Lessons From the Field [Powered by Black Box Intelligence]

How Marketing Leaders Drive Wide-Spread ASR Improvement [ft. Leaders from Keke’s Breakfast Cafe and Velvet Taco ]

• Black Box Intelligence • Episode 4

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How Marketing Leaders at Keke’s Breakfast Cafe and Velvet Taco Drive Wide-Spread ASR Improvement

Episode 4 | 11/21/24

Episode Overview

For restaurant brands, understanding and acting on guest feedback is no longer optional.

It’s a critical factor in driving sales, improving operations, and brand health.

In a recent Lesson from the Field, industry leaders from Keke’s Breakfast Cafe and Velvet Taco shared how reviews shape the future of restaurants. Here are the key takeaways of how they use feedback to drive success.

Key Takeaways:

    [Insight #1] – The Correlation Between ASR & Sales
Research shows that even a half-star improvement in ASR can lead to substantial sales growth.

    [Insight #2] – Guest Reviews are a Key Local Marketing Channel
 Guest reviews now serve as a primary tool for showcasing quality and connecting with the community. 

    [Insight #3] – Guest Feedback is a Predictor of Sales and Traffic
Guest feedback is a treasure trove of data and a predictor of how a restaurant unit is going to perform in the future.

Restaurants can use feedback to:

  • Identify trends
  • Make proactive adjustments
  • Plan marketing strategies

     [Insight #4] – Guest Feedback is a Source of Insight Against the Competition
Guest feedback helps brands gauge their performance against competitors. Identify areas where you outperform competitors and protect those strengths. Regional insights can also help brands adapt strategies to local markets.


Mentioned in the Episode:


