Welcome back everyone to another episode of Data Delicacies.We bring the best and brightest in the industry to talk all things data, talk all things tech, and there's a lot going on.And as you know, I'm your host Rune, this is PowerBank's Antivio.
And today we have a very special guest, someone I call a true friend in this industry.He's spent a lot of time in this industry.You see him at all the shows, you see him on LinkedIn, spreading a lot of good knowledge about what's going on.
He's been on a great experience on both the brand and the operator side, uh, with many years at punch and then over at, uh, fat brands and great worthy.And now the CRO of hang, uh, super excited to have Jeremy on the show.Jeremy, what's going on?
Not too much.I'm not, uh, I'm not used to talking to you without, uh, either a golf club or an espresso martini in my hand.So it feels a little foreign to me.
I know, I know I should have got those prepared beforehand.I should have had sent over to you, but don't worry.We'll make it up to the next year.I'm sure.Um, so Jeremy, I kind of want to dive right into it.Um,
We've been seeing at a lot of the conferences, which we see each other a lot at, but just even conversations on LinkedIn and all these different shows about this whole concept of customer attraction and customer retention, which a lot of these brands now are trying to tackle.
It's becoming a very competitive space and you've now lived on both sides of that coin.
So I want to start there with that first is your general thoughts on that piece and what are you hearing from both what you've heard from the brand side, but now what are you also trying to tackle on the vendor side?
Yeah, no, it's a great question.I think we always have to back up and think about solutions that I have, solutions that you have, and any other competitors in the space.It's one thing to put a tool in a marketer's hands.
It's another thing to tell a marketer, you've now got a budget to go out and tell your customers about this tool, right?So when I was at both FAT and Kraber, I think I worked with one of the brightest marketers in the space, Warwick McLaren.
His ability to work with large budgets, small budgets, no budgets, and whether that was the way that he was able to find offers that resonate with our regulars to get them in more frequently because they're just always paying attention to our brand.
So how do we get a couple more visits out of them?But then there's the expansion side, right?
And so if you're having a hard time expanding because you have low ad budgets to let people know what you're doing, he was incredible about leveraging third party and advertising on third party during downtimes.
You know, we had a location, interestingly enough, that during the day was challenging.And then we found out that one of our core competitors closed at nine.And so we dominated third party from like nine to 2 a.m.
But this was Warwick really doing that kind of advanced research and saying, you know, why are sales so great during this time period?And finding a niche and saying, you know what, we're fine being like the go-to late night spot.
But, you know, I think in a world right now where budgets are so tight, One, I think you have to partner with vendors that are going to go the extra mile and truly be an extension of your team.
I think it's also easier when you're a smaller tech company because the smaller tech companies offer and operate because they're hungry and they're scrappy or more like a boutique.So your service is white glove.
What ultimately happens is when you start to work with a brand, when they're small, you're like, man, they're the best, service is great, they're doing everything for me.
The challenge is when you get three, four, five years in and you're massive and all of a sudden that same service goes away because it's not scalable.
All of a sudden that becomes a, are you unhappy with your vendor or are you just not getting the service you're accustomed to, which is not scalable?I think that's where
A number of companies that have popped up in our space have done a great job on the services side.I put a thing on LinkedIn yesterday actually talking about some of those companies that both in marketing, technology, deployment, implementation.
But I think space is really hard right now.And if you're a restaurant marketer, what I would tell you is if you're exploring a new job, I think the first thing you have to ask about is the tech stack on or off limits.
If the tech stack is on limits, then it has to be, okay, if I go and put something new in place, do I have an ad budget now to let my consumers know about it?Because if you don't, you're taking a job that's really, it's going to be hard.
It's going to be really hard.
Yeah.No, I appreciate your insight there.I mean, what I see too is that there's obviously a ton of data to be captured right on both the attraction and the retention side.
But a lot of it sounds like there's a lot of tools out there to capture it, but you need to have kind of those people in house to actually utilize that data in the right way.
But to your point, a very cost efficient way, which can sometimes seem maybe daunting to some folks, but other folks, you know, depending on the size of your brand, it's something that you can fairly easily do.
Yeah.And, you know, I was actually just talking to, um, um, Paul over at Planair earlier today, and it was that conversation.
It's like, I could take four loyalty companies in our space and walk through a checklist that all of their tools do these 15 things, right?So call it a commodity to some degree.
But then what happens is you hand this off to a 25 year old marketer who had a communications degree and their CMO was busy doing CMO stuff.And they're just like, what do I do?And so what happens is, is they run lapsed user campaigns.
They run birthday campaigns. And when you look at your inbox, like obviously a student of this industry, and you probably are the same, I have every single loyalty app known to man.And I get all of these offers that all look and feel the same.
And, you know, I think going back to that, that the ad budget, if you've got a user base of a hundred thousand people, I mean, how many times can you truly get that, you know, that like, let's just say for the industry, 15% participation rate.
So that 15% of your user base, how many times can you get them into your gelato stand, right?Or your Italian restaurant, right?There's a ceiling, so you have to be constantly growing that database, and that takes ad funds.
Now, there's also brands that have much lower participation rates, and I think that comes back to the person that's using the tool.And so I actually think that the opportunity
What I don't think is going to change is that these brands are going to suddenly get very large budgets to hire super senior people to sit behind Hang or Instant Tivi or any other platform.
I think that the only way for guys like us to move the industry forward is to develop tools a lot more focused on AI that bridge the gap between what the tool can do, what we think consumers want, and
a solution that can really dig into that data to tell even you and I what, like, what should we be pushing out for offers or promos or what does that look like?And I think, I think that's the biggest opportunity in our space.
I truly do because I just, I don't see people going to school with a restaurant digital marketing degree and they're gonna come out and go, I got this magic campaign to run.I just don't see that happening.
