00:00.00

vigorbranding

Hello Today’s guest is someone who knows a lot about data and loyalty programs which are two extremely important topics for restaurants and any brand for that matter. Our guest is Emily rugabier and she is the Vp of marketing for thanks with an x. So thanks for joining us Emily Rut Gaber I’m sorry I practiced it three times. So.

00:19.99

Emily 

Yeah, happy to be here and you almost got it rugeber very close. Um.

00:27.57

Emily 

So um, yeah, very happy to be here. Thank you so much for having me. Thanks is a guest engagement and retention platform for restaurants. Ah so that’s kind of a mouthful so I’ll tell you what that means? um. We build digital ux so we build mobile apps and web ordering experiences that help restaurants sort of differentiate themselves their first -party ordering from their third parties as I’m sure this audience knows all too. Well, the third -party platforms are higher margin. They don’t get a lot of data shared with them about the customers. And they’re actually being served ads potentially from competitors on that platform and so there’s a lot of reason to want to have your customers order directly which we help brands do we also offer really dynamic self-service loyalty programs that help restaurants sort of bake. Break free from these cookie cutter programs. You know that they launch and then they never change and many of them don’t drive measurable results and then lastly we’re a complete crm and marketing automation platform really sort of differentiated in terms of ease of use. So. There’s a lot of platforms like ours on the market. We really focus on trying to make marketing as easy as possible. We know that every single restaurant that I talk to when I talk to their marketing team. They say they’re bandwidth constrained and they sort of laugh when I talk about this because it’s so true.

01:51.36

Emily 

And they don’t have time to waste on the mechanics of creating campaigns. They want to do personalized marketing but they want to do it in a way that’s really easy so that they can get it done and prioritize it.

01:59.89

vigorbranding

very cool. very cool so okay so let’s talk data last year nation’s restaurant news said customer data is the Holy Grail of restaurant success and you know we have a data analytics company. We know that mining data is super important. We can learn everything that there is to know and.

02:06.30

Emily 

Yep.

02:18.30

vigorbranding

Allows us to make great decisions. So the same article reveal that 70% of restaurant operators don’t feel like they’re properly optimizing customer data knowing important how important data is why aren’t more restaurants making more use of it.

02:32.49

Emily 

Yeah, and just a little bit about me I sort of mentioned to this to you before we were talking before I joined. Thanks I actually worked as a business intelligence consultant I was advising some of the largest enterprises I worked with nestle I worked with sap I worked with Target Virgin America and um. This is true, not just of restaurants. This is true with many many businesses. It’s certainly not a unique problem that restaurants have but the way I like to think about this because it’s such a large sort of meaty topic is to break it into 2 categories of problems. There’s the problems associated with getting data in and then there’s the problems associated with.

03:09.23

vigorbranding

Here.

03:09.42

Emily 

Doing something with that data that is meaningful to the business so sort of breaking it down in that way and just thinking about getting data in there’s ah you know a few common challenges that we see I think restaurants generally they don’t have the resources in-house to help them make sense of the data that they have. A lot of times they don’t have the technology as well. In the case where they do have some data a lot of times the data really lives in Silos and so they don’t have a good way to centralize it and sort of make sense of it and make it usable for their internal teams and the last challenge which I think is by far and away the most common challenge. Is that they’re just not capturing enough data and this you sort of have to break it down into the online aspects and the in-store aspects I think restaurants have gotten better at the online piece just in light of the fact that they’re transacting more of their business online. Although there’s. Ah, huge amount of room for improvement with online and then there’s the in-store piece I think most revenue is still flowing through in-store channels and so um, this is where loyalty comes in right? There’s ah. Ah, variety of other avenues for capturing Data. You know you hear about wi-fi marketing you hear about reservations. For example, Loyalty is really the only proven mechanism for broadly capturing data and driving repeat purchasing from it. Um, and yet most loyalty programs.

04:23.99

vigorbranding

Man.

04:40.37

Emily 

Don’t capture a lot of data and and that’s because I mean there’s ah, there’s a couple different reasons but that’s in large part because they make guests really jump through hoops in order to engage with the program. It’s difficult to sign up. You know you have to download a mobile app How many mobile apps. Do you have on your phone.

04:40.45

vigorbranding

And.

