00:00.00
vigorbranding
Everyone today I am joineded by my friend Zach Goldstein he is the Ceo and founder of thanks a system that we are going to dig into but we’re going to talk about a lot of other things today too before we do Zach say hello give a little bit of backstory.

00:15.63
Zach Goldstein
Yeah, pleasure. Really happy to be with you. My background started before thanks and working with restaurants and retailers to to really build customer lifetime value and that has become a passion of mine. Ah, That’s really what thanks does targeted at Restaurants. How do we help them identify where their best customers are and make more of their customers. Those best customers.

00:38.65
vigorbranding
I Love it. So a few years ago you you penned an article and I think this this is what really struck me and um, you know serves as a basis for the episode a little bit but that article is called the 4 horsemen of the restaurant apocalypse which of course is a very doom gloom. It’s very like whoa. Um, what does that mean and I think the article centers on taking some lessons from the travel industry and the effect that online travel agencies otas for short had on evolving our experiences as travelers. Um. 1 of those big influences that the ots had was I think it shifted the industry into a pricing game. It made it a commodity Essentially so restaurant leaders now are talking about what you kind of reference here which is taking queues like dynamic pricing. For instance, how do you think. Dynamic pricing can actually benefit the industry and how do we avoid a situation where it becomes price shopping solely.

01:36.69
Zach Goldstein
Yeah, and I’ll take 1 quick step back which is the reason we we know what the answers are to this challenge is that we’ve seen it before in travel as you said and the playbook is pretty simple. You need to own the relationship with your customer because if you sacrifice that. To the third party then you have no control over their lifetime value and then you need to personalize the incentives for that customer to keep coming back to you because you’re actually not in a 1 time battle for that customer. You’re in a repeat battle for that customer and you have to lock them in. As you think about the why? Why do you need to own that customer. That’s where there’s an opportunity when you have a direct relationship with the customer There’s a margin difference which you can play with which includes giving some of that margin back to the customer to lock them in There’s also the opportunity to create loyalty and the things we know about loyalty is customers are more resilient to difficult experiences. They are more likely to refer friends. They are more likely to have a higher visit frequency. All of this converts into higher lifetime value and what that allows you to start doing are things like dynamic pricing going back to your question which is if you know when someone comes in what they’re buying who they are. You can actually deliver.

03:04.36
Zach Goldstein
An experience that sometimes will be more expensive for a customer but with reason and you can actually justify that and other times will be a better deal for customers aligning your business ah realities to what you communicate to a customer is a huge opportunity in any business. And it’s really difficult if all your customers are anonymous.

03:26.14
vigorbranding
Yeah I love it. It’s it’s kind of like what delta has done so I’m a delta nerd because I’m based in Atlanta um, but I think given the opportunity to choose an airline for instance Delta Delta would most likely be my choice again. They’ve made some one fantastic moves with their partnership with American Express which is.

03:33.72
Zach Goldstein
With you.

03:43.56
vigorbranding
You know the business credit card to have um so there’s always been that or at least has been that for a while but then they started launching other initiatives like ah ah a partnership with Lyft L Y F T the ridesharing service where for every mile or take with Lyft I get a mile on sky miles which. And the grand scheme of things. It’s not going to amount to something astronomical, but it’s every little bit and then I think in this past year or I’m sorry in 2022 now they connect it with Starbucks which you know people say it’s a coffee brand I think it’s a business brand you know it’s absolutely a business brand so this makes so much sense. Um, and I think there’s ah, a path for restaurants to take queuees from delta’s lead as well in owning the relationship like you said finding out new ways of benefiting the customers as well. Um, and it does come down to that app experience as well. Which obviously thanks is in. Partially the app game. Obviously it’s loyalty and there’s so much more. But when it really comes down to it. There’s an app involved. Um, how can brands leverage the power of I’ll use the the o word out of the box app experiences and make it. As um, unique and ah powerful as like a delta or a Starbucks um app you know because those are obviously very highly custom. They’re not built on an out-of the box platform. How how could they get to that level.

