Welcome And Guest Background

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to another edition of Given 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 AI feedback and operations platform built for multi-unit restaurants. Learn what's actually happening in your restaurants and exactly how to improve while driving revenue. Learn more at ovationup.com. And today we have a legend of the industry. I mean, this guy, he's been VP of Ops at Mo, CEO Backyard Burgers, President Condado Tacos, uh COO Fuzzies, and now the Chief Restaurant Officer at Teriyaki Madness. He's had an amazing career doing some incredible things. Talk about someone who understands the guest, the experience, the operations. Scott Schotter, welcome to the podcast.

SPEAKER_00 0:55

That's a better introduction than my mom could have done. I love that. I appreciate it. Yeah, it's been a great ride. Great brands I've worked with and look forward to sharing whatever I can provide.

Finding And Codifying Brand DNA

SPEAKER_01 1:06

Yeah. So as I look at your experience, one of the things that's exciting is the fact that you've been at some really iconic brands. And as you're coming in there to take over, I think about like fuzzies, right? You go down in Dallas area, especially. I mean, they're all over the place, but it's like it is religious. And how do you get in there and maintain the soul while improving what needs to get improved?

SPEAKER_00 1:34

Yeah, you got to dig down to what the DNA is and identify it. When I started with Fuzzies, they had a passionate group already in place. And it's really just harnessing that energy and then codifying it into some sort of mission statement. In this case, it was make everyday badass. And that was our mantra, right? That was, and so how do you do that in a restaurant? Well, it's really about bringing the right energy. It's about being informational with every interaction and motivational with every interaction. So if we did that with our franchisees, our franchisees would do that with their employees, the employees will do that with their guests. So that's how making everyday a badass is uh comes to life. It's and as you grow, right, you hold on to that culture, you hold on to that DNA. And when franchisees come in, you got to select them to make sure that they can be badass and they understand what it is. And we did that at Moe's, where you know, obviously the iconic welcome to Moe's, right?

SPEAKER_01 2:28

Welcome to Moe's. Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_00 2:29

Right. I still do it every time sometimes. It was our verbal handshake with the guests walking into the guest, uh, into the restaurant. And we were able to hold on to that from 200 all the way to 700 plus stores because people believed in it. And when people believe in something and you hold on to it, it could be very simple, but it creates the DNA within the restaurant that you can build on top of.

SPEAKER_01 2:52

And what would you say to a brand who's like, oh man, I get you, Scott? Like that's powerful, but I don't know if I have something that juicy or that salient. Like, I don't quite know what my DNA is. Like, what would you recommend to those brands who maybe have some good product, they've got a good team, but they're not quite sure how do you gel behind one thing?

SPEAKER_00 3:13

I think everyone tries to look for that thing, right? That welcome to Mo's or that greeting. It's probably in there already. It just needs to be unearthed and getting the team together just to understand what that is. It could be a simple idea during that brainstorming session, but it can come to life once you get branding behind it and you get the marketing team behind it. And then operation starts creating some training materials around it. So it what could be a small little greeting like a welcome to Bose, right, turns into this iconic cult-like thing. Just because somebody says, Hey, I think maybe we should just say hello to everybody when they walk in. Hey, great idea. So I think when you search too much, right, you've missed the result. You've overlooked the result. It's it's usually right in front of you, particularly if you're a brand that has great food already and great people. It's somewhere in there. Take it out.

Genuine Hospitality Through Simplicity

SPEAKER_01 4:05

And I think that great food and great people is so key because when you think about great people, part of this is finding out what is someone who's a great person doing. And then I love your word of codify that, right? Like figure out what they are doing. Because a lot of times what I found is that there are people who are doing things that are so on brand that you might not know about, but if you see that there's a place that has amazing reviews better than other locations, like jump in there and find out why. Right. And I think that that there's to your point of like don't search too hard for it because it's probably already happening, but it's just not universal, right?

