The Digital Restaurant
5 Headlines, 5 Opinions on the latest news on restaurants, tech, & off-premise growth
The Digital Restaurant
What Can Restaurants Learn from Travel Loyalty?
Digital transformation is sweeping the restaurant industry, and we explore what this means for brands at different stages of digital maturity. From the pioneering digital solutions of Starbucks and Chick-fil-A to GoToFoods' customer-focused enhancements in their apps and websites, we break down how restaurants can navigate this complex landscape. We liken first-party channels to boutiques and marketplaces to department stores, providing a clear understanding of the strategies involved. Discover the importance of a common digital platform for managing multiple brands and achieving efficiency in customer engagement.
Finally, we delve into the power of personalization and its role in enhancing guest experiences. By integrating loyalty programs with first-party channels and leveraging customer data, restaurants can significantly improve operations and customer satisfaction. Irvi emphasizes the importance of engaging with loyal customers and asking the right business questions to utilize data effectively. We also touch on digital hospitality and how new technologies like the QPOS system can create seamless omni-channel experiences. Tune in to learn how restaurants can achieve digital maturity and elevate their customer interactions to new heights.
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This week we speak to Irvi Patel and discuss her journey from the IHG Hotel Group to GoToFoods and ask the question what is it that restaurants can learn from airlines and hotel loyalty programs and how it improves their guest experience? That's all ahead on this week's special edition of the Digital Restaurant. Hello everyone, we're back. The Digital Restaurant is here, but, as you can see, there are not two faces. This week we have three faces. We are bringing to you Irvi Patel. Irvi and I and Meredith were on stage together at Food on Demand this year and we had such a great conversation. We thought there's not enough people in the room to really hear the great insights that Irvi was to share, not only about her own background but also what she's doing these days, and we thought it might be beneficial for all of you to hear that story too. So Irvi welcome.
Speaker 2:Thank you. Thank you. I'm excited to be here and excited to have a conversation around the digital environment.
Speaker 3:Before we even get started, I would love to hear who you are, where you came from and how you ended up in restaurants, because it's a pretty interesting story.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you, meredith. My name is Irvi Patel. As Carl mentioned, I head up our customer experience and engagement organization at GoToFoods. I've been here almost five years and it's been a fun and exciting journey slash transformation. But my journey began way back when in finance and doing M&A, doing business valuation, really in the depths of Excel. That's really where I got my start from. I think that part of me has existed in various forms throughout the years as my career has taken a variety of shapes. What I love about that is the curiosity that comes from that kind of an initial background. I tend to always lean towards data and asking questions around the numbers and trying to help understand what's the right story we want to tell and how can we make the right decisions based on the data that we have in front of us.
Speaker 2:Shortly after I had my stint in the finance space, I moved to IHG Intercontinental Hotels Group in the hospitality environment, which I like to consider as a cousin to the restaurant space, and spent about 10 years there and truly loved the ability to fully understand a core component of how consumers experience and interact with hotels and travel. What I learned and loved about that business in particular and applies to the restaurant business as well is just the applicability of it. We are consumers of travel, of food, of restaurants all the time, and so sometimes we have a tendency to overthink things. But when you step away from it, if you just reflect on our own personal behaviors or experiences, you start really being able to unpack some of the key drivers of what happens in both of these industries and environment. After around 10 years in the hotel industry, moving into the restaurant space was really a nice natural fit. When I joined here, I was overwhelmed with the level of hospitality that the restaurant industry also brings, but also the amount of opportunity there exists in this space.
Speaker 2:And when I speak of opportunity, I think about the various industries that we can relate to. And so if I think about the airline industry, for example, I think about the various industries that we can relate to. And so if I think about the airline industry, for example, I think of that as a really mature industry in comparison to others and being in that phase of life. An analogy would be of a family kids are going off, you're getting close to retirement, you're in this really great space, and then I think about the hotel industry.