05:13.85
Zach Goldstein
Yep, ah, well first of all, we’ve been talking about the iteration of loyalty programs now for for a couple years and we believe that we are entering and thanks is is at the forefront of what we call loyalty 3.0 which is. No longer about just rote rewards programs and discounts and more around personalization and that really matters because as you deliver more personalization. You actually can become less dependent on discounts as your loyalty mechanism. And still be effective you you actually mentioned delta 1 of the most important perks there is the chance that you’ll get upgraded on a flight as a vip member which by the way cost them nothing those were and unsold seats. There are opportunities in restaurants that.

05:49.74
vigorbranding
And.

06:04.95
vigorbranding
Um.

06:08.13
Zach Goldstein
Ah, we believe are similar so we see some of our leading brands use hidden menus or secret menus as an incentive for loyalty. It doesn’t actually have a big cost to say you’re going to get. Longer access to this lto. The example I always give is can you imagine what? Mcdonald’s top. 1 % customers would do if they had year -round mcribs. That’s the type of thing people care about and those top 1% customers mcdonald’s would care about that a lot more than they care about getting a discount so there are again.

06:39.92
vigorbranding
That’s very.

06:41.84
Zach Goldstein
Learnings from the travel industry that we can bring forward in restaurants as you think about the app Experience. We make apps for our customers we have ah hundreds of them out there and yet I’ll be the first to say I do not believe a loyalty program should be app dependent that is a fallacy because most. Consumers are unlikely to download your app and so your loyalty program needs to be able as a restaurant to be embedded in your web ordering experience to be able to be earned even if someone does not have their app directly.

07:03.29
vigorbranding
And.

07:19.72
Zach Goldstein
On their phone and one of the ways we do that it thanks is we make it so that consumers can register a payment card and just by using that payment card automatically be recognized for their purchasing not have to scan something or check in or do all these things the app. However. I’m I’m not willing to write it off and the reason is because we see that users of a restaurant’s app have much higher lifetime value Now. There’s a little bit of selection Bias there. The people who are already spending the most money with you are more likely to download your app, but there’s a reason to give those people.

07:53.50
vigorbranding
Um.

07:56.52
Zach Goldstein
Additional touch points and if they they want to keep the app on their phone because that makes it easier for them to do 1 click reordering. That’s worth your investment to enable. Ah for a restaurant that’s fighting for every dollar of lifetime value.

08:11.10
vigorbranding
Absolutely yeah and it’s it’s funny because I think there are a lot of restaurants out there. Um restaurant leaders not not at the very top of the of the scale but you know the smbs out there that have been convinced successfully by folks in the loyalty game that the app is the answer. So. It’s refreshing to hear you say that it’s actually not the answer. It is an answer to a bigger, a bigger need. What was interesting to me is I got to spend some time with friends of mine sam and Jason over at big chicken. Um, and they were working have worked on.

08:47.40
vigorbranding
Yeah I’m not in an Nda or anything and I saw them talk about it in public. So I feel like I can say this where say I’m a jasoncent. So sorry if if I wasn’t supposed to they tie their loyalty directly to the credit card transaction. So they know that you know Zach is coming in and he’s spending Xy and z based on the credit card data. That comes through that is inherently tied to zack. Um, which I found quite interesting because you actually it doesn’t require sign up at all. Um, now I think what’s really difficult for a lot of leaders to think about is you mentioned discounting isn’t the only solution. Ah, you did also mention hidden menu stuff. But what other. Ah, perks have you seen that seem to get traction beyond the the word free or the blank percent or dollar off offerings.

09:33.91
Zach Goldstein
Look there’s no doubt that the more of a discount. You give the more people you’ll get in your loyalty program. That’s correlated. However, there should be a doubt about does continuing to give those discounts does does that actually result. Does that actually result in higher lifetime value and that’s not as clear ah because consumers respond to non-discount things quite effectively. Let’s give you some examples. We have a restaurant who used to quarterly ah invite. Ah, focus group. They would pay a company to bring in a series of guests to try their their next seasonal menu that company is now actually ah that company is now actually inviting their VIP guests

10:30.33
Zach Goldstein
So those Vip guests are coming in and they view it as a perk and instead of having to pay a focus group to give you feedback. It’s now a reward for your guests something you’re already doing they saved money. They got more relevant feedback and they drove.