Uncommon Service And Designing Jobs

SPEAKER_00 4:47

Yeah. And I think great brands do that. It to put a word behind it, it's just how do you be genuine, right? How as an employee, a teammate, whatever, a manager, how do you be genuine in giving hospitality to the guests, right? It's as simple as a smile and a welcome, it's eye contact, it's knowing your craft, right? Knowing your product, it's giving appreciation. So when when you look at these brands across that we love, right, and those experiences, yeah, the food was great, but that person, that interaction was one-on-one. And they didn't say all the crazy marketing stuff, right? Or, you know, go through their speech, right? All they did was really just listen, made eye contact, and smiled. And if we can get that right, we love brands that do that, and those are usually the brands that have simplicity within their operation. So let's use a couple of brands that we all are occult like, we love Chick-fil-A, Raisin Canes, In N Out. What do they do? They only do this much on the menu, but they do it really, really well. And so simplicity allows you to be your employees to be genuine and actually have the time to do the things that we really care about, not necessarily what the brand wants to do or marketing wants to say, or uh, you know, the trainers want you to do. And it's so hard right now because we have so many revenue streams coming in, right? You got the person that's standing at the counter or sitting at the table that you have to take care of. But now you also got third-party deliveries and you got the printer spitting out tickets, right? You also have uh apps, you have uh app ordering, you have pickup windows now, you have drive-thru. So that one can that one employee, poor thing, right? They don't make unicorns like that anymore that can do all these things all at once. So brands have to be deliberate in making sure that they're creating jobs that their employees can do. And I'll tie that into a book, a great book by uh Francis Free. It's called Uncommon Service. And I read it maybe over 10 years ago, and it's it's a fantastic book. But it breaks down, uncommon service breaks down to four elements. Brands have to decide what they're gonna be great at and what they're not gonna be great at. Purposely not be great at, right? And so that's a how do you not be great at everything? Well, if you try to be great at everything, you're gonna be mediocre at everything. So, lesson one, you can't be great at everything. Brands need to choose what they're going to be great at, right? Second one is someone has to pay for it. So if you're going to have really high quality food, you're probably not going to be the low-cost provider, right? Or the lowest price point. If you want to have great service, you may have to give way on the real estate or the square footage, right? So something has to give. Third element is it's not your employees' fault. I kind of talked about that earlier. Create jobs for the employees you have, not the employees you wish you had. Again, I'll reference, I'll reference the unicorns. There's not that many out there that can do everything. And then lastly, is train your guests. Starbucks is a great example of how they've trained us, how to place an order. Kiosks are now taking that place. So it all kind of breaks down to brands need to decide to create a model to allow your employees to be genuine and to actually execute what they're doing. And from that, you get cult-like brands that I mentioned earlier. So you have to be deliberate in doing that and just not let the brand just create things on top of the of a good thing that you have to make everything mediocre.

SPEAKER_01 8:15

I love that. I I think that is such great advice, super powerful. And when I look at what we're looking to do with all of this, right? Why do you do all of those things? It's to create a better guest experience. And so what do you think, Scott? I mean, you've, again, such an amazing career already in this space. What do you think is the most important aspect of guest experience?

Bringing Hospitality Back Off-Premise

SPEAKER_00 8:38

Yep. It's in the word, it's in that sense, experiential, right? Brands right now are deciding to create things that are beyond the food and beyond the square footage, right? And so we talked about Mo's. We had our verbal handshake, condado tacos, which you you mentioned that I had the fortune to work with. They, in their interior, they had local artists come in and do a complete customization of the interior in graffiti and artwork. And there's a story about the local town or the city that they live in or the local legends, and it's all on the walls. So when you're sitting there eating your taco, eating your drinking your margarita, you're also just looking at this landscape of beautiful artwork that with every visit, you're seeing something just a little different, right? A little Easter egg here, a little Easter egg there. So they did a great job with the environment to make it an experience. And at Fuzzies, I mentioned, you know, make everyday badass. But we also had a different service model where you would pick up the food right from the window, almost like you were going to a food truck, right? And picking up the tacos out of the food truck. So just a little difference. And brands that can do that include that uh experience while growing and holding on to some of that DNA, those are the ones that are going to succeed in the long term. And I think brands today have to, we've gotten so transactional, right? The pandemic has kind of driven us. I'm so sorry to be keep using the pandemic, but the remnants are still here.