04:58.66

Emily 

Ah, maybe you have 6 or 7 but there’s a lot more restaurants than that so they force you to download a mobile app you have to show a qr code at the register in order to earn progress and you’ve got a line of 10 people who are frustrated at you because you can’t get internet on your phone.

05:18.51

Emily 

They make it really really hard. This is an area where Thanks is really differentiated.

05:22.20

vigorbranding

We talk about a little bit more about Thanks how how is yours different. How does it look feel how how is it easier to use.

05:31.97

Emily 

Um, yes, that’s obviously a really big question the way I like to think about it is there’s sort of 4 different categories where we’re differentiated. So like I mentioned before loyalty tends to be pretty one size fits all so you know. As a consumer going to restaurants. You know you obviously have engaged with the programs. There’s a few really sort of um, there’s a few restaurants that are doing this really really? Well right? We all know the Starbucks and the chipotles and the dominoes who are doing this really well. But for the rest of. Restaurants by and large those loyalty programs are all pretty similar spend x get y um, and ah, what thanks does differently on this dimension is we allow you to build really unique differentiated bespoke Loyalty Programs so that means going outside the structure of like a spend x get y you can do really cool things that don’t rely on discounts. For example, you can offer. Ah you know a special food item. Maybe an lto some throwback from.

06:39.86

vigorbranding

Sure.

06:42.19

Emily 

Ah, the past that worked really well you can offer that just to your loyalty members for a short period of time or you can do you know um, all day happy hour for loyalty members or for a segment of your guests. You know your very best loyalty members and so creating a program that’s bespoke. That’s really. On brand doesn’t rely heavily on discounts as sort of the first area I already mentioned the piece around marketing really being designed for ease of use. There’s a variety of ways that we implement this but think of lots of automation really easy a b testing the interface. Self is really dynamic easy to use it loads really quickly all of that good stuff and then the last piece that I would say is really important is this intersection between online ordering and loyalty and this is not an area that most loyalty providers get right? because it’s really hard.

07:19.58

vigorbranding

Great.

07:35.43

vigorbranding

I hope.

07:37.27

Emily 

Every single loyalty provider and every single ordering provider are going to have distinct integrations that enable distinct capabilities and so being able to build a best-in-class integration with a variety of online ordering providers doing it in a way that’s really seamless. That’s really hard to do. That’s something that think does really well give you an example of that we have automated campaigns that you can turn on basically with a a switch of a button after you’ve designed an email which automates the process of ah you know. Incentivizing somebody to come back to an abandoned cart. So you’re about to order lunch. You realize you’re late for your meeting. You put the salad in your basket. You’ve got everything ready to go but you realize you have to go and so you leave that cart abandoned the next day you get an email that says hey why don’t you come back.

08:15.93

vigorbranding

And.

08:33.45

Emily 

You know, pick up where you left off here’s a dollar off to do so that can be completely automated. No ah you know, additional effort after the initial setup through things and through our partnerships with best in class ordering providers.

08:36.48

vigorbranding

That’s great.

08:47.22

vigorbranding

Yeah, because I mean to your point like a lot of loyalty programs are punch cards and stuff I still do one for my dog food. You know you go to punch it and and after 9 bags I get a tenth bag free and you’re you’re creating more of ah more engagement and almost like a. Ah, vip thing right? You’re treating people special by by by doing business with you being loyal there’s there’s hidden menu things like you said offers things like that and that probably and creates ah additional engagement I imagine right? and probably gets repeat visits visits and everything else.

09:09.83

Emily 

Um, ah.

09:16.42

vigorbranding

How how successful has that been is that do you have any kind of ah information around that.

09:18.88

Emily 

Yes, So there’s sort of 2 ways to think about that one is the success of the revenue that it drives and the other is the cost savings and I think on both dimensions we’re seeing that they perform much better than the alternative sort of more rote Programs. So. Um, and of course like this is that’s a broad statement. That’s not always True. You have to test these things you have to see what works which is something that we offer as well. But um, generally speaking we see about 4 times better redemption rates on targeted Non-discount rewards.

09:55.14

vigorbranding

Oh.

09:57.28

Emily 

So that’s the first piece. Um, it’s kind of like when you go get on an airplane right? or like when you’re actually before you even get on the airplane when you’re buying your ticket. Maybe you go to kayak and maybe you look for the best price and you know maybe you find a flight but there’s certain airlines you’re not going to go on.