Yeah.Yeah.I think, uh, taking the guesswork out of it is on us as solutions providers to make that much easier.
Um, because I think, you know, in the day, if you can compile the data you want and put it in all the dashboards you want, but if the person on the other side of that screen, to your point, maybe it's a, you know, a younger person just coming to the industry or whatever that is, if they're completely disconnected, what that data even means or what they can do with it, then.
It doesn't matter how much data, if you have 10 data points or a million data points, you're just going to be like, well, I'm just going to run a birthday campaign, which they can do with the most rudimentary technology anyways.Yeah.
I mean, even look at the other side of the business, right?So like. You know, restaurant space is interesting because everything is, you know, year over year sales.
I've been on a million calls at tons of brands and it's like, okay, we're down 3% where we were last year.Well, last year, you know, on the same date, it was Valentine's day and that fell on a Wednesday versus a Friday.Right.
So it's going to have an impact, but you have plenty of technologies on the operation side, even.
a lot of POSs that are giving some form of predictability on labor, and you're able to make some educated guesses and you're having technologies that are at least leading you or giving you some indicators.
And that still just is so lacking on the marketing side.A lot of these promotions that people run are still pretty, you know, unless you're the upper, you know, top 3%, right?
We're like Taco Bell, Chipotle, put something out like, you know, staff up, right?But like for the average operator in our space, there's just, It's just not happening right now.
Hmm.Hmm.And so, I mean, I think that what I'd love to kind of dive into now is a little bit of your experience, right?So you have done both sides of the coin.Um, I think you recently called it coming back to the dark side.So welcome back.
And, uh, you know, what I want to ask is, is, um, so just to give, I mean, I know it shuts down at the beginning of the show, but you spend many, many years at punch. and then went over to the brand side at Fabric Brands and Keep You Prayworthy.
So what was your attraction to come back into the loyalty world?
Because again, loyalty, I think, you know, the reason I came here is there's a ton of opportunity to change the way loyalty is looked at, but at the same time, it is a very competitive and saturated space.
So having done it for so many years, what was that draw for you to come back to hang and do what you're doing now?
Yeah.So, you know, I think, you know, my time at Punch was absolutely the highlight of my career, my team, the culture, the, you know, we had no marketing dollars.
Everything was, you know, part of the day we're fundraising, part of the day we're finding, building all the integrations through every POS and ordering company.And, you know, we grew very parallel with Olo at one point where I think we're
about the same size financially, shared a lot of customers.And there was not as many loyalty players then, there wasn't as many ordering players then as there are now.And so in many regards, it was greenfield and semi-early.
I think at that point in time, Patronix was absolutely like the big boy in the space.And we were just hungry and it was grinding.And when I went to the brand side, it was more like a, I'll call it an education in many things.
One being how brands really make decisions.I joke, but like, I started to think about saying any vendor that calls me, before I'll let you pitch me, I want you to come work at my restaurant for two days.
And then I want you to tell me if you think your technology would actually work.And I can tell you the 60% of vendors that reach out to me, maybe higher,
I think after two days, they'd probably be looking for a new job when they actually saw it in practicality.
But when I came back over to the brand side in my second stint, and I was spending a lot of time on our technology, even to the point where I was installing point of sale because I just really wanted to understand the tech and be very intimate with how it worked and what my teams in the field went through.
like the fire in my belly came back in the whole tech world.And so I took a call earlier this year through Juwan and Marty at 858.Good buddies of mine scaled our companies together in parallel back in 2018, 2019.
And they wanted me to evaluate this company.And they thought, they actually kind of were calling bullshit.They're like, evaluate this company.We're looking at doing some advisory work for it.And tell me if it's real.It's in a loyalty space.
So I get on a call. I put the founders through the ringer, got off the call and I'm like, man, if this really does what they say it does, this is game changing.But if it like, I need more proof.
So for the next few months, um, was just doing some advisory work, looking at their product roadmap, challenging them.And ultimately, you know, what I landed on was like. they actually have tools that can really help brands.
And the most attractive thing to me is that they built it in a modular fashion.So as opposed to my previous life where I had to go in and go into every single deal, it could be with every loyalty person.
And it came down to, you know, who do they like more?Where was the price going to end up?And, you know, I would say most deals, I, they were one in the back alley.They're not one on the RFP as you know.Um, yeah. I was like, you know what, I can come.
I never wanted to come back into that space.I never wanted to live in that. drag out dogfight for every loyalty dollar, right?
And so I think some of it's just maturity, honestly, from the way I would have sold back then to the way that I would approach the business now.
But the fact that everything is modular and I truly think that I can lend a lot of help to these restaurants and operators.
And I also can partner with any of the guys that I used to compete with and insert one of our modules or bolt on something that we do really well it's more of a niche item, it just feels like a very different approach to the market.
And there's going to be deals where Hang has an all-in-one solution.But if I were to say, Instantivio has a customer right now that loves the Incentivio team.
They just don't feel like the tools they're using, I shouldn't say the tools they're using, they just feel like the program right now is semi-stale to their customer base and it just needs a boost.
I can absolutely work with Incentivio to layer in or bolt on some of our our interactive tools, which is essentially gamification requests.And so we did this in parallel with Ulta Beauty.They have a massive database.
And going into it, we didn't know what the outcome would be.And we set up a separate parallel one for them with some of their very specific users.And just with the gamification alone, it was a refresh for them.
It was like 80% of people that interacted with one of the games transacted within seven days.So again,
we can come in and kind of turbocharge an existing program that's working mechanically like it should, where the vendors have, like where you have a great relationship with your customer.Like we're not looking to move on from them.
We just need something.We just need more tools.So, you know, I think there's, I think there's some other companies out there that are doing a good job in the more bespoke world.