10:33.51
vigorbranding
8

10:47.80
Zach Goldstein
Actual repeat purchasing from those guests who feel rewarded isn’t that actually the definition of a loyalty program at the end of the day not just by X get y we see brands that turn ah their vips into billboards by offering limited edition Swag that can you can only get.

11:04.23
vigorbranding
A.

11:07.24
Zach Goldstein
1 time as a vip and now that customer is walking around with that special edition hat and people are asking them about it think outside the traditional confines of a loyalty program and you actually drive down what we call the effective discount rate how much in discounts are you giving away for every dollar spent. And sometimes you can drive up the repeat purchasing rate at the same time and when you decouple those it’s amazing. What kind of benefits you can see for a restaurant.

11:36.79
vigorbranding
Yeah I love that you know the Schwag can actually be a bad word sometimes but um, you know merchandise that is I think customer centric so it’s not just blasting your logo on a thing and then passing it out save those for the trade shows god knows we need more of them. Um. You couldn’t see the eye roll if you’re listening to this. There was a big eye roll. Um, but you know looking at brands that have ah become more than their food and become more lifestyle driven I think that’s really important that’s something that we you know preach here at Vicker is think beyond the hamburger think beyond the taco. Um. And of course it’s easy to grasp at Taco Bell and dunkin’ donuts and ah Starbucks to bring them up again. They have become more than what they actually serve as far as food and I think that’s a really important layer to get to. But that doesn’t mean that a mom and pop are a small smb can’t either. In fact I think they had the better opportunity because they feel more connected with their people. Anyway, the key is I think you’ve alluded to knowing who that person is so referencing that article again. The 4 horsemen of the restaurant apocalypse you. You note that obviously great food and grace service just isn’t enough any longer and that that data which you talked about a second ago as well. Specifically the customer data. So what types of restaurants are you seeing that are doing the best job of harnessing their customer data and ah.

12:58.17
vigorbranding
Are there any specific ones that you think may be lagging behind.

13:01.64
Zach Goldstein
Yeah, So ah I think we as a result of ah that four horseman thesis I think we are actually seeing a future world of restaurants where every single restaurant needs to have a loyalty program perhaps shy of. Very high end experience of white tablecloth restaurants or put different way from a technology standpoint if you are always on reservations and Waitlist. You can probably get away without a loyalty program. But for everyone Else. You’re going to have to have one and by the way this is what we’ve seen in travel in Hotels. There’s not a hotel or an airline without a loyalty program. That’s because data is King at the end of the day you have to have data and there’s no other way in a restaurant to capture that data again unless you have reservations and you’re fully booked every single day. Other than a loyalty program. Um, what does that mean it means that this next year ah has to mean that every loyalty program can’t be exactly the same because if that’s the case. It’s no longer a benefit and so you need to differentiate. The the thing that ultimately will matter about the efficacy of a loyalty program will be what we call revenue capture rate what percentage of your revenue is attributable to a known and reachable customer. So known you have some measure of their identity reachable. You can talk to them on at least one channel.

14:29.20
Zach Goldstein
Email Sms app you got to be able to talk to that customer if you’re going to expect to change their behavior when they’re not in the 4 walls of your restaurant and we see some of the best programs Starbucks is at fifty five sixty percent capture rate. But historically. Ah especially with the legacy loyalty players in our space. It’s been said oh well, you’re good if you’re at 15 that’s not true. That’s just because of the limitations historically of loyalty programs at 15% you better have the world’s best marketing if you’re expecting. It’s going to change your top line at 60% you can have just slightly better than average marketing and you’re impacting a far larger number of people and so that’s actually the the number 1 thing. How do I get people into my program and how do I keep them coming back so that my capture rate is high. Our best customers are seeing upwards of 70% capture rate and that gives them the ability to change behavior of of more customers. The second thing you got to be looking at in the data is. What is the repeat purchasing rate and in particular we look at 2 things. What is your third purchase conversion. There’s a massive correlation between customers who make 3 purchases and ultimately those who have higher lifetime values and what is your regular customer breakage. So that’s customers.