10:14.60

vigorbranding

Oh.

10:16.70

Emily 

And there may even be that 1 airline that does cost a bit more but you go for it anyway because you know there’s a chance you might get upgraded or you know there’s a chance that you’re going to get better treatment from you know the staff ah because you’ve got that you know status and that you’ve earned. And so you know access to wi-fi these things that aren’t necessarily um, you know, direct to your bottom line but do make you feel this element of having status exclusivity et cetera so that’s one dimension. The other dimension is the cost savings. We see that.

10:35.80

vigorbranding

I.

10:53.62

Emily 

Not only do the non-discount reward work better but they obviously also cost less now some of these things have operational costs I’m not saying that. That’s not the case. Ah but a common ah idea that I tell restaurants all the time is take an existing menu hack something you are already doing you know your regulars they come in and they say hey can I get this sauce with this salad I Know it’s off menu.

11:06.83

vigorbranding

And.

11:13.60

Emily 

And they’ll do it for you because it’s easy take that put it on your menu make it a special. Um, you know members only exclusive or top tier member only exclusive and um, use that as an incentive it costs you nothing.

11:27.33

vigorbranding

I love it. Makes everyone feel like an insider makes them feel special and endears under the brand. So what do you think is like the number 1 mistake that you see restaurants making when it comes to designing designing these loyalty programs.

11:30.59

Emily 

Yeah, exactly.

11:41.20

Emily 

Yeah, it’s a hard question because there’s a couple of them. Um I think a lot of times the the first one that I’ll say is I think a lot of times brands spend a lot of time upfront when they’re launching their loyalty program trying to come up with the perfect.

11:44.72

vigorbranding

Um.

11:57.27

Emily 

Idea for how the loyalty program should be structured I’ve actually heard of brands hiring very expensive management consultants and paying them hundreds of thousands of dollars to help them come up with their initial program structure and there’s not necessarily anything wrong with that. It’s expensive. I would suggest you know unless you can really justify that and have vetted that thoroughly just get started try something obviously talk to your loyalty provider and they should be able to provide best practices and recommendations but try it get started and then iterate on it. Once you launch the program your customers will tell you what they like right? you got a reward marketplace with 15 rewards in it and you’re seeing that you know 3 of them are never touched. That’s probably a good opportunity to reevaluate whether those rewards should be on the menu. Maybe they should be on the menu but they need to be. On the menu at a lower cost and you can figure out based on the effective discount rate of each of your rewards. What makes the most sense and what’s most cost effective. So that’s the first one is I would say like don’t overengine engineer the upfront setup but just iterate on it over time. The reality is.

13:07.61

vigorbranding

7

13:11.33

Emily 

That’s really difficult to do in most loyalty platforms and so you have to talk to an account manager you have to do a six-week development cycle you have to do kind of like a transition a full relunch of the program. Um, so there may be some technology barriers there. But if you can. Try to think about it as like an ongoing iteration as opposed to a point in time thing that never changes brands on thanks change their loyalty programs on average 9 times a year yeah exactly the the other one that I would say is we regularly see brands.

13:35.13

vigorbranding

Fantastic I Assume you help them navigate that.

13:47.22

Emily 

Prioritizing cost saving measures in loyalty program management opting for cheaper technology solutions or you know minimal rewards offerings. They don’t want to make that upfront and investment. But I think an over emphasis on.

13:57.22

vigorbranding

Yeah.

14:03.16

Emily 

Cost savings can result in lower program participation and missed revenue opportunities in the long run. So when you invest in you know, high quality technology partner and sort of innovative reward structures. You can really start to maximize ah Roi of the loyalty program and drive that sustained growth which is the whole point.

14:20.60

vigorbranding

Very cool I mean we see I mean everything about data is personalized customer experiences and I know that’s what you guys are all about but yet we still see all these restaurants doing this one size fits all stuff and it just doesn’t work. Does it.

14:34.95

Emily 

Um, yeah, it’s I think that one size fits all marketing the broad base top of mind marketing does have a purpose you’re trying to stay top of mind. Um. That being set it has to be complemented by a more personalized approach for sure. Um I Think if you if you look at why restaurants aren’t personalizing most of the time It’s not because people think it’s not important or it’s not going to drive results.