Speaker 2:Kind of one click down. There's still a lot of room. There's still some consolidation happening, there's still enhancements and advancements in technology as well as experience that are happening and there's evolution, right. So you're in the middle years, you've got your children, you've got your pets and you're going through the day-to-day. And then I'd look at the restaurant industry. We're still in our prime youth, we're still growing up, we're still exploring. There's still so much consolidation happening. There's so much opportunity, as we're all trying to tackle different things, whether it be through digital formats, whether it be through loyalty, how we interconnect with the customer.
Speaker 2:There's so much momentum in this space right now, and that's really what makes it super interesting to me being able to learn from all those other industries that I mentioned before how they have taken things and made them unique to their core and really understanding what could the applicability be for us in the restaurant space, as we not just look to what we need to do tomorrow, but as we look ahead to what the years could bring.
Speaker 1:Irvi, when you think about the amount of folks that are coming across from the hotel industry into the restaurant world, it's not a huge surprise. Let's remove the word door dash and insert Expedia, for example. Right, there must be some of your colleagues that go wow, you're a bit of a fortune teller in being able to tell us where this thing is heading. Where do you see things heading? In a very similar direction to what happened to hotels relative to where you think perhaps things are a little different to the world that you've just come from.
Speaker 2:Great question. I'll unpack it in a few different ways. So I think loyalty is really one of the biggest learnings. When you think about loyalty, airlines nailed it. We are so loyal to our airlines I will fly an extra few hours or take a layover just to get my Delta miles. I'm in Atlanta and I want to get my bank and I want to be able to collect as many miles as possible, and that's just how we've all been trained. They've trained us to be able to want to make those decisions based on our loyalty and what that means for me, what I get in return for that and that relationship. When you look to hotels, they have also done that you might walk a couple extra blocks just to get to the hotel in the group that you want to collect points for. I think that those two industries have done so not just through the rewards and the benefits that you get as a customer, but through an expectation of what you can receive on the other end from that brand and what that familiarity, that personalization, that comfort that you get, from that consistent, unique experience each and every time.
Speaker 2:When I look to where we are in the restaurant industry, obviously we eat out a lot more times than we take a flight or book a hotel room. It's very transactional in comparison. However, there is still an opportunity to truly establish a relationship and connection with that customer. When you think about how people associate memories or how people like to celebrate things, it's over food. There's so many things that food triggers in our mind, and so there is a way to establish that connection. It just feels and looks a little different to those other industries. So the challenge for us, as in this industry in particular, is what is that translation? How do we make those connections? What do customers want through loyalty? Because it's not just points. Sure, points are absolutely a part of it, but it's more than that, and so, as we continue to enhance and develop our loyalty platforms, it's really important that we're understanding what the guest expectation is. The ones I mentioned, plus retail, for example, are training our guests to think about loyalty and think loyalty first, such that you're making those decisions with a brand in mind, versus looking at all the restaurants out there and saying, oh, I'll just go to the closest one. You want to drive that connection.
Speaker 2:Secondly, to your question, you mentioned the parallel between Expedia and what we have in our space with DoorDash or Uber Eats, and that's spot on. And that's one of the first things. When I stepped into GoToFoods, I was trying to draw the parallels and over time, as you unpack it, you start realizing. Sure, there's some similarities when you think Venn diagram, but there's some really unique aspects to both of how those third parties show up in those industries. And what I mean by that is when we look at our space and restaurants through the likes of a DoorDash or Uber Eats, we're able to provide access to our food that customers would otherwise potentially not have.
Speaker 2:Think of it as a shopping mall. Right, they're able to go. They might not know what they want to eat tonight. And this is my kids, quite frankly, use Uber Eats or DoorDash as a way to understand what should we eat for dinner. Help me think of some ideas. And so they'll go on and swipe around, and that's one way to access a guest that otherwise we wouldn't have access to. Whereas on the hotel side, people are going on there to potentially get a better deal or get a better rate. They don't have necessarily as built out of a loyalty proposition as the actual hotel company itself. So it really does start turning into more of a value play more than anything else. There are ways to really think about the likes of Adore Dash and Uber Eats very differently in our space and think about it as just another revenue channel and a revenue stream, versus a cannibalization of what we already have.
