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 their strategies and 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. Get all the insights you need to improve without an annoying survey for your guests. Learn more at OvationUpcom. And today. I cannot even tell you how excited I am. Obviously, I'm always excited about my guests, but today we have Alice freaking Crowder with us.

Speaker 1: 0:33

She's the CMO of Crispy Crunchy Foods. She was CMO of Crystal Restaurant. She was VP of Menu Strategy and Innovation at Tropical Smoothie Cafe and I mean she was at Denny's as well, but this was something that we just talked about. That was pretty fun. She actually was the VP of marketing at Ovation Brands, which is pretty fun, because I never met anyone who's actually worked at Ovation. But a lot of people have thought that we are that Ovation, but we are not. But, alice, welcome to the podcast. How are you? Yeah, thank you for having me. I'm doing great.

Speaker 2: 1:10

And you know, alice, you do a lot of speaking. Do you ever have you written a book yet? No, somebody talked to me about that but I was like, oh, I don't know if I have the time.

Speaker 1: 1:15

But I'm interested, okay, cause you're someone where every time you get on stage, literally the first time I heard you on stage, I was in the back of the room with a couple of people that were with one person that was going to be on the panel with you and they were like, oh my gosh, we have Alice on the panel, which means we've got to really bring our game, because Alice is always so good on the panels. And it was funny because I, you know this guy's done dozens of panels and he was still like extra preparing, just knowing that he was going to be up there with you and you do a lot of stuff. But for those who aren't familiar with crispy crunchy chicken, tell us a little bit about it and especially, if you can talk a little bit about what you talked about on Meg's stage, about your strategy around how do you get influencers and what type of influences do you go after?

Speaker 2: 2:04

Yeah, thank you. I'm always psyched to talk about the best brand in the business. We are Crispy Crunchy Chicken. We've been around 35 years.

Speaker 2: 2:12

A lot of folks in this industry don't know us. Our founder was a convenience store owner and he was an amateur chef as well and he was looking for ways to increase revenue in his merchandising section of the store and so he loved to fry chicken. He was from Louisiana. He marinated some sauce, some spices and started selling it in his store. And then word kind of got out and it spread, and it spread and it spread and pretty soon he had so many stores that wanted to sell crispy crunchy that he gave up his convenience store. And today we have about 3,400, just shy of 3,400 restaurants across the United States. We're in all 48 contiguous states and our primary placement is in gas stations and convenience stores, primarily independent operated guys.

Speaker 2: 3:04

So a lot of first generation Americans, a lot of family owned businesses, and they see us as an extension of their community business and in fact we are More and more. We hear people saying, oh my crispy crunchy, or I didn't know there was a crispy crunchy outside of my neighborhood. We are a part of their business, as opposed to them running a brand that they just bought into. We do use influencers very heavily. They're small influencers. These are folks that usually have posted about us about how good the chicken is, how surprising it is, and that is something we pride ourselves on. It is a high quality product. You think convenience store food and you think, man, I'm going to get a roller dog that I'm going to have some trouble with later. But this stuff comes in.

Speaker 1: 3:53

I know my go to my, go to our Lunchables. You know what I mean. Like you can't go wrong at a Lunchable. When I stop at the gas station, I'm like I'm hungry. I'm looking at those rollers and I'm thinking, nah, I don't know what that is.

Speaker 2: 4:05

And no hate to lunch rolls, I've eaten my share. But this stuff, our bone-in and our tenders come in fresh, it's never frozen, it's pre-marinated in this mild blend of Cajun seasoning and they double bread it back at the house. So they give the chicken. We have a proprietary breader. They bread the chicken. We have a proprietary breader. They bread the chicken, then they dip it in a cold water bath, which you've heard me say this before. If I dipped you in a cold water bath, you would kind of shrink up, and so does the chicken, and it just holds more breader. And so we bread it a second time and then we fry it. The result is that you have a lot of really yummy, crispy, crunchy, golden brown deliciousness that you can actually hear when you bite into it, and that's what our influencers respond to.