Welcome to lessons from the field, the podcast where we dig deep with restaurant industry leaders to uncover the strategies, insights and stories behind their success, whether it's operational excellence, guest house fashion, or leveraging data for growth. We're here to bring you actionable lessons straight from the experts. Hey there. My name is Emily Bennett, and I am the director of Strategic Accounts here at blackbox. I have been here a little over five years, but I have been in the industry for a very long time, and I call myself a recovering marketer because that's what I did before, most notably a VP of marketing at Dickey's Barbecue and director of marketing at Topgolf. To to have a conversation about marketing and how we are able to use average star rating and the interaction with guests and their feedback as part of a way to drive sales and traffic. So one of the things that is so important when we have these conversations is really talking about the correlation from average star rating to average weekly sales. You can see that the lower the average star rating, the lower the average weekly sales. And as you stair step up into the different average star ratings, you can see that you continue to increase that average star rating. You can increase your average weekly sales. So that's really kind of the base of this conversation that we're going to have. And why is that important is because as we understand that feedback and as we continue to help strengthen the brand and individual restaurant operations, we do see an impact to that average weekly sales increase. So just as an example, if you're increasing your average star rating by half a star, then you're going to see an increase in average weekly sales for one unit of $61,000. For a casual dining restaurant that can go up as high as $110,000 for fine dining, and then as low as QSR for 20,000. So really nice stair step here as well. We can get into the conversation. I would like to introduce Jenna and Brooke. Jenna is with Kiki's, which is a great brand, primarily currently in Florida, but a great growing brand. And then Brooke is at Velvet Taco again, a great growing brand. Great to be here. Thank you for having me. So, Jenna Law, director of marketing at Kiki's Breakfast Cafe. I've been here just over a year. Prior to joining the team, I was doing marketing strategy at the Walt Disney Company and spent a few years with Darden Restaurants as well. But I've spent my whole life really working in restaurants, serve as my first job, and continues to be in my job today. So I'm excited to join the team. We're really building a marketing program from the ground up. I was the very first marketing hire for this emerging brand outside of Florida, and now we are officially coast to coast with an opening in California on the 11th of this month. So that's really exciting. And really, you know, our goals are not only to establish sort of best practices and a foundation for growth as we look to scale very rapidly. But making sure that we're really taking care and strengthening our core as well, and driving sales here in our home market in Florida. Thanks, Emily. Excited to to be here with you guys today. My name is Rick Perry. I'm the VP of marketing for Velvet Taco. I've been with the brand for about a year and a half now, similar to Jenna. I've kind of always been in restaurants. My career has been in restaurant marketing, so some other brands that I spent some time with were. So we stitch in Jamba Juice, most recently original Topshop and, you know, brand strategy is really where I love to play. And which is part of why I'm so excited to talk about this with you guys today. In terms of our strategy, we're gearing up for the next phase of growth. So Velvet Taco is with our casual taco concept. We're really reimagining what a taco can be. So we are not a Tex-Mex or a Mexican food brand. We really draw inspiration from cultures all over the world and deliver the flavors to the guests. Just with the tortilla as our vessel, we are in a safely just opened location number 49. So almost at the 50 mark in Scottsdale, which was our first Arizona opening. Couldn't be more excited to be there. And we just announced our first international location, which will open in London in spring of 2025. So really just gearing up for that next phase of that growth, we we think we can be a leader in the fast casual taco space globally, really. So that's what we're working on. Awesome. So one of the biggest things that we wanted to talk about is, like I said, really understanding the guests feedback and how you're kind of bringing that in, how you're able to respond to it. But I kind of wanted to start with just the conversation about how, you know, reviews and Google reviews certainly has changed the landscape of so many different businesses, retail included. But when we are getting into the idea of, you know, local store marketing, that has really become the vessel of local store marketing and the way that people get their word out as far as how good they are and really try to connect with the community, is through those reviews and the response to those reviews. You know, not it's not as much I shouldn't say. It's not at all, but not as much as, you know, pounding the doors of trying to get catering orders and passing out coupons and all of that. You know, it certainly has shifted to more of a digital age. So you I do want to talk about kind of using that experience and responding and talking to your guests through that medium. Yeah. So responding to every review is always our goal. We know for first, on the brand side of things, Kiki's Breakfast Cafe really trying, even though we're a large franchised chain trying to make sure we're still part of the community, we use Align Best Breakfast on the block a lot, so having those local connections to our guests with authentic replies is really important, and I think, you know, that really resonates with them, especially today. They expect that and they want to feel they're supporting their local