But yeah, I think that was, that was kind of what was exciting to me is to kind of come back young founders, young company, help shape the product roadmap.And then I think really just kind of appreciate the impact
that I can make on a brand that I don't know that I understood that impact, having no brand experience at Punch.
Right.Right.Yeah.I know.I mean, I can only imagine you, you know, opening up the stores, installing some of those tourist terminals yourself.You probably learned firsthand what they go through.
So now you can speak to it, like, and actually be like, Hey, listen, I was in your shoes.I understand what this is like.Um, you know, I want to touch on the gamification piece.Cause I think that's something, you know, as we look at marketing, right.
And you, you got to market to the people, you got to do it in a way that's going to resonate with them.And, you know, younger generation now. It's all about the phones, right?It's all about very quick, digestible stuff.
You know, no one's going to look at these long emails anymore, right?So gamification we're seeing, and just, I mean, I know for my own life, there's so much stuff where I'm like, okay, this is gamification is cool.That kind of attracts me to it.
So talk a little bit about that.I mean, is that, do you see that becoming more a part of the engagement strategy of these brands to have some sort of gamification?And what do you see potentially evolving into as time goes by?
Yes, I think there's two sides to that.So there's one idea of what we would call like challenges or quests, right?So like, let's just say you're a brand that has online ordering and you also have e-commerce through like Shopify, right?
So like use coffee, for example.So you sell your whole beans, but then you also have Those are shipped to home through Shopify and you have your in-store typical online ordering, right?
So like a Quest, you might know that your e-comm has the highest average order value.Second is your online ordering and then third is kind of your in-store just coming to get a coffee, right?
And so, you know, having things like quests that are tied to points or some mystery prize where, you know, the quest is consisted of ordering through each of those channels, right?
So now that I've got you in my e-com channel, I can start to market to you through my e-com channel.I've got your address. I can target you a lot differently.So when I think about Quest, it's like me as the brand is dictating what the customer does.
I'm pushing them where I want them to go.And maybe it's with a discount, maybe it's not.Now, the gamification side, I think, is a little different.And I think it actually talks to a lot of different generations.You're on planes all the time.
How many people do you see from like 25 to 65 playing Candy Crush or Wordle, right?So like, those are, you know, think about a world where, you know, you're in an Incentivio app for a brand that's high frequency, right?So like,
and you get a pop-up like, hey, Arun, play World today.You get three chances and there's this mystery box or this prize.You get in there, you're like, I play World all the time.You play it, let's just say you don't succeed.
And the next step is, hey, check into the restaurant and everything through, and essentially through geolocation, I'm getting you not to go into a restaurant, probably make a transaction, and then you get another try.
And then let's just say you succeed in that level. there's some prize or some mystery box for you.So it adds surprise and delight, I would say.
But I think what this really does is, I always use, when I talk about some of the stuff that we're able to add and bolt on and supercharge other programs is,
If you look at the Starbucks app, I use it for, I literally just reload money, I place my order and I go in.I'm never even on their home screen.Now, my family, my daughters, my wife, they use the full stack.
They're on this quest, they're looking at all their points, they're redeeming offers. This allows flexibility to get away from just earn and burn programs and have every customer have their own journey and how they interact.
Because we can put in Quest games and then sit on top of tiered memberships and standard programs.And now consumers, they can all engage with the brand how they want to.
And I think that's the future of like, again, with these things, as you know, people have very small attention to anything, right?So like, how can you get them to be more interactive?
Yeah.Yeah.And that's a good point.
Cause I mean, you see now multiple generations interact on the same app, but they're not expecting, they're not going to be drawn with the same experience, which means you have to have, you know, more optionality and you can't just kind of have a cookie cutter loyalty program.
And, you know, actually, I mean, you brought this up a few times, but the one thing we hear from a lot of our customers, prospective customers, but just people in the industry where it's like, we don't want a loyalty program to just be a discounting engine.
Right.Like that's not the point of this, which sometimes it ends up defaulting that to, it goes back to your initial conversation where there's all this data is all this stuff you have at loyalty, but then they don't know what to do with it.
So you just default to being, okay, well, if you have this many points, you get a 10% discount.But I know just in my own personal experience, like after a while, 10% for me, I'm like, ah, just what I like. 10%, 10%, right?
I think you see that in retail, right?
Like Nordstrom, right?Like I go spend a thousand bucks and I get a $10 certificate.Like it has no value to me.Like it's going to cost me more than I have to drive to a Nordstrom near me.
But yeah, I think, well, I think there's this other concept that we've played with for some of our brands where it's this world.And I'll be honest, it's been, it's tough for brands to wrap their head around, but think about a world where
the entire thing is surprise and delight to the consumer.But from a brand perspective, vendor perspective, we 100% have points behind the scenes and I know exactly when I'm going to trigger something for you, right?
So there's this whole concept of also like, you know, I think surprise and delight in the past has been the way it's been kind of modeled is, That was really targeted offers.
It's like, you know, you still get 300 points to get a free coffee, but then like, you might get an offer in your email.Like to me, that's not surprise and delight.That's just personalization.
Um, because you, at the end of the day, you don't know when you're going to get an offer from a brand, but like true surprise and delight is like a non-published loyalty program.
where the brand really knows your buying habits and when to strike to get you to make another purchase, or as you know, like shorten the purchase between visits two and three, or if I don't get past visit two, I'm going to churn.
And so I think that to me is the true kind of surprise and delight.And there's brands right now that are just none of us can get into because they do not believe in a published loyalty program.
Because to date, when you think about loyalty, CFOs think earn and burn, and they're like, you know, CFOs all say, well, they would have come in anyway, why are we discounting them?And I think there's a flawed argument for that too.
But I think there's a whole touched area in our space that's very untouched right now.It's a huge opportunity.
Yeah.So, I mean, that actually brings me to, to kind of my next point here.And, you know, I mean, the elephant in the room is like, we compete in some sense.