16:01.78
Zach Goldstein
Who made multiple purchases in the previous six months how many have stopped coming in at all in the next six months by tracking those 2 numbers and actually running segmented campaigns to try to change those numbers. You can actually drive top line revenue and same store sales growth. Um, then the last thing that I would say is around what is the effective discount rate of your loyalty program because it’s anyone can drive third purchases if you’re given away too much money. Are you doing it in a margin appropriate way for your brain and that’s different for every brand. But you got to keep an eye on that and ultimately that may mean reducing your discounts for the average customer focusing those benefits on your vip customer or perhaps using some of these non-discount options. Um the answer to your question will start with who’s doing it. Well the most remarkable chart. Ah, of public restaurant companies is the Chipotle stock price chart it’s it’s mind blowing Chipotle famously said we’re not going to have a loyalty program. They had a major food food health problem. They had no way to reach out to customers personally so they had no way to know who their v ips were.

17:10.45
vigorbranding
Um, a.

17:15.93
Zach Goldstein
Stock price lost 80% of its value. Turns out, it’s really hard to drive repeat purchasing if you don’t know who your best customers are they launch a loyalty program they lead in digital. They are now approach 53% of revenue through digital more than a billion billion dollars and suddenly there’s stock price 500% growth from that low to about 2022 when it was at its peak. That’s the value of data right? there. It’s a risk to not have it and it’s an opportunity when you have it. I think when we look at just sticking with public restaurants. As an example when we look at some of the brands whose stock prices have been languishing. You will see almost to a to a t they are the ones without customer data. They’re living in an old version of restaurants where we just have to keep launching new menu items. And doing good Tv ads that’s going to cut it from a marketing standpoint anymore.

18:19.41
vigorbranding
Yeah, so the app side of things. Let’s talk about the marketing that you just mentioned so one of the challenges that a lot of brands that I’ve spoken with and brands that we work with have had is getting people on the app. So Once they’re on. Yes Yes, the world is Wonderful. Um. How do you market to people to get them to download an app. How do you get them to overcome that app fatigue that you I think that’s a term a term you coined or at least I’m saying you coined it. So um, how do they get over that hump How do you get him into it and how do you minimize that fatigue so they use it.

18:52.85
Zach Goldstein
Yeah, so I think one of the misconceptions is that your entry point into your loyalty program should be a big old billboard that says sign up for our loyalty program or should be. Download our app as the first thing you do we’ve all had this experience. You download an app. It’s like 5 or 6 steps before you’re actually in the app. Plus you gotta wait for that little thing to load like that is the slowest way to get a person into a program that’s ever been created. So if it’s your primary way seems pretty foolish. What? Ah yeah.

19:30.97
vigorbranding
If I if I could answer that and then and and then you get the offer the offer that is only valid for the next time. So it’s even more frustrating.

19:39.36
Zach Goldstein
Yep yep! So so one of the one of the critical things that we do that many of our actually none of our competitors do is that we build the loyalty enrollment flow. Directly into the digital ordering experience inclusive of the web turns out seventy plus percent of online orders happen via a website not via an app even if the app already exists. So what does that look like go through your first digital purchase. Perhaps there’s an incentive waiting for you. And in the checkout flow. There’s a little box that you can check that says sign up to make sure that this credit card whenever it’s used automatically earns rewards in the future and I’ll receive loyalty benefits. Well, that’s a no-brainer. Automatically is a convenience thing for me. So why wouldn’t I and loyalty benefits are being given to me for free that sounds great. So there’s a ninety plus percent opt-in rate in that checkout flow which by the way is how ecommerce has been doing this for decades now you’ve got the person. In your program now you can tell them about the benefits of the app and some of them will download. So by the way did you know our app has 1 ne-click reordering by the way did you know our app has exclusive access to the hidden menu by the way blah blah blah blah blah and so put the app sign ups.