14:50.19

vigorbranding

Have you.

15:07.92

Emily 

It’s because it’s actually really hard if you’re going to run a personalized strategy. You’re probably creating 3 emails instead of 1 or 5 emails instead of 1 somebody has to design those emails somebody has to determine what the strategy should be somebody has to.

15:20.58

vigorbranding

Ah.

15:25.25

Emily 

Determine What the incentives should be and what the messaging should be. That’s that’s real work that someone has to do and as I mentioned before a lot of times these restaurant teams are really really small and they don’t have a lot of Bandwidth so it has to be really easy and I think um, the other challenge is maybe you put in that effort. And you put in that energy and then you run the campaign and you get a result and you say was that good was that bad I don’t know was it better than I would have gotten if I had done nothing is there something that I could have done that would have been even more important and so you’re left with this sort of unresolved state.

15:51.14

vigorbranding

You.

16:03.86

Emily 

And now you’re thinking was all that effort. Really worth it and you just don’t know and so I think this is where multivariate testing can come in so you can actually sort of see okay was free fries versus the free shake versus doing nothing at all actually worthwhile and you just let the results of the campaign.

16:18.31

vigorbranding

Drive it? yep.

16:23.13

Emily 

Define What you do and ideally in the scenario where it’s something that you can automate you automate the heck out of it So you’re not forcing your team to rebuild and rebuild and rebuild.

16:33.25

vigorbranding

Makes total sense so when we’re talking like data’s role in shaping how we use different tools. There’s there’s social media. There’s we talked a lot about email for marketing tools is there 1 that you prefer more is one more effective pros and cons can you talk about that a little bit.

16:45.66

Emily 

Um.

16:48.53

Emily 

Yeah I mean the devil’s in the details here. Um I think both social media and email marketing can be effective tools for restaurants but the effectiveness really depends on a variety of factors such as who the audience is what the goal is what the content strategy is. Um, I think the way I like to think about this and break this down I was actually I was at a conference last year I was at the meg conference the marketing executive group conference and I was sitting at a table. Um, there were like these roundtables and I was sitting at a table.

17:18.42

vigorbranding

Um.

17:24.70

Emily 

Talking to a bunch of restaurant marketers just sort of listening in. It was a facilitated session by another team and they were talking about segmentation. They’re talking about the challenges that restaurant marketers face with segmentation what they should do and the reality was I think everyone went around and they had like a hand raise of. Who here is doing any sort of segmented marketing and I I want to say like beyond just like the very very basic stuff and I want to say maybe 3 out of 10 people raised their hand and as I was listening to some of the challenges it really boiled down to.

17:55.40

vigorbranding

Ah.

18:00.81

Emily 

Just don’t know where to start like I think a lot of times restaurant marketers are thinking about segmentation in terms of like demographic segmentation or maybe they’re thinking like you’re you know, very basic like your top spenders versus not top spenders. What I think is been helpful and what I’ve heard in talking with folks is really helpful is sort of this ah like idea of a framework for how to think about how do you even approach this stuff to start and there’s a variety of ways to do this that can be done really well. But if you’re trying to figure out where to get started I like to advise thinking about it in terms of the lifecycle.

18:35.95

Emily 

Your customers who have only made 1 purchase or maybe 2 purchases. They’re very different than your customers who’ve come in 6 times and who have been coming in regularly once a month versus the people who haven’t been in it all in the last one hundred and eighty days and so think about the customer lifecycle in terms of. You to be acquired customers your to be activated customers meaning they need to have at least made 3 purchases in a certain period of time your engaged customers which are the people that you want to engage and incrementally improve their behavior. They’re also the ones you want to retain over time and then there’s the churned. Customers and there’s really no sense in spending a lot of time on customers that genuinely are not coming back to your business because they have demonstrated no frequency in the last year for example so if you think about it in terms of you know to be acquired activated engaged and churned. You can think about okay, well you know. The way that you’re going to talk to somebody who has only made 1 purchase should be very very different than the way you’re going to talk to somebody who comes in all the time and so for the group let’s say that you want to engage or excuse me that you want to activate. Um, you know think about how do you get that next incremental purchase.