Speaker 2: 4:49

So a lot of our influencers are eating in the car. You're hearing them crunch, you're seeing like a little bit of delicious juice maybe in the corner of their mouths, and so we reach out to these guys and we say, hey, we saw that you love us. We love what you said about us. Would you want to taste new item X or new promotion Y? And a lot of times we just pay for their meal. Now I send them a cute influencer box with like a bucket hat and a key chain or whatever, but the majority of our guys are just doing it for the trade. We do have some that are, have a little more population that follows them and we may give them a little bit, but we don't pay the big dollars for influencers. Our guys are our guys and they have followings in their communities.

Speaker 1: 5:35

But how do you do that, though, alice? Because you don't have a set marketing budget, you're not a traditional franchisee, you actually just sell the product. It's kind of like a WowBow model, but I guess WowBow is a crispy crunchy chicken model because you guys have been around, you guys were like the original ghost kitchen. So how does that work in terms of who pays the influencers for that coupon? Like, does that just come? So you ship them the coupon and then the convenience store will get reimbursed.

Speaker 2: 6:03

No, actually, the influencer will usually buy their meal, whatever they're going to buy, and it's usually 10 to $15. And they'll send us a receipt and we'll cut them a check.

Speaker 1: 6:13

We don't charge our stores for it, and then you don't have to give them a coupon or anything like that, you just they buy it, you reimburse them. That way you're guaranteed that they're going to actually try it.

Speaker 2: 6:25

That's really smart. And then they've got to do a little bit of work?

Speaker 1: 6:27

Yeah, wow, I like that. And do you have like a following number that you're looking for of? Like? If you have, over a certain amount or under a certain amount? Over a certain amount, they're probably too big. Under a certain amount, it's not worth it.

Speaker 2: 6:41

Not really. It's a lot more organic than that. We look for people who've gone to us posted about us. Now some people post and it's clear that they're looking for somebody to sponsor them and those aren't our guys.

Speaker 2: 6:51

There's a guy that just posted yesterday who's amazing and he has a couple million followers and he posted about us just yesterday. He already has 42,000 views of it and we had not reached out to him. He tagged us organically and did 15 minutes on it, just basically ate everything on the menu and was like fam, this is the most amazing thing. So today we're reaching out to him saying hey, thanks, would you like to try our new sauce flight that's coming out next month? A lot of times happens like that. We're really looking more for enthusiasm for the product and the brand than the number of followers, and then we kind of take everybody and then we measure engagement. So I don't care if you have 5,000 followers, but if your engagement numbers are 10 to 15%, I want to have a relationship with you. If people are responding to the way you talk about my brand, I want to have a relationship with you.

Speaker 1: 7:47

Yeah, I love that. I love that and, by the way, I'm just going to throw it out there. If you can't tell by my shirt, I do love chicken.

Speaker 2: 7:54

I love it. I'm going to send you a bucket hat. You send me your address so you have a beautiful crispy country reversible bucket hat.

Speaker 1: 8:00

I would love a crispy crunchy chicken bucket hat. Now, thinking about the guest experience, because I'm just so interested in your perspective on this what do you think the most important aspect of guest experiences nowadays, especially considering the fact that you are one step removed? You can't make your convenience stores do anything, you can't force them to have standards, and so how do you think about the guest experience?

Speaker 2: 8:26

Yeah, obviously we both go to a lot of conferences and we talk about guest experience. I don't think it's something that you can force right. I love hearing, in fact, amy, who was Amy Holm, who was on your podcast a few weeks ago, talked about a mentor that she had and he only spent time with people who accepted feedback. Right.

Speaker 1: 8:45

Yes, wasn't that such a good insight?

Speaker 2: 8:47

Yeah, and I thought that was really brilliant. So I think, for us, the operators that come to us and are looking to make an investment in this brand, which is an investment in their business, which is an investment in their legacy, which is an investment in their business, which is an investment in their legacy, which is an investment in their family have a lot of pride, take pride in what they do, and so they're going to deliver that guest experience. And when they don't because no one's perfect a hundred percent of the time- we have a conversation about it.