And I know we were, we were joking about this at, at FS tech, but at the same time, you know, we're both hospitality people.And the reason why we're in this industry is to help the industry.Right.
Like, you know, this isn't like, I joke about this all the time and, you know, people like, Oh, you're, you know, you're hanging out with these guys, your competitors.And it's like. Yeah, but we're trying to solve the problem together.
Then regardless of who we're working for, this isn't a game, this isn't Bloods and Crips.It's not that serious.How much of it do you think is on us on the side that we are to educate
to better educate operators out there, maybe some of the smaller ones that are like, hey, I don't know if this is the right thing for me, this is maybe not the right spend.
Like, I think there's a gap in education where, you know, again, if they feel it's just an earn and burn thing, I feel it's almost on us where we haven't educated them in the right way to say like, hey, this is much more than that.
So how much do you think that's on us?And how much do you think we can change the narrative of what, of how loyalties looked at and how we can truly help a brand get from here to here?
Yeah, I think, I mean, I've always been very consultative in my career.I've spent a lot of time as a Toast advisory board member.
I have great relationships with Nico at Q. If I walk into a room and I meet with a brand, I'm going to send them down the right path for their brand, not for me.
as an advisory board member or a independent contractor for some company or something like that.For my entire career, I've never moonlighted.I didn't feel like it was fair or I could be objective if I was getting paid.
I think the unfortunate part of our industry is, go to a trade show.I'm not gonna name names, but there are, let's just call it four to five regulars that are consultants
I've been a vendor working with those consultants, and it's ironic how the same vendor always wins the deal.I can tell you right now, if I went into four different brands right now,
the likelihood of Instantivio or Hang being the sole right choice for all four of those is very low, right?Depending on their business model.
And so I think it first starts with cleaning house with the dinosaurs in our brand that are pushing brands into wrong decisions.
And I call it hanging around in our industry, still getting paid and paid to go to trade shows and hang out with their buddies.That's number one.I think number two, there's two buckets of vendors in our space.
Um, there are the vendors that I think are truly trying to do right by brands.
Now I've been fortunate enough, um, in this industry where, you know, with our success at punch, like it's a choice now for me to come to work every day and work in the space.Right.So now for me, it's more about like, how can I truly help brands now?
Because I don't have to win a deal.I just don't.And so there's the group of people that will. partner with people that are open to having conversations and saying, hey, I think one plus one equals three with our solutions.
I might make a little bit less money, but I actually think this will be stickier, and the results of this are going to be incredible.And then there's the bucket that all they care about is a technology exit.They're extremely insecure.
They have to win every single deal.If they don't, they burn the bridge.I talk to brands every day.They're like, I will never touch this company.Or I talk to brands that are like, hey,
we were transitioning from loyalty company A to transitioning to loyalty company B. Company C lost the deal.Company B actually failed to deploy us and we would have gone back to company C, but they burned the bridge afterwards.
So my view in this space has always been, a no in what we're doing right now is a not yet.Like if you truly are building a great product and you have great relationships, which you do, they'll come back.And at the same time, like,
it's 100% okay for me to lose a deal.Now, do I like it?No, but I think if a brand just says, you know, I truly believe in postmortems, I put it into every company I've been into.
I wanna postmortem, I wanna understand what I could have done better, what my team could have done better, where there were product gaps, and then we will go and we will plug those, or we'll just acknowledge it like, you know what, that's not what we're looking to do.
And so, you know, I look at the last, so we're at FS Tech, right?We played golf on Sunday. Incentivio, Hang, Punch, Patronix, right?Yeah, I call that it was like the it's like the NATO of the marketing community, right?
So, but yeah, we had drinks, we had beers, we talked about the space, we talked about like, you know, those that are won and lost.And again, there's plenty, there's plenty of addressable market.
And again, you know, you'll, you'll either win by being a great partner, Um, there's also the opportunity I've seen brands win through attrition because they're, you know, their competitors are just chasing custom.
Um, and they go away, they run out of money.So I think, you know, I think there's, I think if you associate yourself with like-minded companies and people, then it'll all work out, you know, it absolutely will.
Yeah.No, I couldn't agree more.I know we've chatted about this a ton.I think what we also see a lot of is to your point, you know, brands or sorry, vendors reaching for brands that are not the right fit for them, right?
Like it's out of their wheelhouse.It's not even their ICP.Maybe they're too big for them, but it's to your point, they need it for.
you know, an exit or they need is this, or they need it for, they need a shout out from, if they have this brand, but what they don't realize is that if you don't service the customer the right way and you lose a brand, that's even bigger news, right?
It's way bigger news to lose the brand than it is to win the brand.And everyone, cause the questions is that brand.
It's funny you said that.So when I, when I landed at hang, um, the first conversation I had with Matt, the CEO was Matt, you're not going to like the sound of this because you hired me to press the gas pedal, but we need to slow down to speed up.
And what I meant by that was. I can reach out to my network and I get any meeting, right?Like regardless of if they're happy with their provider and so on, but I'm not going to walk in any of our products that I don't feel like are fully baked.
Now I'm not saying that our products aren't fully baked, but I'm just saying, I know these brands intimately and I know exactly what they need.
So if we need to spend a two week sprint to develop one thing that I think is going to resonate with them, then we will do that before we're going to go and present something half baked.
And in a situation where we have a product that's like more beta, like that will be a hundred percent disclosed to a customer on say, Hey, listen, I can tell you right now, these two or three functions are going to be incredible in three months.
If you want to be go to market, just know you got to grow with us.Right.And that's okay too.But I couldn't agree more with you.And I think the one, the one, you know, people always go back and forth.
Like, do, do people like, or hate their POS companies?Right.Like. It's kind of like having a washing machine and it breaks.You're like, I got to buy a new washing machine.But you can't not have one and offers value every day.