19:50.43

vigorbranding

Who.

19:52.63

Emily 

You know from 1 to 2 and how do you go from 2 to 3 and once you get over that hump of activated. We actually see on our platform. We did a study a couple years back if you can get somebody to make a third purchase. They are actually 10 times more likely to come back than somebody who has only made 1 purchase.

20:08.74

vigorbranding

And.

20:10.95

Emily 

And so if you can get them to sort of start to build that habit they can be so much more materially impactful on your business and so just thinking about it that way and breaking it down in a way that sort of it. Maybe it seems a little bit simplistic. Ah, but even that can be difficult to execute on you can think about you know. Just for 1 campaign getting somebody from 1 to second purchase sorry from first to second purchase maybe you got to do a drip series of 3 outreaches and so to me getting back to your original question I think social media can be excellent for acquiring.

20:46.52

vigorbranding

And who.

20:47.48

Emily 

New customers. You can build like lookalike campaigns based on your existing customers that are really high value. You can build that lookalike campaign and try to acquire more customers like them I think social media can be excellent at that once you get into the lifecycle. Thinking about well what’s their preference. Maybe they’ve signed up to receive sms you want to use sms with that person. Maybe there’s somebody who said no I don’t want to engage on Sms you can use email so it really just depends. But I tend to think of social media as being a little bit more about acquisition.

21:12.60

vigorbranding

And.

21:19.41

Emily 

Email marketing being a little bit more about people who have opted in and said yes I want to receive emails from you.

21:23.40

vigorbranding

very cool. very cool it was funny last week I was speaking to a bunch of folks and we talk about they asked me to speak on food trends and we’ve been doing this trends presentation for 15 years and you know I looked back and I always like to look back see these trends that we predicted things that we talked about.

21:39.26

Emily 

Are.

21:41.63

vigorbranding

Are they relevant how did they evolve and in the very beginning I mean like twelve thirteen years ago the phones and everything were so new that it was like well we can tell people where your restaurant is like it was a big deal like ooh people can find me now and you know and that’s obviously just so so primitive at this point. And now it’s like it slides all the way up to say like food talk and everything else. So everybody wants to see the restaurant. They want to see everything about it. The food being made all the different things. Everything’s at our fingertips I mean and you you talk about the segmentation which is really super smart going back like the metrics have changed right? It used to be just about getting likes or or impressions.

21:59.90

Emily 

Yeah.

22:16.11

vigorbranding

So you’re talking about all this all these conversions and you know marking dollars are finite. How are you making those conversions easier or at least more affordable to achieve how how is thanks helping with that.

22:18.70

Emily 

Are.

22:27.11

Emily 

Ah, yeah I mean that’s a big question. There’s a lot of different ways. Um I would say what you’re really talking about is like how do you justify the ah roi of a solution like things and um Roi is a pretty complex.

22:44.47

Emily 

Calculation because there are so many different mechanisms to drive revenue and there’s so many opportunities to save costs. Um I think the obvious one is around you know revenue from spend or frequency lift from Loyalty members. Um.

22:57.97

vigorbranding

Who.

23:03.12

Emily 

We do a really good job of getting customers to sign up for loyalty as I mentioned and so if you think about there’s a metric called participation rate or capture rate which is essentially the percentage of revenue attributable to a loyalty member and that rate. Tends to be in like the 5 to 10 percent range for most restaurants we drive 30% in six months and that is through a variety of levers. But think of we don’t require you to download an app to participate in loyalty. We do a proprietary card linked. Ah tokenization which allows us to track purchases through credit card swipes instead of through you know these jumping through hoops that I was referring to earlier the combination of those things allow us to drive enrollment in.

23:48.60

vigorbranding

Um.

23:56.36

Emily 

I guess the the other one is we optimize digital ordering for loyalty as well. So that everyone who places places an order online is enrolled into loyalty and those things allow us to see something like 10 to 15 times the enrollment of our competitors and. That combined with of course the frequency lift. You’re going to see with any good loyalty program that you know have a bigger audience or are sort of more pool of revenue that can be influenced because you have the better capture rates and then of course you’re going to see the frequency and spend lift on top of that. So that’s like the primary one that’s kind of the obvious one. Um. With a more modern ordering ah user experience. You’re going to see higher order conversion rates. We see order conversion rates in like the eighty to ninety five percent range which is insane.