community. That's one thing. It's also just making sure they feel like they're being heard. Even if it's negative reviews, it gives us the perfect platform to reach out, hopefully recover that cast, and also take away some really good learnings and insights for our team to make sure that we're improving, because we're always working really closely with operations and coaching and figuring out there's kind of general themes. We use that for our monthly and quarterly touch bases with ops. So provides just like a wealth of information and a way for us to really deliver our award winning top tier service, even online, just with movies as well. Brooke, you guys do this a little bit differently than you guys are fully corporate owned, so you're actually able to allow the DMs to respond. Yeah. So we talk to our our teams a lot about how the best marketing we can do is creating a great guest experience. When guests who come through the door, you know, used to we had to rely on word of mouth, actually, people talking to their friends about their great experiences. But with this digital age and and reviews, now those positive experiences can actually be real drivers for sales. And our team really understands the importance of that. When I joined the Velvet Taco team a year and a half ago, and they told me that our operators were responding to reviews, I was a little nervous about it at first. I just couldn't believe that we were able to effectively make that happen. Everywhere I've been before, we have managed those responses at a corporate level. But what I found is having our team respond to their reviews for their restaurant actually creates a 1 to 1 connection, and that they have with their guests that they they wouldn't otherwise have, and really gives them first hand knowledge of what they're doing really well and what they need to improve on in their specific restaurant. You know, the most important thing is accountability. We know that every single one of our DMs understands the importance of responding to reviews and not not just responding to reviews, making sure every single review gets a response in a timely manner. But we have directors of operations in each region that also hold our managers accountable to it. And so it's what that does is it becomes part of the conversation that our leaders are having in our restaurants with every single visit. And none of the feedback comes as a surprise to the operators, because they've seen it firsthand as those reviews have come through. So it's actually quite effective for our brand. And we can we plan to continue to do it. I think the other benefit to the guests, was is, as you mentioned, we're a franchise, so we can't mandate that people reply to every review, but it's still flexible enough that, you know, of course, our top operators are really the ones who want to be in there replying. So there's flexibility to work together with them. And then I love what you said about accountability. We we definitely use it in kind of a regular part of conversation. And I think once you start integrating, you know, emphasizing the importance of reviews or responses, it just becomes more of an intense expectation. And we say a lot of use that you can't expect, but you don't expect. So we just make sure that it's really rooted in a lot of our KPIs and our ongoing evaluations that the team. It's a great point, and you kind of alluded to it as well with the meetings that you guys have and the structure of that. So, you know, taking maybe both approaches here and talking about, you know, with having the DMs with all the talk, we're looking at that every day. And I'm sure that, the teams play this out as well, especially with, franchisees. But then you're looking at that in a monthly time period. Jenna, can you talk a little bit more about what it is that you look at and like maybe some of those outcomes that you've had of of really being able to, you know, to drive operational change and then certainly would love to hear about any sales and traffic impact that you've had with that as well. Yeah, I think ingesting reviews and trying to get a handle on the 10,000ft view of how we're doing as a system gives us a few, a few different actions we can take. So on one hand, we're still building kind of our whole martech stack. So we do use it a lot for insights and trying to get some breadcrumbs. So it might be some bigger questions, whether that's wow, suddenly we're getting a lot of home fry issues or a certain product issue, or it's a region under a single leader that's having recurring issues. It helps us flag and learn from that, but it also helps us track that, pull. The reports, like I mentioned, work really closely with ops to make sure that we're providing feedback continually to the field, and we're using our month. We obviously have like a monthly kind of coaching area of operational focus call. So it helps provide guidance directly from the gas into it. Some of those topics might be so we can really get in there and change it, because like Brooke said, it really starts first with the experience that you give in the four walls. So anytime we can close the feedback loop and make sure that we're actually effectively communicating the trends that we're seeing or any patterns that we're seeing and that that is translating into, you know, action taken in coaching where needed. And we've we've absolutely seen the correlation. It's it's very, very clear that our top quartile and it might even be more narrow than that of locations performing and growing year over year are also our top quartile and reviews and both quality and quantity. That's a great point. So I know that you have a leader in play, that it has always been very focused on this data and like really wanting to, you know, bring that throughout the organization. Can you talk about the structure? It's kind of the similar question that we that ask Jenna, but like, what's the structure of how you analyze the data? I know the system does a lot. And, you know, giving that sentiment or sentiment, review