So I actually think the POS companies do a really good job at you know, pushing their modules for, you know, SMB and then building a big ecosystem of integration partners for mid-market enterprise.
And I think they're, I just think they're really good at understanding like where their strengths and weaknesses are.I mean, you see Q and Toast do it all the time.I think they're kind of running a masterclass in that area, right?
So I think loyalty companies need to do a better job at kind of self-reflection of where their products really do well at.
Yeah, especially because loyalty can be so nuanced and there's so many different layers.And I think with loyalty now, we've already talked about a few things like gamification and all this stuff.
I think there's only going to be so many more new things that come up.
you know, every six months based on how technology is advancing and how, you know, some folks want to maybe be cutting edge when it comes to loyalty, other ones who want to fall back.
But in terms of like, how do you keep up with the technology to make sure that you're attracting, you know, all generations of guests we talked about, like you could have a six year old in there.You can have a 15 year old on the app.Right.
So making sure you can attract all of them.I think that's, that's.
You kind of have to stay ahead of the curve and the further you fall back, then it becomes to a point where cable, why would a brand want to go with an archaic platform when their competitor, or let's say it's a coffee shop, a competing coffee shop down the street has a way better loyalty program.
And that's getting all the people to go over there.
Well, I mean, just think about, just think about, um, when you talk about just attracting generations, like think about, so I think about when I joined punch, right?So.Our competitor had long form sign up because you wanted as much data as possible.
And at that point in time, people were willing to do it. And then we were, I think, the first to launch social sign on, logging with Facebook.And then as you know, all those, those rules change.And now.
there's the now moving to phone number MFA, right?So like, it's just that alone is 100% like catering to crowds.Like I just saw my United app just moved to phone number, right?
So, and like phone numbers are standard and talking to brands that are using social are like confused about like, well, why the switch, right?So just even just downloading and signing on is different.I'm a big, I live in the Midwest.
I don't love Starbucks.I'm a Duncan guy, but I've become more of a Starbucks guy.
And I would, I've actually always said like, I would never let a loyalty program kind of sway me, but like Duncan's program used to be so rich, very targeted offers to the point of like, if the Cubs win today, I would get an offer because I'm a Cubs fan.
When I go on my offer section now, it is, it is bare.It is a hundred percent earn and burn and payment utility and order ahead. And if you gave me all things being equal, I would go to Duncan 10 times out of 10 over Starbucks.
But Starbucks is actually speaking to me in a better manner where it's more interactive and it's one-to-one.The offers are actually more attractive.
And in a tough economy, like two or three bucks a day difference on a coffee, 365 days a year, and sometimes twice is a big difference, right?
Especially when you end up buying coffee for four people in your household, because one's off the couch, so that's five.It's an expensive day.But yeah, you have to be able to adjust with the times.
And I think kind of back to our point earlier about there's the tools and there's the marketers.I think one of the best examples I can use is
For people that go into competitive deals and attack the competitor, this is one of the things that I'll mention because I've seen it happen on LinkedIn and I just, I giggle.So you've got...
I could pick an Incentivio account and go through the UI UX, and I can be like, this didn't work great, and this didn't work great.But at the end of the day, what really matters is the outcome, right?The results.
So I've seen competitors go on and they bash Punch, and they've got links on their website.And then on the other hand, I see them go on LinkedIn and just gush over how great Taco Bell Rewards is.Well, guess who powers Taco Bell Rewards?
It's a little company called Punch.It's one of the best deals they did at that company. Okay, two brands, 10 unit, 5,000 unit, same tool, different marketers, right?So do they suck or do they not?
Because I've seen on the same day, you say both, right?But again, to my point is, The tools are only as good as the people driving them.
It's no differently than if you put me in a room and you put me on Excel, the way that I'm gonna use Excel compared to our CFO, it's gonna be night and day.You're not gonna want my pivot tables, I can tell you that.
Yeah, you know, it's, it's the, you hit the nail right on the head.The analogy I always use for that is the gym, right?
You talk about, you can have someone that has the worst gym equipment or no gym equipment that does just straight body calisthenics and prison workouts, right?
And then you can have someone that has the best gym in the world, but just doesn't do the work.The equipment's there.It's what you make of it.And it can be the most rudimentary stuff.You know, I mean, you talk about like David versus Goliath, right?
The guy uses, you know, the little slingshot to beat the thing.So it's like, it goes back to the dawn of time. where to your point, like it's, it's, you know, you can have all the things in front of you, but it's only as good as, as you use it.
Um, and that's why, you know, it's funny, we talk about this whole thing about tech and all tech's going to take people's jobs and all that stuff.It's like, no, like the tech is only as good as the people that do the input.Right.
I think chat TPT is a great example of that.I know people that use chat TPT for like, it's Google.
I know, I know other people that use chat TPT to like, I've learned so much about from other people have told me how to use chat TPT where I'm like, Holy crap, this is like, insane, but we both have access to the same chat GPT.
It's just how you use it.Yeah.
Yeah.And it's like you said, it's putting in the work, right?Like I, I, I've just been spending a lot more time on chat GPT and same thing, understanding new commands and ways to use it.
And like, you know, whereas like for high school kids at second nature, right.Like they'd probably be able to teach us how to use it more effectively.
But yeah, I mean, again, I think, you know, I remember when loyalty first launched and I would go to a meeting and.
I, this always baffled me because the question would be, okay, so if we put this in, like, how many hours a week do we need to spend in here?And my first thought was like, it's like going to a job interview.
And the first question you asked how many vacation days you get, it's like a big red flag, right?So it's like, well, the more time you spend in here, the more incremental revenue you can likely generate.
