice AI to very basic solutions of just intercepting it through text messaging and whatever the case is. Yeah, I think if someone calls the store and it just goes to the phones and it just rings in the restaurant, you're missing revenue right now and, quite frankly, creating a worse experience because, to the flip side, when I call a restaurant and they don't answer, it's so frustrating. So frustrating Because I'm calling to give you money.

Speaker 2: 12:38

Let me pay you. Well, and you know, another interesting thing is our digital presence. So anything online so whether it's through a third party marketplace or through our own website is 80% right now, so very few are actually going into the store, so when that happens, then no one really. You're not used to even answering the phone, right? And so, yeah, there's been a big, obviously, movement to digital, which is wonderful, and I think that's great, as long as your website works Right.

Speaker 1: 13:11

Cause. It's interesting 97% of consumers have said they recently backed out of a purchase decision because it was inconvenient. 97% of consumers have said they recently backed out of a purchase decision because it was inconvenient. And when you add that friction to the online ordering, it gets really challenging and at sometimes it's like too convenient. I mean like honestly. One time I ordered pizza by pushing a button on my Apple watch and I was like no, that was a little bit too weird, so I don't do that. But I do. If there's a place where it's complicated to order online or they make it challenging for me, I don't order from them again, because if it's too hard to do, I don't do it, and that's a beautiful thing. Now, about your phone is every online order when placed mobile. You should be able to do something like Apple Pay, because it makes it so easy, and so just do it, so that way I don't have to look for my credit card right, a hundred percent. So phones are a great one. Any other tactics that you'd recommend to growing brands?

Speaker 2: 14:05

I think, always making sure that you're talking about who you are. And oftentimes it can be hung on the wall and stay on the wall unless you bring it to life in your restaurants. And the best way to bring it to life is to celebrate examples of it, which we do that throughout. What we call promise in action. Our promise is to serve the best pizza and make someone's day a little better. It's that simple, just do that and making sure that we celebrate that. So we go out to this. I go out to the stores and celebrate our teams. Anytime there's a promise in action with a promise pen or there are milestones.

Speaker 2: 14:40

And I'm focusing a lot on the teams because I do believe if you don't treat your people right, they're just not gonna care about your customers. And I had real life examples of that of during McDonald's days and McDonald's is a great company, but the way we were operating in our company at the time, I think our people stopped caring and the day we bought it back and we were losing money, when my dad and I bought it back, we were losing seven and a half million dollars. So the day we bought it back in that first year, we had a 10 and a half million dollar turnaround and, honestly, is because our people started caring again. Wow, we didn't change anything else, they just started caring about what they did. And I think when you see something that real, that evident, but they and it's not because it was dad, my dad and I it was because they knew they were in an environment that cared about them and so they cared about their customers, and I could say it over and over again, but it really truly was the biggest expression of that I think I've ever seen.

Speaker 2: 15:39

And so that's why the better we take care of our people, the better they're going to take care of our customers. And you can feel it Every restaurant and you know you walk in a restaurant and you can tell if people are being taken care of and you can tell the energy in the restaurant and how that manager is leading and that customer feels it. And when a customer can feel and they know it's not right, then your experience is not going to be right, because we believe my dad's quote is food served with love nourishes the soul and if our associates are making that pizza with love, the customer is going to end up feeling that.

Speaker 1: 16:12

Beautiful. Thank you, Jane. Love the customer is going to end up feeling that Beautiful. Thank you, Jane. Who's someone that we should be following? Anyone in the restaurant industry that you think is worth a follow, Someone that deserves an ovation.

Speaker 2: 16:21

So just last week and a half ago I reached out to the Chick-fil-A team and we went out. Our leadership team went and spent two days, opened their doors and their hearts and they're very gracious and they spent two days with us. I got to spend time with Dan, cathy, the second generation, and the I would say you feel it in their stores and their drive through right Like their hospitality, their every sense of that throughout their entire company. So from the leadership throughout to the receptionist, everybody was my pleasure and it's not fake, it's not something hanging on the wall in their organization. So that's my first shout out. My second one, and thankful that they opened their doors and allowed us to come spend some time with them, because I'm always curious to learn.

Speaker 2: 17:05

My second one is last year I was appointed to the board of Texas Roadhouse and when you start to think, can a public company be true to who they are and keep their values and be people-centered and people-focused? Never been more impressed with an organization that has really truly been able to do that. So a large family business has been able to grow and then also a public company that's been able to stay true to their people and their values. They say that they're in the people business. They just happen to be serving steak, and they're true to that. So those are my two. I think they do.

Speaker 1: 17:35

Love that. Both of them do an exceptional customer service ovation example in different ways, but in really great ways and those roles I mean, to me it's like they're in the role business and they just happen to serve steaks.

Speaker 2: 17:47

I mean, that's just, I'll tell you that.

Speaker 1: 17:50

Yeah, so where can people go to find and follow you and your brand?

Speaker 2: 17:55

At Donatuscom, you can find us. You can find franchising information on there. You can find all kinds of information. You can find me on LinkedIn. You can find me on Facebook. You can find I have a microsite, jangrodyablecom. Anywhere any, just hopefully just Donatuscom. You should be able to get to anywhere else.

Speaker 1: 18:13

Awesome. Well, jane, for giving us a slice of your wisdom and helping us calculate the ROI of love, which apparently is $17 million. Today's ovation goes to you. Thank you for joining us on Given Ovation.

Speaker 2: 18:25

Thank you so much. I appreciate being here.

Speaker 1: 18:28

Thanks for joining us today. If you like 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.