21:08.79
Zach Goldstein
Lower in the conversion funnel as opposed to at the top and you actually will see far more people join your crm and you’ll even get far more app download as a result we before covid where digital per digital ordering was relatively small for most brands. We. We saw a lot of brands that were focused on their loyalty sign up strategy now most brands are actually focused on their get the first digital purchase strategy and oh by the way that’s a great onramp into the loyalty program as well. And in fact, that’s really smart. Because one of the predictors of high lifetime value is customers who are multi-channel they’ve made a digital order and in in-store order. In fact, the last thing I’ll say there is we’re seeing a pretty big trend right now of brands that are making their loyalty program. You can earn. Loyalty rewards by making purchases in store or on digital channels. But the only place you can redeem loyalty benefits is on digital channels 2 big 2 big opportunities 1 you eliminate all the operational burden in store of teaching your staff how to deal with the loyalty program and 2 you can actually move much more quickly iterating on your program because you’re not beholden to whatever legacy point of sale. You’re likely working with and so.

22:36.26
Zach Goldstein
Brands are leaning into this new digital Era in a way that I think is is actually really changing the restaurant industry for the better.

22:43.59
vigorbranding
Yeah, it’s interesting that you mentioned in Legacy Pos I Mean we we are finally ah I think for the better but not without pain in the world where convergence is happening right in front of our faces with restaurant technology.

22:53.73
Zach Goldstein
The.

22:59.22
vigorbranding
Um, and one of the pain points is around the um, the duality I guess of how far advanced the digital channels are and continue so they seem to be just pulling ahead even though they already were ahead and then there’s like these legacy systems that almost seem rooted and. Their efforts to ah modernize are add-ons by acquisition or slow bills at what point do you think they? they just literally start to lose their juice. Um, and the digital. All-encompassing solution starts to reign supreme I mean we’re seeing a couple names out there I won’t I won’t mention some of them because they may be competitors. So ah, but people know them and and then they have even new pos systems like toast I will name that one that have like these things baked in but no integrations. Like integrating with toast from what I hear from partners and friends is like it’s like trying to break in the Fort Knox um so it’s almost the antithesis of what we would like to see right? which is more of an open door putting on your your ah soothsayer hat. What? What do you think is coming when it comes to convergence.

23:56.58
Zach Goldstein
So with.

24:08.10
Zach Goldstein
So the the age old story and point of sale land. Is they all start more open and they eventually become more and more closed over time and that has been a challenge. Historically for restaurants because that makes the ecosystem and makes best of breed technology really difficult. Um I actually think what will change this and break this dynamic open is the fact that the point of sale is rapidly becoming less central. To running a restaurant ah in an era where a large chunk of your revenue comes through digital channels. Ah, you don’t actually need a point to sale in that case, you could route digital orders directly to a Kds and cut it out entirely. Most restaurants aren’t doing that but that gives you a window into the future of what’s actually at the center which is the customer and I believe that the next major wave of innovation again inspired by what we’ve seen in travel inspired by what we’ve seen in e-commerce is around. Centrality of the customer whether you call that Crm or cdp or however you think about it if you’re making decisions around individual customers not around what connects to my point of sale and how do I route it through that that’s a big leap forward for restaurants. It’s less operational.

25:38.60
Zach Goldstein
And it’s more focused on actual cost f being a customer focused business which ironically is what restaurants have always been some of the best customer focused businesses but they’ve been hamstrung by this operational burden that is the point of sale and so that’s not to say. Companies that have historically been point of sales are going to be fully cut out some of the leaders some of the cloud based ones are redefining themselves away so you mentioned toast who has built a pretty robust you know Kds system is leaning heavily into digital ordering in their own way. I think we’ve seen q which has really redefined themselves to be not really a point of sale but thinking very differently about their role in a restaurant and there’s many more that we could name that evolution is healthy in my opinion but it’s not going to come from.

26:27.38
vigorbranding
Are.

26:32.22
Zach Goldstein
Aloha Suddenly deciding that they’re going to change their role in the restaurant industry. Aloha is working the classic cash Cow strategy and perhaps that could change but we haven’t seen any signs yet that it is.