So if you don't want to generate a new revenue, then don't spend any time in there.And so, um, I think that's also, you know, you have to also as a vendor, be able to have these,
very direct conversations with your brands of like, take out the cost of my platform.This is going to be the cost of the people you're going to need to run this, but this is going to be the outcome for your brands.
And I think, I think that's where, you know, I think loyalty is, is still slow to kind of kind of move into that world of revenue generation, if that sounds correct.
I think there's still too many folks that look at it as a call center, maybe because their loyalty program is a call center, because they're not operating it correctly.But listen to Chipotle earnings calls, listen to Yum!Brands earnings calls.
They'll tell you everything coming through digital.That doesn't just mean online ordering.So there's money to be made there if you invest.
Yes, agreed.It's all about what you put into it and what you're going to get out of it.Jeremy, I appreciate all your insights on the loyalty piece.I want to take a little bit of a step back now and just talk about industry in general.
You obviously keep up close.You're the ground on what's going on.What are some of the tech and innovation you're seeing that's super exciting and it's going to really take off the next 6 to 12 months in this industry?
Yeah.So I think that's a good question.I think there's been some exciting tools that have been kind of generated in the last 12 months, like revenue recapture tools.
I think the challenge there is that they're predicated on third parties not shutting them down.So the smart ones out there are starting to spin up what I would call like
That piece of the tool will help them raise money, but that money is going to be invested in other technologies that they're building.Those are still yet to be seen.I think they're going to all kind of go in different directions.
I think there's been recently a lot of, I mean, I think of two, I think of Ovation and Momos have both raised significant money in the review side.I look at that side very similar to Loyalty.
We used, not to name drop, but we used Ovation at Craveworthy and we all got right on our phone in real time, the executive team feedback. You know we can take that we can reach out to a GM, GM got it as well, GM can respond to customer.
We can look at the store and say is there a major operational issue where we need to have our ops teams like drop in because something's not working right.
I think it's a very lightweight technology, but it actually carries a lot of weight with customers.The first time somebody complains, they want a response, and this allows you to do that.
That space is obviously not new by any means because of the ups of the world, but I think it's being done in a much better way. I think the other big one right now, kiosks are booming.
There's no question, you know, the transactions on kiosks are so much higher.I also think where they play a really cool role is I'm a picky eater.
So like we'll use Taco Bell, for example, I can go to Taco Bell and I can customize the heck out of anything I want to order.Now, is that great for operations?
No, but like it is bringing consumers in that don't want to go up and are bashful at a counter and saying no onions, no tomatoes. But on here, they'll customize the way.So I think that space is doing really well.
I think the other space that I keep an eye on, but I'll be honest, I don't have enough first-hand knowledge is a lot of the conversational AI. I talk to my friends at Costa Vida, they're using Presto and they love it.
I watch all of Chris's videos from Bounteous, testing out Taco Bell and their drive-through stuff.And again, it kind of goes back to our thing.
As long as you're ready, if you're willing to be first to market and know there's gonna be some bugs and challenges, then it's okay.But I think conversational AI, I think is really picking up steam.But again, I think,
really hard to make investments in new tech in this space because we are an industry that are mostly laggards, right?If you think about it took COVID to push ordering and loyalty this far ahead, right?So before that, I always laugh.
I look online and I'll see a CMO or a CIO And they're bragging about their loyalty program.And I'm like, buddy, I met with you six times.You said that loyalty had no space in the restaurants.
You got hit with COVID and blindsided and or you went to a brand that I already put a loyalty program in place and you are now reaping the benefits of it.So we're still in that space where, you know, there's.
There's a much needed changing of the guard, and I think it's starting to happen.Some of it's the refreshing and bringing people from outside the space, from retail and other more progressive industries, which I think is helping the brand.
I know I talk about Yam a lot, and a lot of it is because I've worked closely with them, but I also think they do incredible things as it relates to overall culture and employees.
So, you know, they've brought in people from, you know, the golf industry.They've recently brought people in from Jordan brand.Like they take chances and they bring in new and fresh outside perspective.
And I think the more that that happens in our industry on the brand side, the more that it's likely to grow.
Yeah.Yeah.No, I think I've been seeing a lot of cool stuff.And I think even just on the tech side, you know, there's a, there's a way smaller barrier to entry from a tech perspective, right?
Like nowadays you can come up with a good business plan and come up with a good idea and you can offshore get your MVP stood up from a product perspective versus back in the day, that was never a thing.
So it's cool to see a lot of these, you know, niche things come up, but to your point, I think it really boils down to. Are you coming in to solve a problem, like a core problem in the industry, or are you just trying to get a quick exit?Yeah.
Are you creating a fake issue that won't, and that's why I was saying like, come and work in my stores for two days and then tell me if this is a real issue.But I also think where, you know, you would ask like, what can we do better?
On one hand, us as tech vendors complain about the slow adoption of technology in our space, but at the same time, we're blocking it every day, right?
Every day that you want to go do an integration, and they're like six months, or they don't want to integrate with you, or they just want to be the one-size-fits-all and push the customer into that.
That's also where I think we're doing our industry a disservice by not growing it for the right reasons.
But again, I can say that, and I think some of this was, again, I hate talking about COVID, but I do feel like that brought our industry much closer.I think a lot of people were very much like competitor or partner.
And I think there's a lot more gray areas now and people are starting to work a little bit more collaboratively post-COVID than they were pre-COVID for sure.
Yeah, I think that sense of like creating that mode to protect all your own product versus I think, you know, just on our side, we know this because of the loyalty provider, we need a lot of APIs to be able to connect, seeing a lot of even the very, you know,
I mean, I hate calling the old school, but some of the, the, the brands that have been, or the, the, uh, the vendors that have been in space for a very long time, them starting to open up API documentation where like back in the day, that was never a thing.