SPEAKER_01 10:07

Sorry, never heard of it. What's what is that?

SPEAKER_00 10:09

Yeah, you know, it's this thing back a couple of years ago. So everything was transactional, right? You you order on the app, you maybe go into the restaurant, you put your arm in, you grab your bag, you go, right? And we've not really lost that. It's not really gone away. So brands are starting to break, need to break through again deliberately to get that experience again back into the dining room where the food is more profitable for the owner as well as cheaper for the guest, right? Instead of paying whatever you're paying to our third-party aggregators, which are great and we love them because there's a need for them. But how do we get folks back into the restaurant where the experience is there, where we can actually showcase some guest service?

SPEAKER_01 10:50

I love that. And if you do have a high off-prem percentage, I think it's around like, what can you do to make that more personal? What can you do to show that guest that you care and convert them to order first party or to dine in next time? And I think that there's a lot of people say, oh man, that's not possible. Like you can't do that. I mean, our data shows otherwise. Our data shows that you can have that hospitality off-prem that you could invite people in. And it actually works to convert people from 3PD to first party or to on-prem. And you just need to be able to have the right flow to do that and realize every single bag needs to have some kind of a bag stuffer. And if you are putting your menu in there to say, order from us next time, that is the wrong time to be pitching ordering again because they haven't even eaten your food yet. They're opening the bag and you're telling them it's like texting someone on the way to pick them up for a first date and saying, When do you want to schedule a second? And it's like, hey, Tanto, like, cool.

SPEAKER_00 11:52

That's good analogy. Right. Yeah. Yeah. So maybe we have to we have to paint it on the bottom of our bowls or something along the way, right?

SPEAKER_01 12:00

Hungry for more. But you're right.

SPEAKER_00 12:02

Every every in-store guest should we should push them to a catering event. Every catering should get us to in-store, every third-party delivery should get us back into the restaurant, right? So there's this remnant, right? There's this these things that you have to leave behind, Easter eggs, right, to try to get them back into your restaurant to enjoy them one more time. So it is, it's tricky finding the right way of doing that, either through bounce backs or stickers or whatever. I think we're still trying to get that right because we're up against a behemoth.

SPEAKER_01 12:32

Yeah. And we're up against a tough economy right now. We're up against people who don't want to spend as much when they eat out. You know, you have this tightening of the budget and a Zempe cocktail that is getting people to eat out less and eat less when they eat out. So it's like we got to fight back against that. And I think that what you're talking about with being genuine and actually caring about the guests, that's one of the ways that you do it.

SPEAKER_00 12:56

Yeah, I mean, we've lost that connection. And we're we're a social animal, right? We're that's who we are. We're a pack animal. We love that interaction. And eating is emotional, dining is emotional. Community, we need to continue exploring the expansion of that or the regaining of or recapturing of that again. And we got to do that through experience and just being ourselves and welcoming.

Video Mystery Shops And Game Film

SPEAKER_01 13:19

So yeah, love that. So, Scott, what are some? I mean, I know you've already shared some, but any other ideas or any other tactics that you would recommend to restaurants to improve the guest experience?

SPEAKER_00 13:29

Yeah, I came on board at Terry Ecommand that's six months ago, and they introduced and we introduced a uh video mystery shop, which is, you know, so mystery shop, everyone says, Oh boy, mystery shop, right? You know, uh wait, who do you guys use?

SPEAKER_01 13:43

Can we shout out anyone?

SPEAKER_00 13:45

Yeah, it's uh RBG, yeah, reality-based group.