26:47.21
vigorbranding
Yeah, there’s definitely some that are nipping at the heels that we have to assume presume that ah that there’s a little bit of sweating going on within the walls of the what we’ll call the goliath says he’s davids who are rapidly growing up not to use a biblical ah reference but I will. Ah.

27:00.19
Zach Goldstein
Professor.

27:04.52
vigorbranding
These davids are are actually growing fast and it’s it’s probably alarming in some ways to be the the old dog at the table. Um, so talking about clarity a little bit here and let’s shift a thanks specifically. So I really want to dig into it. So thanks is described as a. A customer engagement solution for offline businesses. Others have described it though as a guest engagement retention platform. How do you describe it as the Ceo and founder. How do you describe it and and what does it truly do for restaurant brands and leaders.

27:41.84
Zach Goldstein
We make restaurants more money at the end of the day. Ah that has to be the goal of running your business and it has been challenging. There aren’t really good levers in the restaurant industry where you can pull them. And immediately see did that result in increasing my revenue there are some. There are ah the age old discount. Ah just I’m going to spam my list with 2 for 1 today that works but it has long term costs. There is. Obviously the lto with a generic you know brand marketing play that works but it comes with the development challenge and you know for every popeyees chicken sandwich out there. There is an lto that falls flat on its face. So it’s hard. That’s challenging. What a loyalty program and what a guest engagement platform really does is gives you the information to understand who those customers are and to measure whether you’re driving incremental revenue from them I think of as guess better. Take better educated guesses at what is going to move the needle for a certain profile of customer and check faster did it actually change their behavior and if so can I do more of it if no can I iterate and try the next thing and so an example of that built into our platform.

29:09.78
Zach Goldstein
We have the most sophisticated ab testing infrastructure in the restaurant industry. You’re able to run Abc however, many variations you want, you can include control groups. So if I’m targeting customers who have only purchased in store and I’m trying to get them to make their first digital purchase because I know that that has a likelihood. Increasing their lifetime value I don’t know what’s actually going to do that. Is it a discount is it. A secret menu is it just telling them. Did you know we’ve got this really beautiful ordering experience. No clue the restaurants get stuck on that no clue. And then they do nothing. The answer is test them all and double down on the thing that’s working and historically that’s been really hard to do on things. It’s one click we show you a chart that shows you how much incremental revenue you got from each of those campaigns. Which makes it very clear to say hey this 1 works better than the rest and then again with 1 click you automate that and turn it on for all your customers going forward. That’s all part of in my mind the word loyalty That’s what it’s all about not about rope rewards but often. Loyalty gets too narrowly described and so that’s really what guest engagement means talk to the right customer with the right message at the right time and measure your success in terms of revenue not opens clicks vanity metrics that simply don’t matter for your business.

30:42.20
vigorbranding
Yeah, it’s um, breaking it down to the revenue brought in is so critically important I will say that some of the vanity metrics do matter when you get into the upper ocean line of leadership and and I think you know what where I’m going with this and that is.

30:52.14
Zach Goldstein
Are.

30:58.45
vigorbranding
Awareness would be the first step towards planning for that purchase and then incremental revenue and I think a lot of a lot of leaders at all different scales. They think marketing or for what I’ve seen believe marketing is a direct line. I’ve spent a dollar I get to back. Why didn’t that happen. You must be a failure and that that you could be a tech system. It could be a marketing system. It could be a literal human um things like that. But I think being smart about those vanity metrics starts to allow you to forecast what you just said which is that final revenue point.

31:20.96
Zach Goldstein
Are.

31:35.16
vigorbranding
Like I have seen the proverbial needle move. Um, but not all vanity. Metric I think some of those metrics are truly vanity which is ah you know engagement levels when nothing else is going through the rest of that funnel. Um, but I digress. So thanks. Just launch some new capabilities in October can you tell us a little about those features and why people should be excited about them.

31:59.49
Zach Goldstein
Ah, boy I don’t even remember what we launched in October but I’ll tell you about some of the stuff that we’ve done um and the reason is ah we just have a pace of innovation that I think is fairly unmatched in this category. Um.