and certainly classifies it into those appropriate categories. How do you guys dig in? How do you have a structure of communication about the data that's coming in? Yes. Well, our restaurants are able to be really granular here at the IRS. So the restaurant Support Office, we're able to look through the aspects and tool, at things from a much higher, more strategic level, which we love, as if we are doing really well with guest sentiment that indicates that our brand health is really strong. So it's all about we have a lot of brand health conversations here. It it helps us to really understand how are we doing with sentiment when it comes specifically to perceived value. That's been a big conversation this year. What about ambiance? What about food? How are we doing with our best program? And so the fact that we're able to look at things from a much higher level allows us to have those strategic conversations and also make big decisions with that data. And it's not just making a decision going off of our feelings or our beliefs. It's it's truly data backed, which we love. And what we found between just the correlation of average star rating and sales is actually average star rating is sort of a leading indicator of sales of where sales are going with a restaurant or a region. So if we start to see an influx of positive reviews, the sales might not be following immediately. But we know that there there are sales to come because those people who had a great experience are going to come back, and other people who check us out online are going to see that those folks had a great experience and come see us for the first time. The same is true with negative reviews. If we're seeing an influx of negative reviews or we've just lost some guests, we need to try to recover those guests. But otherwise we'll see those reviews, and be less likely to visit. And so really, the guest platform is just been great and helping us not only to understand we were where we are, but also predict where we're going. Right? So back in my day, when we were having conversations about poor performing stores or poor performing markets, it was difficult for me because I didn't have this level of granular data about how the guests are feeling about the restaurant, but I knew, you know, walking in, you can kind of tell the vibe or understand what's going on within the four walls. And I would have conversations with my operator like, how can I put additional money behind these restaurants that I know are not performing well? Right. As as far as like a guest experience perspective, it's wasted money that way. You know, it's nice to hear that you guys can have these open conversations with your operators. One of our sayings at Black Box is hard conversations with data just become conversations. Can you tell me about a time that you guys have used the data to maybe inform some marketing decisions or advertising decisions because of AB's slump in this area? But you know, it's a great, you know, performing story. You just need to really bump it up. Or maybe the opposite is true. It's not doing well. And you need to kind of take off until they're ready to go. Yeah. So our ratings do play a role in in our decision to either run or not run media for specific restaurants or market. Luckily, majority of our restaurants are performing very well. Our average star rating is about 4.5. So, you know, we feel really confident in how we're operating. You know, specifically this summer we did launch an advertising push in Dallas. And one of the reasons we did that is, we we all got in a room and we said, hey, we we don't just feel good about Dallas performance in the restaurants. We, we know we're performing really well and delivering a great guest experience in Dallas. So, let's add fuel to the fire and let them amp up our paid media and try to drive some additional traffic into these restaurants, because we know we'll deliver a great guest experience. If that had not been the case and we have not had strong star ratings, no way would we have made that decision. Because the only thing worse than not performing well in the restaurant is driving new guests in to experience that. It would be better if they had just never come in and had a neutral opinion of your brand. So, you know, we're very fortunate that our operators perform at a high level, but average star rating plays a huge role in how we spend our dollars. Yeah, absolutely. So same question, but maybe a little bit of a different take on it to that. But, you know, you mentioned your top quartile and the way that we do that for the year that we just for the audience to know that, we do that to the sales gap to the market. Right. Like that's kind of the way that we rank it through. And you have this bottom performing restaurant no matter what. Right? There's always going to be that last one, even though they're doing so well. So the last one has to be that person or that restaurant. But I know you talked about those top performers are doing so well. How do you guys use that information on that bottom performing quartile and maybe attack or really refocus your operations into that section? Yeah, well, we take it as kind of our first flag. So one of the first things we'll look at is if we're looking at the review side specifically is what, how many reviews that they have. Because sometimes it may look like they're really lagging, but they might just be really bad at asking for reviews or they don't have their QR codes out or they need coaching there. So things seem very skewed. But of course, even if it's a handful of, you know, reviews and they're negatives, we then usually team up with a cross-functional group that takes a look at our bottom performing portfolio side, and they basically get like a custom plan from us. So it does allow us, like you mentioned, to pull in some real data points from real conversations that they can't deny. It's not just corporate coming in and telling them what to do, it's coming from the guests themselves. And sometimes it's very eye opening