Speaker 3:Going back to your original analogy about life stages. So like where are restaurants? Are we teenagers? Have we gotten married and we have a newborn? What stage are we in?
Speaker 2:I think we're all advancing at different rates and in different places. When you look at Starbucks, for example, they're operating like a bank right. They're holding our money we are trusting of them with our dollars on their app and they make it so easy to do that. Then you look at other players who are testing out robotic delivery, like Chick-fil-A, for example. Then you look at us.
Speaker 2:Gotofood is on a digital transformation journey whereby we are updating and really thinking about how our apps and our websites serve our customers better, thinking about how our apps and our websites serve our customers better and truly landing that based on customer insights and data in terms of how do our guests want to use our app? What are they looking for in there? How can we get them to move through a transaction quickly, seamlessly, if that's what they want to do, or if they want to be able to explore the menu and customize and personalize all those different options? So I think there's this huge spectrum and there's no one consistent approach at this point in time, as we're all trying to feel it out and grow in our spaces.
Speaker 3:Marketplaces have created such an expectation for consumers around a habitualized, seamless experience, something that, to your point, like your kids, can just go look and flip through and they know exactly what to do to find what they want, exactly how to check out and have it come to them. Given that expectation that consumers have for go-to foods, how do you make yourselves be as frictionless, as seamless as what those marketplaces provide? Or is that even the goal?
Speaker 2:It's a fantastic question, because I do believe there's a place for both in the world. However, I think that what our websites and apps deliver that those marketplaces can't is exactly, by definition, what the marketplace is. They're bringing to you an experience that is somewhat generic because you've got so many different options in front of you, versus when you go to our first party channels. You feel that brand come to life, you feel that personalization here's what you ordered last time, here's what you like, here's what we might suggest for you. So another analogy going to a department store versus going to a boutique. You go to the boutique because you know what size you need. You don't have to try anything on. They know you, they've got your last purchases, they know how to help you quickly move into space.
Speaker 2:You go to a department store and there's a lot in front of you, and it doesn't mean that there's one's better than the other. It just means there's a lot in front of you. You got to shuffle a little bit more. You got to figure out what exactly you want. You might be trying something new. Maybe you like it, maybe you don't. So there's just a very different dichotomy of what that experience looks like. Maybe, when you know what you want, you can go in more directly and pick it up and come out right. That's what your first party channels enable you to do. Sometimes it takes a little longer to get through on the marketplace.
Speaker 3:I'm imagining working with you, irvi, and the most complicated data set ever, and your analysts come to you with here's what the data says and you're like let's make this into analogy. This is too much.
Speaker 2:I like analogies because sometimes it's just easy to simplify things in the way in which we interact with the world day in and day out. Right, because we have a lot of complex data. We have a lot of different things coming in as at one, so how do we just simplify it into things that we do each and every day?
Speaker 1:that is just a little bit more relatable in terms of trying to how you unpack that go back to something you mentioned earlier and link it to the first party ordering channels, if I may, because you mentioned this piece. Around airlines, you might go on a flight once or twice a year, hotels maybe the same amount, but of course, we're eating out far more regularly. Typically, when we're speaking to independent restaurateurs, we're saying to them like, do you even need an app? Really, how often are people going to be coming to your independent location? But with your company, it's not like there's one brand. For those folks that haven't heard of GoTo, its previous name was Focus, of course. And when you're thinking about developing and designing a first-party channel, are you thinking about it by an individual brand level or are you trying to think about it from the standpoint of actually, you can use this one interface across this whole portfolio of brands and does that create more design challenges or does it make things easier for your customers? How do you?