32:15.23
Zach Goldstein
And the reason is because our restaurants demand it they need to constantly stay ahead and as I said before if every loyalty program is exactly the same then then no one wins we need the word loyalty to mean a thousand different things for a thousand different brands. Um, that is really what this loyalty 3 ah, evolution is it’s around reducing the dependency on discounts in a loyalty program that doesn’t mean eliminating them. There’s a role for them but reducing the dependency it’s around driving making it easier to do personalization and segmentation because we know that. Segmented marketing drives a 6 times higher return on investment than generics send to all marketing. Ah and that ease of use piece matters when you talk to restaurants you hear regularly? No, we don’t want to be reliant on discounts and yes, we’d like to deliver personal message to our customers. And yet the vast majority even when they have a tool that could technically do those things. The vast majority aren’t doing it when you ask them? Why whether it’s a small 5 location chain or a billion dollar plus revenue chain. The answer is. We are time constrained in our marketing department. It is difficult. We’re shortstaffed or slow or trying to hire our budgets got cut. We need it to be easier to do and that has been an area of of intense focus for us is how do we make it as I mentioned before.

33:48.77
Zach Goldstein
So that an Abc automation takes 5 minutes to set up. Not five days to set up.

33:56.10
vigorbranding
Yeah I love it. So is there a place where people can keep track of those innovations. Is it a Twitter profile or is it a blog or both.

34:06.31
Zach Goldstein
Yeah, it’s it’s it’s all of the above our website tends to focus through the lens of customers. It’s really you know when I talk about restaurants are becoming more customer centric. Um I think actually that’s the hallmark of any good software company too. And so we tell our stories about what our products are through the customers that are using them and frankly the faces of the individuals that are doing it. So that’s a great place to start. We tend to be pretty active and I in particular with my writing on Linkedin which is a great place to follow me and a lot a lot of the writing I’m doing on the industry and. And then I’d say the third thing is we have a constant feedat of our innovation that is pushed both to our customers and non-customers. The the industry is fed up with legacy solutions and I’m not going to name any any specific people but ah, but everyone knows who I’m talking about and the reality is. Ah, if it’s looking specifically at your loyalty program if you don’t know whether it’s driving revenue from your business I have really bad news for you. It’s not It’s really that simple if you keep reporting to your Ceo and your board that that.

35:09.97
vigorbranding
Right.

35:18.86
Zach Goldstein
Your number of signups in your loyalty programs growing and the number of emails you sent out to your program is growing and those are the type of metrics you’re focused on you’re hiding the fact that your program is failing and likely giving away a bunch of money and not making a return ah and. I Often find restaurants that they hide that they’re comfortable in that space. It’s scary to make a switch and one of the things that we help restaurants understand is it’s actually far riskier to not make a change and let that keep going than it is. To change and lean into modern technology.

35:58.00
vigorbranding
I love it. So everything that we’ve talked about arguably is trivial compared to this final question. Um, but not many people would argue that I’ll argue that um, if you had 1 final meal where would you eat? What would you eat and why.

36:15.23
Zach Goldstein
Ah, that is ah it’s a pretty good question. Um I ah would immediately get on a plane to Tokyo or Osaka ah, and I can tell you that because ah. Last time I did that I I ate more food in succession than I’ve ever eaten in my life as I jump from a sushi restaurant to a ramen restaurant to a te on yaki restaurant I just think that the food culture in Japan is is ah so phenomenal. And it really is a unique culture in each of those things and ah I don’t know where I’d specifically eat. But I’m pretty sure I would have multiple great meals in rapid succession if I did that that’s right.

37:04.42
vigorbranding
I love it. It sounds like the rule would have to be you have a time limit right? Um I love it. Well Zach thank you for your candor and and being so absolutely candid with the industry the challenges how to overcome them and um. We will have some of the links to zach on his Linkedin as well. Of course, thanks so you can learn more thanks for being so wonderful with your time I appreciate all the insights.

37:24.30
Zach Goldstein
Yeah I enjoyed it.