if they haven't been taking the time to log in. So it's a little bit of holding up the mirror and also kind of like you said, some of the ramifications that come out of it is you guys have to focus on X, Y, z. You have a quarter to show some positive momentum or whatever it might be. It depends on the issue. And then, you know, we'll have to talk about what type of support you get or what happens next and how we can get you guys there. We really try to approach it as a partnership and coming at it from multiple angles because it's never just a one, you know, one solution X is all their problems. We really have to sleuth a little bit and get to know them and understand what's going on there. But the reviews that they help get us started in that direction and provide some of that data. So, you know, as we're kind of just talking about this more conceptually, you know, we've mentioned reviews a lot, but it's not just about that. Right? It's also about the surveys that you may have getting beginning in or wherever your your guest wants to meet you. So I know there's a loyalty program both of you have and our reviews weighted a little bit more in your mind. Or are they, you know, is it just looking at that full guest voice? I know we certainly can take in any piece of, source, and we like to get to meet the guests where they are. But is there one that you guys are like, I, I can see this. I guess we have already talked about with our star rating. But, Brooke, do you have a thought on that? Yeah. To me, reviews tell us a lot about brand health. So how healthy is our brand with consumers right now? Surveys give us a lot of specific feedback on tests, initiatives, menu items that we might need to to drill down into to really understand, you know, a appeal or, you know, whether this could impact test frequency. So I, I look at surveys as a tool. They get really a lot more granular and reviews as a way to understand overall brand health and where we have opportunities. Yeah, certainly is a level of, direct feedback or not necessarily indirect feedback. We always kind of say a review is what the guest wants to tell you, and a survey is what you want to hear from your guest. I guess it's a little bit different. Yeah, it's a little bit different on how your, your survey is structured. Right. We have some and I think we talked about this before that some have surveys are like, just give me one, three, five stars and tell me what was good or bad. We don't need to like, leave the witness at all. But yeah, I could definitely see how, one is really more about brand because it's also what people see. We do have a survey that goes out to our loyalty guests after a visit, and asks them just to give us a rating on their experience, and asks if they want to add a comment. We actually filter that through text them, which is great. So we're actually able to include that in guest sentiment. So when we talk about guest sentiment, not only is it reviews that other people can see, it's also the reviews of our most valuable guests through our loyalty program. So I kind of lumped that in with them. I don't think of that as a separate, specific survey. It's really how did we do? Yeah, I think I think the other benefit to the survey is just even going back. We do fewer surveys at Kiki's, but back at Disney and Darden, even, having that consistent guest experience survey and having consistent questions every time, they're just always the same, helps us benchmark and have a little bit more consistent measurability. Versus reviews or really everybody does reviews. It's a little bit to me like a more authentic cross-section of our guests. When you're looking at, you know, Google and Yelp, everyone feels empowered to give you feedback there, for better or for worse. Yes, surveys do take a little bit more time, a little bit more engagement, but you have obviously more control there. So specific questions are you're really tracking something, that you want to make sure is a consistent metric, you know, year over year or a specific value score or something like that. That's something where the power surveys for us come in. Yeah. That's a great that's a great point. And especially when you're talking about the review piece, you know, surveys. That's something that's coming from the guessing that's about your specific brand. And there's not. But we are able to do that benchmarking on guest data with the reviews, whether it be Google or I know Yelp. It could be that, we can still see that comparison. So tell me a little bit about how you use the guest data when it comes to competitors and having those competitor benchmarks, you get to see specifically how your main competitors are doing in specific categories. So I don't know if you want to elaborate on maybe how you guys use that specific focus. Yeah, a lot of different ways. I mean, one, just brand protectionism. We have three areas that we really fortunately blow the competitors out of the water on. And we consider those worth protecting at almost all cost. So when we ever see anything happening in those areas relative to our competitors or someone kind of catching up to us, or maybe we're sliding in some regions, that's a really important area of focus for us is to protect where we're winning already. It also helps us regionally. I mean, we're concentrated in Florida, which anybody who's operating in Florida knows, that it definitely has its own unique micro economy. Between tourism, and hurricanes and all of the other, you know, kind of socio economic factors going on. So it helps us also break it down regionally. We here on earnings reports of our competitors and things like that of how their might be performing broadly. But when we're seeing, how our system performing, which is basically how Florida is performing, we're able to segment that as well and get a more accurate idea of where we stand in relationship to our competitive set. And we also get to learn, you know, maybe from them as well, and see, okay, they're having a lot more gains in traffic. And