Speaker 2:approach that it's a very topical question, because we are in the midst of exactly what you described. So you have seven brands. What you're addressing there is the nuance of a platform company, which is what we are, and going back to, what brought me here was what can you do in a platform company and by platform I mean there's so many things that can sit behind the scenes, these engines that can help drive incremental revenue, drive guest experience, drive operational efficiencies, drive development All of these engines can help us do more, and we have scale to enable that. And so, being a platform company, seven brands if you have seven websites and seven apps, the complexity of just managing each one becomes enormous and costly. If you want to deploy a new feature or test out something new, you've got to do that potentially 14 different times. That's a lot.
Speaker 2:We're in the midst of our digital transformation, which is really not just about the customer experience, but also how do we get more efficient in terms of managing our digital properties. That means creating a common platform that all of our brands can sit on and reach their customers and their guests, the difference being Going back a few minutes when I was talking about the brand love that comes through in a first party channel versus a marketplace, and that tone and that brand experience that you feel there. We don't want to have one generic marketplace of seven brands. We don't want to become that, because what we believe is that our brands love the loyalty and the feeling they get from each and every one. Brands love the loyalty and the feeling they get from each and every one.
Speaker 2:If you opened up the Moze app and it didn't say welcome to Moze, then you'd be wondering, well, where did that go? Because that's a core part of that brand, and so having that platform with the seven different layers on top is really how we're going to market with our digital strategy. And what that means is, if we do have a new feature that we want to deploy, we can deploy it seven different ways, and it's not as easy as flipping a switch seven times because there is a design element to it, but it can be done much more quickly because the code is already written for it and then you're just the peripheral aesthetic is what you're working.
Speaker 3:That makes a ton of sense. You talked previously about how there's a different maybe consumer use occasion for the marketplaces versus for the first party. Because of that, do you just think of them as two totally separate consumer occasions and therefore they really have nothing to do with each other? Or do you actively try to use the UX of your first party experience to migrate consumers from third party over to first, I think there's a lot in that question, so I'm going to unpack it in a few different places.
Speaker 2:One I think that they coexist together along with other revenue channels, because there's so many levers that we have that it's a matter of which lever do we want to pull and how do you strike the right balance. And every revenue channel has a different level of profitability, potentially has a different use case or occasion for the guest, perhaps it has a different type of guest or demographic, and so it's really understanding all of that and using data to help inform that, to understand at what points in time might I over index on one revenue channel versus the other, and the profitability also being a part of that equation, one might drive more volume and lower profitability. When is that acceptable? When are those thresholds acceptable? So I think, when you think about all of the revenue channels as a cohesive unit, it does create a world where third party channels are important and necessary and we should continue to embrace them and learn how to use them in the ways that our customers best respond. The second question I think that you were getting at is how do those interconnect, if at all?
Speaker 2:When we look at our loyalty guests. They typically do go through our first party channels Not always, but in a large number of cases they do and I think those loyalty guests because they're getting their rewards, because they're used to how the app works might just be quicker. They've got their credit card saved on there, they've got their past orders. It's just easier. I think in those instances we continue to nurture that and the marketplace may have a different set of users that they want to continue to nurture and in those instances there's a place for both of those to exist.
Speaker 2:The difference, I think in kind of the middle ground, is where do we have third parties introduce a guest into our space and we have the opportunity to build a connection with them.
Speaker 2:We have an opportunity to connect with them and build our loyalty platform. That's where the opportunity really is for us to connect with these guests and I think, as we look at our own loyalty platforms, we've just seen tremendous power in that group, for example, with our super users. We see those individuals spending four to five times more than an average loyalty guest, and I'm talking about super users. We see those individuals spending four to five times more than an average loyalty guest, and I'm talking about super users. People are coming 11 plus times a year and they're contributing like anywhere between 40 and 55% of loyalty revenue. So when you have a cohort that truly engages and loves you, we see that and we have to be able to respond and nurture that guest in the right way. And that's where there really is a place for a loyalty guest on the first party channel, probably more so than a third party.