It's good to see, but to your point, a lot of it, I think a lot of what happens in the industry is very knee jerk.It's very reactionary, right?Like we don't see too much of the proactive stuff.
I mean, you know, shout out to tell us, I mean, they've, they've had open APIs for years and years and years, and that contributed a lot of their success.And then. They kind of learn and either acquire or build it out themselves.
But I think to see some of the, uh, the bigger, older brands start to do it now, it just shows like the, the changing of the tide from that perspective.
Well, I think it's funny too, because I think it's very easy to use the word like legacy provider and it's taken as a bad thing, but I'd argue that legacy is, uh, really means winner. It means they've won the space for a really long time, right?
I mean, if you can't be legacy, if you're legacy, you've been able to pay the bills for a really long time, which means you're probably doing pretty well, right?
But I also think that, you know, the emergence of, and you just alluded to with talking about like Toast and their APIs, but I think, you know, when you look at the squares and the queues and the Toast,
the emergence of cloud POS has closed the gap in technology for emerging brands.When you had server on-prem like Aloha and Micros, there was only a couple of people that could do an integration like that, heavy development, right?
And like, and even those integrations weren't, they weren't great.I mean, I replaced both those systems at one of my brands to go to a cloud-based system.But now, like you have a lot of choices as a brand.
And I think where now it becomes even harder is, How do you differentiate between Instantivio, Punch, Patronix, Hang, Spengo?I could go on for 10 more brands, right?
And so I think that's where it's important to, as a vendor, be very consultative and be willing to partner with other best-in-class solutions that's going to get that brand to where they want to go.
And that's happening a little bit more, but there's still... there's still a couple of companies out there that just want to, you know, go do it on their own.So, you know, have, have fun, have fun taking that.
I mean, a lot of room for women for sure, but I still think that's what excites me a lot about this industry is that there is still, there's still so many problems to solve and there's still so much room for disruption, innovation and adoption from all sides.
And I think to your point, I mean, COVID kind of like, supercharge that, and now we're starting to see more innovation happen in the space, which is great.
In the same vein, I know it's tough for a lot of brands to be cutting or bleeding edge in innovation because their margins are so thin, they can't necessarily gamble.
But I think that cycle of technology running its course from being bleeding edge to now mainstream adoption is happening much quicker.You think about AI and ML,
you know, as much as it was buzzwords, it's now become table stakes for a lot of restaurants with like, Hey, from a marketing perspective, we want to see this stuff AI generated so we can easily go and deploy.
Yeah, no, I think you're right.I think it's nice to see and there's a couple of brands in this space that are, I've talked to them and really just said like, here's some of the stuff we're working on.What's important to you guys?
But there's a couple of brands that are just like, we want everything new.We want to try everything out there.And I'm just like, I love that founder mentality of where they're like, listen, if we fall down, we'll get right back up.
We'll try something else, but that's great.But like, we're looking for, they're looking for an advantage, right?They're not going to be able to, they can't reduce their food costs right now.They can't reduce their labor.
Those are all fixed costs for them right now.And they're just going. All right, let's figure out a new tool that I can use and get an edge against my competitors.And I think that says just a ton.Those are the brands that I wanna work with.
I wanna work with the guys that are willing to make, they sound like big bets, but at the end of the day, they're not really big bets when you look at the low impact of a lot of these systems out there.And so I think the space is exciting.
I'm definitely excited to be back in it. I don't miss seeing some of my competitors' faces, if I'm being honest with you.I like being on the brand side and letting them give me a ring to try to get my business.But again, it's who you associate with.
It's partnering with like-minded companies and people that are putting the brands first and choose where you spend your time.
Yeah, no, listen, man, appreciate all your knowledge you've dropped here.Of course, welcome back to the dark side.But at the same time, excited to chat about how we can make the industry a better place.
I think at the end of the day, that should be why we're here.I mean, not everyone's in the same boat, but I think those people always get kind of weeded out and we do our best for the industry. Um, so, you know, we're coming up on time here.
So Jeremy, I want to, you, you dropped a lot of gems, which I'll recap in a second.
But before we do that, when I finish with a quick lightning round, this just gives everybody in the audience or people listening a chance to know you a little bit better.So, uh, we'll go through it lightning round.
First thing that comes to mind, let's hear it.What's your current favorite cocktail of choice?Espresso martini.I love it.That was a trick question.I would have kicked you out.Um, In your opinion, who is the greatest athlete of all time?
Michael Jordan.Why?Oh, come on.I'm a Chicago guy.Six championships.I can go, I can go.It takes a minute for me to go through all of his records.
So you're I don't know if you could see it killer instinct. Yes.Um, you know, I know you're a Jordan guy, just like me.I mean, I got a whole stack of Jordans there, but I was actually going to throw up my Jordan Jersey, but I forgot to.
So, you know, but, um, if you were to open a restaurant tomorrow, what would the vibe be?And what would be the name of the restaurant?
Oh, man, that's like, that's a, that's really hard.I would probably.
It didn't have to be a restaurant.
It could be a barbie, whatever, like a pop-up.There was a brand I used to love in Texas.It's essentially, I think a small pizza was 11 bucks, large pizza was 13, but then they had bottles of wine up to like 300 bucks a bottle.
So your bill would be 130 bucks and it'd be two bottles of wine and one small pizza.I love the concept.And the name, Pizzazz,
That's nice.I like that.I like that.Lunch party or dinner party?Dinner party.Why?
It's a long day of drinking if we start at lunch.
It's hard to shut down.Yep. on this, I know from experience.So all those, those day parties can be funny, but a little bit earlier and don't feel like crap the next day.
But you said, now you said day pool party.That's different.I'd have to go.
Hey, it could have been anything, man.It could have been brunch pool party.I'll add that up to imagination.So, um, cool.