this is where they seem to be focusing. So it's just good Intel to fold in to our strategy and just having kind of a constant pulse on what's going on in the market. Yeah, that's a great point Rick. Anything to add? You know, we we use it as a gauge to understand we, we feel really good about how we're performing, but when we can actually stack it up against the the brands we consider to be our top competitors, it allows us to either validate or invalidate those those beliefs. Thankfully, we're usually, well ahead and in all categories, so that's been great. And it's also part of it's in every board deck. So when we talk about these really high level brand conversations that we're having, we're talking about guest sentiment not only in relation to the taco, but in relation to our top competitors in relation to fast casual brands, top quartile of QSR. So it it gives us that comparison point and allows us to really gauge performance not just against ourselves, but against top performers in the industry. Yeah. So I think that, you know, looking at your at your competitors is incredibly important, but it's also being able to really have that same look within your, your organization and how to we talked about that quartile. So like operations folks are very competitive people. Like probably the most competitive people I've ever met. And so, you know, trying to rally them and really work towards building the, the awareness within the four walls. So I know you kind of already talked about, you know, working through the system with your DMs and your, your operations folks. How do you drive change within your operations? How do you work with that CEO, or your director of operations folks to drive that change? And this comment, which I totally agree with, is, you know, a lot of times operations and marketing are kind of adversarial at times. I think we've all experienced that at some point. My my first response to that would be to the data makes it a lot easier because you're having those conversations. So any anything to add for that particular question open to either of you? We're fortunate that all that taco that our operational leaders are there. They have bought in to the review landscape. They believe in what the guests are telling us and take that feedback to heart. So I'm very fortunate that those conversations aren't adversarial serial. We're really very lockstep in aligned on it and our our DMs bonus off as part of their bonus is their guest reviews. And so that gives them not only do we just believe in responding to reviews and taking care of guests as a brand, but our operational team really, really pays attention to it because it has a direct impact on their earning potential. And so that helps us with these conversations as well. And then, of course, yes, having having real data takes all emotion and feelings out of it, right? We have the data. We have the feedback that we can point to. And it's just about solving the problem together. We really we have an awesome relationship with office. I feel very fortunate and I think a lot of it, we've built a lot of trust that marketing's here to help them, not hinder them or get in the way of them executing flawlessly. And I'm committed to being that type of partner for them so they know whenever we bring, feedback, opportunities, suggestions, it's out of a spirit of her on the same team. And that's just part of the culture that we really try to embody at Kiki's. But we also make sure that for the franchise community, we really publicly celebrate the wins and show that it is possible because we might hear, there's no way we can have a 4.9 Google Star rating. There's no way. But we, you know, at our annual meeting, recognize people who did and who improved and have the sales to boot. So when we're able to share those success stories and connect them as peers to say, you know, I get it, a friend who's organization we can't exactly tell you how to run your business within a certain, you know, to a certain extent. But we can connect you with your peers and help you build their relationships and bridges to be better together. And and really foster the belief that, you know, when the ocean rises or the tide rises, all the ships do as well, coming with the data, coming with not just, hey, we're hearing a lot of issues of eggs or something like that. Coming with solutions is also a way that we really effectively partner with operations. And again, that comes from making sure that my team, we're regularly in cafes are always refreshing our trainings, that we speak the language and we understand what might actually be happening within the four walls, whether that's front of house or part of house. So as far as driving operational change like changes activities or how we train things again, it's sort of an all encompassing plan of here's the data to support it. Here's some ideas for how we could solve it together. And how can I help you get there? Because we all in. I love that. I think the partnership part is the most important. And what we've talked about, I think this is probably a good, good part to to leave on the partnership conversation and, and all that. So ladies, I just want to say thank you so much for, for being here with me and to have this conversation. And, so again, thank you so much for listening, for interacting with us. Thank you for the questions along the way. And then if there is anything that we can ever do for you, please reach out and we will get you in the right spot. But ladies, again, thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for having us. So thanks for joining us for this episode of lessons from the field. If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to subscribe, rate and leave us a review wherever you listen to podcasts. It helps others like you discover the lessons and grow along with us. For more resources, insights, and behind the scenes content, check out Black Box Intelligence in the show notes. Until next time, keep learning, innovating and delivering unforgettable best experiences.