Speaker 1:That's fascinating. You were just talking a lot about customer data and being able to increase that experience. I think most restaurants today correct me if you think I'm wrong, but I think most restaurants are drowning in their data. It's fair to they're in this giant data lake, or maybe a series of data ponds, and they're struggling to figure out how to use it. They're not. It's missing the fact there's a lot of data out there, but how are you thinking about this from the standpoint of not just helping the utilization and the acquisition of data, but helping across all the functions within the business to be able to create a better restaurant operating system?
Speaker 2:Data is key and you know that, as I mentioned, I always tend to lean there. But, as you said, there's so much out there and the way that I like to think about data is there's some core metric we just have to continue to be laser focused on, to continue to measure, measure progress over and be able to tie together to understand how does something over here impact something over here and what are the other factors that might be driving that. That's how you start unpacking what those key business value drivers are. But I think, absent of that, if you don't ask the right business question, you could be looking at data that's very informational but it's not really addressing the question that you may have.
Speaker 2:So instead of starting with data all the time, I think it's sometimes better to start with what's the question I want to answer, what am I trying to get after? What do I want to know, what do I want to validate? And then figuring out what are those data points that could help me understand that, collecting all those and then triangulating it to understand what's the real story, because there's never just one data point. If you look at one data point, you could be missing 50 others or missing the real driver, the root cause there. You can get lost in data and spin around in it and never come out on the other side with the answer. So I think having the right question at the forefront is super important.
Speaker 3:Guest centricity is really what all this guest data enables whether you're getting it from third party or first party really being able to make a richer experience for the guests through very personalized experience. Carl and I talk a lot about digital hospitality and using the data to demonstrate your understanding and care of the guest. How do you see personalization in your restaurant's environment?
Speaker 2:I think that's going back to some of the things that we talked about earlier. I think that is truly how this industry starts moving, because people want to be able to know that you know me and you know what I like, and in a world where we have so many transactions going on in an average restaurant, it's really hard to do that unless you have the right POS systems, unless you have the right data and technology behind it. But that's just the in story experience. When we think about the digital experience, we have the ability to better serve our guests through personalization, whether that be. I don't want to go and construct my personalized burrito every time with all of my customizations, I just want to be able to hit buy again, and the number of times that we have done that throughout, whichever app you may be on, that's a form of personalization and it reduces the customer friction point.
Speaker 2:I think when you look to how our customers are being trained around our industry versus others any other retail or whatever Uber, car sharing, whatnot you select your preferences at the very beginning and that's how you receive the product.
Speaker 2:And in our world you look at, on one hand, you know the world of Starbucks and their app and I'll give them kudos for that, because they have so many personalization options and customization options.
Speaker 2:I spend 50 to 100 percent more on my same coffee on the app versus I would in store. On the app versus I would in store and that's because they're serving all of these options up to me, which makes me be able to order a very customizable drink, which in the store I wouldn't be able to do, because by the time I tell them the oat milk and this, and that I've got a line of 20 people behind me and I'm feeling really paranoid. And whereas on the app, all I've done, I've configured it once and I click it again and it tells me that would you want to buy this again? It makes it really easy. And so I think, when you think about personalization and how you earn those rewards and how you get served up your prior order or whatnot, it just reduces the friction for the customer and it makes you feel like, okay, they know me and they'll serve me up options that might be similar so I can try a new thing.
Speaker 3:That really takes me back to the travel comparisons that you were making right. There are so many ways in which I feel like my preferred airline and my preferred hotel know me, remember me, understand me, offer me the right things that could only happen digitally. I can't imagine either placing a phone call or talking to an agent live at the counter and having the same experience as what happens online. I think that is absolutely the pinnacle of what we're aiming for in the restaurant industry is to get to a point where people actually prefer the digital experience to the in-person one.