And, uh, just to wrap up here, Jeremy, if folks want to get, uh, in touch with you to connect, obviously you're, you're a big resource in the industry.Um, and a lot of folks, I'm sure will want to connect.
What's the best way people can get in touch with you?
Yeah, LinkedIn or just my email is Jeremy at hang.com.And again, I talk to folks on both sides of the fence daily on just general industry stuff.Don't feel like if you reach out to me, you're going to be getting some infomercial pitch on Hang.
I just love contributing.I love staying current.And so, you know, that was my big thing when I went to the brand side.
I never wanted to lose touch with the tech side, and that's why I was still present at every technology conference, even if it wasn't necessarily specifically related to my role, is just to stay relevant in space.
Love it, man.Well, Jeremy, I just want to recap some of the really cool stuff you shared on this episode.
And, you know, I think we could have probably went out and talked about a lot more, but I think some of the stuff that really stuck out to me is, you know, all this technology we have, ultimately they're tools.
It's the person behind it executing that gets the true value out of it.So you can see one brand, you know, three brands, all using the same tool, all getting different effects out of it.So it's really how good is your personnel on the other side.
to effectively manage and execute what you're trying to get out of the vision of that tool, whether it's loyalty, whether it's back of house, front of house, whatever that looks like, which I think was a great, great point.
And, um, you know, really the challenge for us on the, on the, on the vendor side is how do we make that easier for them?Right.
Um, because the tides are changing, you know, the demographic of people coming into the restaurant, some of the marketing role, uh, maybe are younger or a little bit different experience, but how do we make it easier for them to execute, to make them look like heroes?
I think that's really on us to bridge that gap.We have to spend long enough that they haven't been able to do it.We need to help them do it. Exactly.Yeah.And then you talk about the, uh, you know, kind of evolving nature of what loyalty is.
We're starting to see gamification and all these different concepts come into play too.Uh, cause again, you have to be able to appeal to different generations all through one loyalty program.
And it can't just be a cookie cutter field because the, again, the 50 year old father of three or father for whatever that looks like versus the 15 year olds that, you know, is, is still in high school.
They're not going to be, you know, resonating with the same thing.So how do you, how do you really. Provide that all in one place and make it very easy to attract and retain customers.And then really some of the stuff that's exciting.
Oh, actually the last piece about loyalty management, I thought, which was a great point, is changing that concept of it feeling like a cost center to revenue generation, uh, method.Right.
So again, I think that's, that's possibly on us because of, you know, maybe they've been burned in the past or maybe that's just how it is just as a discounting tool, but how do you truly create that to be your marketing engine and a way to get people in your door and continue to come through?
That was a great point.I think that's something that all of us can learn from regardless of what you're trying to pitch to these brands.And again, cause you're coming from the brand side, I'm sure you've been pitched that more times than not.
So, um, and then just, you know, the exciting things we've been looking at coming up in the industry, um, you know, revenue recapture tools, uh, the stuff on the feedback side, kiosks we're seeing are huge.
Actually, I was just, you know, I did a Europe trip this summer, which everyone jokes that I was there for all summer.I felt like I was, but. So many of the restaurants there, all kiosks, right?
Like a lot of the, a lot of the fast casual brands, quick service brands, like the McDonald's, like there was literally just one person on the counter, but it's designed that when you walk in, all you see is kiosks, but it was quick.
I could go with their order and just wait and get my stuff through it.So I thought that was great.
You'll, you'll appreciate this.I was in, um, I was in London when McDonald's rolled their kiosk out and it was a very late night and I just needed to eat.So we walk into a McDonald's, like awesome, 50 kiosks. I am a tech guy.
It took me 45 minutes only to realize that when they deployed their kiosk, they did not set them up to be able to take international non-European credit cards.So I was beside myself going, I don't know what I'm doing wrong.
And it was even harder because I was a tech guy and it's like three in the morning. I had to go behind the counter.They had to ring up a special device and I finally got my 20 piece nuggets.But like that was my experience with kiosks.
And I was like, what's wrong with this?
Why doesn't this thing work?That's that's funny.And yeah, man, I hear you on that because even, you know, my thing is wherever I travel in the world, I always like to I do the McDonald's test.Right.I'll try McDonald's wherever I go.Yes.Stupid.I know.
But it's just my thing.My wife doing all the time where we will try like a certain meal everywhere we go. And it's funny because when I order through the kiosk, I can pretty much get it the same every time because I can do my additional stuff, right?
So I do a little McChicken, I'll add some cheese, extra McChicken sauce, whatever.I have my order down pat.But a lot of times if I do that behind the counter, they'll tend to mess up my order, right?
Because of maybe it's language barrier or they're like, the hell this guy wants cheese on his McChicken?That's not even a thing here, right? So I find there's the only discrepancy there.
But for the most part, McDonald's is pretty consistent worldwide.But that, I find, is the difference.When I order through a kiosk, pretty consistent.
If I order directly through a person, sometimes internationally, that language barrier can change things.
Well, you think about it, right?It's kind of like integrations, right?The more points of entry or points of touching data, the more likely it is to break, right?So yeah, it makes a ton of sense.
Yeah, yeah.Jeremy, man, thanks again.Any last parting words before we sign off here?
No, I think it was great.I look forward to seeing you soon at the next conference we get to and finding a way to partner together and make a better experience for our customers.
Of course, love it, man.Jeremy, can't thank you enough.Appreciate you, all your insights, everything you shared.Again, reach out to Jeremy, jeremyathang.com if you want to get ahold of him.
We're still looking for guests on the show, so if you're interested, reach out to me at arunanatintv.com.This is another episode of Data Delicacies.We tried to do a lot of cool stuff today, so look out for the episodes.
They're dropping every Wednesday.And again, if you want to reach out to me, arunanatintv.com, or you can find me on LinkedIn, more than happy to chat.But until next time, peace.
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