SPEAKER_01 13:47

Yeah, yeah. Love those guys. They they're doing some awesome stuff. Oh, they're brand. They are, yeah, they they it just gives such a great insight. And I love their game film. Anyway, yeah, keep going.

SPEAKER_00 13:57

The game film, great, great. It's and you love this first person perspective of walking in the restaurant, right? Because in the past, right, you get reviews, you get surveys, you get mystery shops, and the operators are always like, Well, you know, I had a bad day, or he said she said, or whatever. Here, this is just right in front of you, right? First person's perspective of the entire visit. And you see the opportunities, you see the awkward silences of the person standing in front of the guest not saying a word or not smiling, or missed opportunity to suggest something, right? Or ask them if they wanted a beverage or you know, something as simple as that. So you see all the opportunities, but what you also see are the superstars that go unrecognized on a daily basis because they just when someone walks in, they blossom, right? And they're in their element and they smile. And but the managers or the owners, you know, we don't always see that. Maybe we get somebody to pull us aside and say, hey, that person's really cool. Hold on to that one, give them a raise or whatever. But here the owner has the opportunity to celebrate that person because it's on game film and they can show their employees. And so what we're seeing is franchisees and really embracing it and then also using this for recognition, right? It could be used for other retrainings and so forth, but we're seeing great impact for it. Uh, we just started it, we can't wait to keep it going. But definitely that first person perspective really just shuts down the any other arguments other than, hey, you know what? I could do better next time, right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:32

That's always I love that because they are great company. I know that we we work with them with uh Dave's Hot Chicken. I know that they're someone who a great brand, obviously, that can't no one could deny a billion dollars, but it's because they really care about the guests and they care about that experience and they love getting the feedback from a wide variety of guests, but it's also around how do you actually see that? And that first person is just so powerful. So awesome.

SPEAKER_00 15:58

It is.

SPEAKER_01 15:59

So, Scott, who is someone in the industry that deserves an ovation? Who's someone that we should be following?

SPEAKER_00 16:05

I've got uh coming into this, I had an idea of a brand, but I, you know, I'm gonna go back to Frances Freak. She's a professor at Harvard Business School. She's wrote a couple of books since Uncommon Service about service that I think everyone should take a look at. So I I I'm gonna give her a shout-out because when I saw her, we were at Rourke Capital and they had a all of the brands came together food and beverage. They also had you know nursery schools and so forth. We all came together and she presented and it was absolutely jaw-dropping. It was everyone in the room was just like, What what did she just say? What? What? So I'm gonna give her a shout-out because she's made an impact on my life. I'm gonna be gluttonous and and I'm gonna give a shout-out to a brand, right? Southblock is the name of it, and it's an ACE and smoothie uh based out of DC, Amir. Oh, man. He's the bomb. Yeah, I love him. Amazing, yeah, amazing company. Food is great, such passion for the foods and employee knowledge about the food as well. It's supported by Savory Brand now, uh, Savory Fund now, which only does great things for brands. So I I can't wait to see what he does and they do because I'm rooting for him.

SPEAKER_01 17:11

I mean, yeah, when you look at that team of Shauna, Andrew, Clay Dover now, and Amir, like I mean, it's hard not to imagine South Block not just blowing up globally. So I'm excited about that. Yeah, yeah. Awesome. Well, Scott, how do people find and follow you in teriyaki madness?

SPEAKER_00 17:30

Yeah, uh, teryaki madness, well, as you know, visit teriyaki madness.com. We could be found on TikTok, Facebook, Instagram. We have a great social presence. We have a lot of fun with the brand, so it's a lot of fun on our social pages. Follow them there. I'm more of a hermit when it comes to social media, so uh you don't have to follow me. I don't do anything exciting, so uh nothing to share there, but I I encourage everybody to go check outness at teriaki madness, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 17:57

Well, Scott, for showing us that the best secret ingredient out there is genuine hospitality. Today's ovation goes to you. Thank you for joining us on Give an Ovation. Thank you, Zach. 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 ovationup.com.