Speaker 2: 9:14

For us, the biggest part of the guest experience is the quality of the product. So, like I said, people have a lower expectation of the quality of what you're going to get from a convenience store brand and we turn that on its head. We say you deserve better. You deserve better operator, you deserve a better product to offer your customers. Consumers and my consumers have a little bit less income, a little less education, a little more black, a little more brown. They tend to get marginalized in society and taken advantage of. They deserve better. They deserve the highest quality food we can give them at a fair price and something that tastes great. And in fact, the three top reasons people choose Crispy Crunchy and they will drive by somebody else's gas station to get to us is number one quality, number two value and number three craveability. So as long as our team is supplying that to our operator partners, we're doing all right.

Speaker 1: 10:08

Yeah, because you really have to look at the sensitivity of value. Value is something that has been a conversation and, interesting to note, last year the value complaints industry-wide really took a huge increase. Right, there were so many more complaints about value because everything was going up and up and up in price and people were complaining about shrinkflation as well, that portions were going down and prices were going up, and the complaint literally 300% increased complaints in value and we have seen that decrease, but it's still not as low as it used to be. Value is still a really big part of it, but the thing is that if you don't have a great product, they are willing to spend more money to eat out less often and get a better quality thing and a more consistent thing, and so I think that's really important to remember and I love that you're talking about not just let's make it affordable, but let's make it affordable and let's make it craveable, because if you're missing one of those ingredients, you're not going to be around for long 're not.

Speaker 2: 11:22

I think sometimes we talk ourselves into things as marketers and we become more accounting than we should.

Speaker 1: 11:29

I'll love my accounting friends.

Speaker 2: 11:31

But I have a. Our corporate chef has been my corporate chef at three or four brands now and we made a pact when we first met that we were going to introduce anything that we wouldn't be proud to feed our children and we live by that. So, for example, I just launched some chicken nuggets. We didn't have chicken nuggets. We introduced them in February. They are big, they are. We're doing six for $4.99. They're about as big as the boneless buffalo wings you would get from some of our fast casual friends. But they're nuggets and they're not chopped and formed. They are whole muscle, they are white meat, they are high quality. They have this beautiful little tangy marinade and the same thick crunch breading and they're delicious. They're big, they're meaty, they're quality, they're yummy and you can get six, which is good enough for even a girl like me who clearly loves to eat.

Speaker 1: 12:26

It's a pretty good meal for $4.99. That sounds like a big, beautiful, not bill, what's the word? I'm looking for? Meal. There we go, a big, beautiful meal there.

Speaker 2: 12:35

Yes, well, and our tenders. If you've seen our tenders, I'm doing like this because if you put one in your hands, they're huge. They're just shy of four ounces each. You go to competitors. Mcdonald's just launched their strips. They kind of look like mozzarella sticks. Right, they're little McDonald's. I love you. I'll eat an egg McMuffin any time, but those strips are so good, like my tenders are these beautiful tenderloins that are really big and really meaty, and I challenge you to eat more than two or three in a sitting.

Speaker 1: 13:02

Well, hey, challenge accepted, alice. I know I just got to get off my GLP-1s first, but thinking about some tactics that restaurants can use to improve the guest experience, what would you say some advice that you'd have for other brands.

Speaker 2: 13:21

Yeah, for me it really does not to harp, but it really does start with the offering and then the authenticity of how you talk about it. We all eat out. We all eat out a lot. I eat out a lot. I always ask the server what's good, what's bad.

Speaker 2: 13:29

A server is not usually going to tow the company line. He or she is going to say we're pushing tilapia, but it is nasty. What you really want to get is blah, blah, blah, but it is nasty. What you really want to get is blah, blah, blah. And so you have to, as a restaurateur or marketer, have a product that you're confident in of and that you're proud of, and then the people who are charged with delivering it to your end user are going to reflect and magnify that pride.