24:42.70

vigorbranding

Ah.

24:47.52

vigorbranding

Um, right.

24:48.30

Emily 

You also know you you’re driving people online people spend more when they’re online and so there’s going to be a natural lift from just driving more people into ordering. We talked about the cost savings from moving folks over from third party delivery over to first-part delivery one I I can’t remember if we talked about this at. Or not but just the cost savings from the removal of generic and unnecessary discounting. We see brands who are in like the 5% even like the 8 % discount range which is whoops which is quite a bit. A lot of our customers are in like the 1 to 2% effective Discount range. So that’s a huge area where you can see improved roi cost savings on campaigns obviously with a b testing things like that and then I think one that’s a little bit tougher to measure but is absolutely material is just the amount of time you’re saving for people who are not having to do as manual of.

25:23.63

vigorbranding

And.

25:41.10

Emily 

Ah, lift from a you know marketing perspective.

25:44.42

vigorbranding

Yeah, well I loved reading about your company I was impressed by the whole idea of ah trying to avoid the discounts for the loyalty all the time I mean let’s face it I mean giving people a discount is just that it’s cutting into their it’s cutting into their overhead their profit and everything else. So it’s great that you can just kind of keep them back and then the customer value.

25:51.48

Emily 

Um, ah.

25:57.39

Emily 

It’s.

26:02.22

Emily 

O.

26:02.33

vigorbranding

Lifetime customer value the loyalty bringing them back over and over again 4 times. Ah, really obviously increases that we were talking to a restaurant last week at really nice restaurant. Really good revenues. Um, but they really weren’t getting people to do repeat visits. It was they were too infrequent. Ah. Actually maybe we should recommend your program I mean it’s ah it’s definitely. Ah, it’s definitely something they need because there’s nothing wrong with the restaurant. You know I mean it wasn’t the prices weren’t too high. The the quality of food was fantastic. Um, they just were not getting lots of repeat I think there’s a lot of competition in that marketplace.

26:20.11

Emily 

Ah, oh please.

26:25.92

Emily 

Her. Yeah.

26:35.45

vigorbranding

And maybe people are just going around but a loyalty program I think would help them ensure that second that third and then on on and on and on visits. So I think that’s great.

26:38.58

Emily 

Who.

26:44.34

Emily 

Yeah I was actually just talking to Rob Ertman from mobatas he’s the Ceo of mobeters I was talking to him a couple of days ago and I was asking him for a case study about his. Ah, loyalty program and I couldn’t believe that words that were coming out of his mouth because it was exactly what me as a marketer wants to hear in terms of like trying to write a case study. He’s seen 7 straight months of positive same store sales comps and that is in light of the fact that they’re growing super rapidly. So there’s some cannibalization of existing sales that’s happening he had.

27:12.21

vigorbranding

In here.

27:16.70

Emily 

15 x increase in enrollment in 1 year versus his previous program which he had had for 5 years and they had seen almost immediately upon transitioning to thanks and actually their online ordering provider olo a 30% increase in digital sales and this was literally like he was just telling me this stuff. And I was of course like furiously writing it down as quickly as I possibly could that like you can’t argue with those results. He attributes a lot of that success to the partnership with thanks which of course we really appreciate but you know in reality it can be hard sometimes to measure. Um.

27:40.68

vigorbranding

Ah, yeah, it’s great.

27:52.61

Emily 

You know how do you know? if you’re increasing customer lifetime value. How do you know? if you’re increasing frequency right? because it’s it’s heavily biased by how many new stores you’re opening and how many new purchasers are in there and so just being able to sort of relate it back to the real metrics that matter those same store sales comps et cetera that that was really powerful to me and you know.

27:58.41

vigorbranding

Whoop right.

28:11.76

Emily 

We of course would love referral over to whoever you were speaking with, but we do genuinely believe in the power of doing loyalty correctly and you know that that’s what gets me excited Obviously as I talk about this.