Speaker 2:I think we are well on our way there and the experience that you just mentioned with the airlines. I think back to the days and I'm, of course, dating myself here but where you would call Delta or whomever your airline is to book a flight. I know, isn't it crazy? Or you would. If you're in the airport, you would actually go to a desk with a question. Even if I'm in the airport and I have a question or an issue, I go to the app, even though there's an agent right there. That's where the digital world is taking us and is training us to do that, and that's one example. But I would even say with many places in the restaurant space, even if I'm right there in the parking lot, I'll go ahead and order online because it's easier. I don't have to take my credit card out, it's got it saved, I've got all my options already laid out, it's quick and I don't have to spend all that time shuffling around trying to reorient myself with a menu when it's right in front of me. So I think that we are moving in that direction at rapid pace.
Speaker 2:I think that things like COVID only brought that and expedited that movement forward. When we talk to franchisees and we talk about our business. We have to be thinking about that omni-channel lens. We can't just be thinking about you've got your in-store here and you've got your digital experience here. They've got to come together as one, as a seamless experience, because nine times out of 10, this is your front door, it's not the physical front door to the restaurant. The mindset also has to shift of how are we treating our customers through both of those channels, because ultimately we will see a swing towards the digital over time. Is that just become even less friction?
Speaker 1:I love that when we talked about this in Vegas at Food on Demand, we explained how the order of our questions were very much reflective of our second book around the path to digital maturity and I think one of the areas that we were particularly excited about talking about in Vegas with you and again now was around this kind of concept of holistic technology and certainly from Meredith and my perspective, when we think about that stage of where did you guys end up Late teenage, early 20s, some form of comfortable middle age, a good form of life, we can position this idea that actually for restaurants to really become digitally mature, they're going to have to have find ways for their technologies to talk to each other.
Speaker 1:I think we said 15 to 20 on average, I think is the amount of different software providers that you're finding a support in the average restaurant group. But you guys are thinking about this, you're doing something about it. Take us through, if you would, your idea of holistic technology and how you're thinking about all these things are going to help you take go-to crews to that next level.
Speaker 2:Yes, spot on. So we are embarking on our journey with our new POS system, with the Q system, and what I think Q brings to us is that next evolution of POS. And if you think about what is one of the most significant points of friction for the customer when they walk in, it's the person behind the register can't make the right customizations or substitutions, or it doesn't translate to the back of house with the right information, so you have order accuracy issues it takes too long to put through, or I can't redeem my rewards, or I can't scan my coupon or whatever the case may be. These are all points of friction and we know that today. And so what we are trying to accomplish with our transition to the QPOS system is how do we make that interconnectivity just feel seamless?
Speaker 2:And I'm going to go back to the omni-channel experience again, because it really does start creating an omni-channel experience when the digital, the app, feels very similar to how you're going to interact with a POS and the ability to see your order, to be able to pull up a customer record, to be able to offer up things like suggested sell options that we would digitally, but also in the store. It also takes pressure off the person behind the register trying to take a bunch of orders during rush hour. You've got your lunch crew and you've got a long line. You want to take the line. You want to get people in and out. Having a POS system that enables that and is more on the tech side of things really helps expedite some of the vision that we have around the omni-channel experience.
Speaker 3:I think that's amazing. I love this conversation. I think that you're bringing so much over, not just from your travel world that belongs here in restaurant but also from your analytical mindset, coupled with your analogies. So I think the main lesson I took away from this is that if you're a restaurant drowning in data, you need yourself an Irvi who can transform that data into analogies that make sense to you.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you, I really appreciate the time this afternoon. Meredith and Carl, it was a pleasure speaking with you both once again. It's always lots of fun.
Speaker 1:We appreciate you. Thank you for sparing some of your time with us. I know our audience would love to hear from you and looking forward to seeing you around on the conference circuit again soon. Thank you again for appearing with us at Food on Demand and good luck to you and the rest of the team. Sounds like you've got a very exciting few years ahead as you get deeper into age when it comes to watching Black Circle.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, we'll age, gracefully Thanks again, thank you.
Speaker 1:The Digital Restaurant Podcast is available for you to follow and subscribe. Wherever you listen to your podcasts, watch us, rate us and subscribe to the Digital Restaurant on YouTube and follow along on all our social media digital restaurant channels. Thanks for listening.
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