Speaker 2: 13:58

If you tell me to go sell something crappy, I'll go sell it, but I'm not going to don't be effusive about it. I'll be like I have to sell you this. I mean, if you want to buy it, I wouldn't buy it. But if you give me something I'm really proud of, I'm like, dude, you got to chase these nuggets. It is going to change your life from a nugget standpoint. And so I think that, as marketers, we have to think about that and think about the people we're asking to deliver our message, because they're not motivated they're not, I mean, they're getting minimum wage they're not motivated to try to sell something they don't believe in.

Speaker 1: 14:31

Yeah, and I think especially because one of the benefits is like you've got people that they really care about their local convenience store right. They care about it because they know that their community, 90% of their business, is coming from right around them and so they have to care and they have to create good products and if they can create, if they have something like crispy, crunchy chicken that someone's picking up on the way home for dinner, that gives them another reason to stop at their place. But I love and I heard you talk about that before about getting those family dinners and being a part of that routine is really important. Driving that regularity.

Speaker 2: 15:10

You're reminding me of something I'm supposed to say in every interview and I always forget. But when people put in a crispy crunchy, they're not just making the money from the crispy crunchy. We see that when an operator puts in a crispy crunchy, their overall merchandise sales and their overall traffic go up, because people see that as an occasion and they see that as a reason to add on a gallon of milk or a six pack of Mountain Dew or what have you. And that's really important.

Speaker 2: 15:37

My own brother, who you know, I've been with this brand almost three years. He's a plant manager in Gastonia, north Carolina, and last year he called me and said hey, I checked out Crispy Crunchy and I was like dude, it's been two years. Thank God my salary is not based on your adoption rate. But he said it's so good. And I was like I told you it was so good. And he's like I know, but you know how you are, you get whatever you're doing, you love it. And so every Monday now he goes to the same little convenience store owned by this elderly couple and the woman knows him and she's like oh, your four drumsticks and a biscuit. And he's like I'm here for my four drums, but he's always picking up a lottery ticket or some fix, a flat or whatever else he's going to pick up. And now they have this regular guest based on this taste experience that they can offer.

Speaker 1: 16:20

I love that. Now, alice, this is going to be the hardest question of your day, because you know everyone, but who is someone in the restaurant industry that deserves an ovation?

Speaker 2: 16:30

Some people have heard me talk about this before, but I have been involved in business with a guy named Jason Abelkop for a long time. I worked for him for a long time. He was a mentor of mine. He's also now just a friend of mine and we use his agency, plain Air.

Speaker 2: 16:45

I think Plain Air in particular, and Jason especially, understand the restaurant industry better than anybody else. They do a lot of stuff, but they specialize in restaurants small and mid-sized restaurants. They understand and they understand the economics and the insights that drive it, and whenever I'm thinking through a thorny problem or have an idea, I call Jason and say this is what I'm thinking and he helps me contextualize it the way he does for all his clients. He also has a head of analytics and a lot of marketers don't embrace analytics the way I wish they would or actually I hope they don't because it's at their peril A name, karen Anderson, who's particularly brilliant and helps you understand your pricing position and how your digital side works or doesn't work, and helps you just get the math right, and I think more people should talk to them.

Speaker 1: 17:36

That is the only as I tell people it's called, it's Plain Air and that is the only IPA that I take, because that is a love, what they do, great group. I'm actually fortunate enough to occasionally be able to hang out with them on a podcast that we host. So Jason, his co-CEO, abhinav Kapoor, and I we do a podcast talking about the industry trends and anyway, it's fun to connect and learn from him because, yes, totally agree, him and his plein airs is phenomenal. Now, the easiest question that you will get all week, alice, is where do we go to find and follow you? And Crispy Crunchy Chicken?

Speaker 2: 18:10

Yeah, so we're all over the socials. It's at Crispy Crunchy Chicken we're also. You can go to our website, which is crispycrunchycom. There's a great store locator on there. If you don't know where your local one is, we're happy to direct you on it and please follow us. We have a lot of fun. We don't take ourselves seriously and would love to share more of who we are with people.

Speaker 1: 18:31

However, they want to engage with us. Awesome. Well, thanks, alice, and for giving us a bit of crispy happiness on the way home. Today's ovation goes to you. Thank you for joining us on Give an Ovation. Thank you, matt, I really 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.