28:20.65

vigorbranding

Absolutely yeah, it’s great. Yeah, you’re passionate about it’s awesome I mean look let’s face it as marketers we get blamed for everything goes wrong. So when they when things finally go right? We’re allowed to take some credit I mean we deserve some credit there. So I’d get that guy on video and use that as a case study and have it in his words I’d be pushing that out to everybody. So I’m sure good. Yeah yeah I mean nothing sounds better than coming out of the you know the person’s mouth so that’s that’s awesome.

28:39.74

Emily 

Ah, you can find it on our website now but I didn’t do a video I I probably should have ah maybe that’s the next thing.

28:48.57

Emily 

Absolutely absolutely.

28:50.87

vigorbranding

So when we talk about these these these potential these well not potential, but the restaurant does it work for a single location restaurant white tablecloth is it. 10 locations is it a hundred I mean how scalable like talk about your sweet spot.

29:05.63

Emily 

Yep, excuse me. Um our service is scalable and it can benefit multi-unit restaurants from I would say like 5 location establishments up to the biggest of the big chains. Yeah.

29:14.91

vigorbranding

Got you very cool, very cool. Um, so like what’s next for. Thanks I Mean do you have anything new. You know it’s deep. It’s it’s it’s a tech so you guys are always working and and and rethinking and and recalibrating what’s what’s next is there anything you can talk tell us about.

29:28.37

Emily 

Yes, we are very fastmoving I think we did one hundred and twenty five customer-facing releases last year alone and so there are lots and lots of things that we’re working on I know our our product and engineering teams work really hard which I appreciate. It’s a marketer because it gives me lots of cool stuff to talk about. Um.

29:33.70

vigorbranding

Well.

29:44.52

Emily 

The the big one that’s top of mind for me that I’m currently working on is the launch of a new capability which will allow brands right in the thanks Dashboard in real time to make an insane level of customization to their app experiences. So we already have we call it a ah cms a content management system.

30:01.31

vigorbranding

To have.

30:04.42

Emily 

Which allows restaurants to you know interact with and change the user experience of the mobile mobile app right? from our dashboard we’re making that 10 times more customizable say so a lot of times brands are forced to make this choice between you know, either. They have to have a you know they they have to go with the branded app that’s available from the loyalty provider which is really inflexible or they have to pay for a custom app experience that costs a fortune and takes months to update anytime you want to make a change to it so this is basically going to help brands who.

30:30.83

vigorbranding

Day.

30:42.57

Emily 

To solve that problem without the expense and so we’re going to add a ton of customizability think about the styling like the way that you know the sweetgreens app looks with the drop shadows and the little refinements around the edges and just those nuances that make the mobile experience just feel.

31:01.57

vigorbranding

Um, sure Yeah, that’s great word.

31:02.20

Emily 

More modern and you know for lack of a better word sexier and so I’m really excited about this where yeah we’re we’re sort of enabling all of that through our dashboards which you know I I know that restaurants are gonna be really excited about because it’s It’s a reflection of their brand which is super important.

31:20.63

vigorbranding

Very cool. Well Emily you’re fantastic I have ah 1 last question for you if you had 1 final meal. What would you eat where and why.

31:32.17

Emily 

Um, I’m terrible at questions like this I’m sorry I’m okay at talking about marketing and thanks but terrible questions. It’s because I can’t make up my mind I love food and I yeah it’s like trying to narrow it down. So I I I think I would have to say um, some sort of tapas.

31:48.12

vigorbranding

Um, nice. Yeah, it’s gonna say you know to make your decision here. It’s perfect. You covered everything that’s awesome. Well well this is great Emily is there anything else, you’d like to talk about any us you want to cover here I mean this is a great ah overview of the company what you’re doing. It’s ah it’s quite impressive.

31:49.72

Emily 

Restaurant like a Spanish Spanish topist restaurant where I can get like a bunch of little small plates and not have to make up my mind. Yeah.

32:08.60

vigorbranding

And ah, you know, really really? ah, really happy. We’re on the show.

32:10.42

Emily 

Yeah, Thank you so much for having me. Um I Guess the last thing I would say is if you’re interested in talking about any of this stuff I Obviously love to talk about it happy to chat. So you can reach out and we have a you know form on our website where you can learn more about thanks and so you know. Let us know and we’re here to chat.

32:32.30

vigorbranding

Fantastic. Well thank you so much Emily we will ah certainly be in touch right? Bye bye.

32:34.91

Emily 

Sounds great. Thank you.