Harmonizing Taste and Tech With Jordan Cusner

Learn more at ovationupcom . And today's guest we have Jordan Kuzner . Welcome to Give an Ovation . How are you , man ? I am well . Thanks for having me , zach . I am stoked to have you on because , aside from being really into the data , I'm fascinated to dive into your thoughts and feelings on the guest experience and the data that you're finding .

But aside from that , jordan , you have a crazy interesting educational background . You're a JD MBA with a BA from the Berkeley College of Music . What in the random ? Tell me about what was supposed to be going on ? Are you supposed to be managing Taylor Swift ? And then you accidentally fell into guest experience . Like how'd this happen ?

For me , I don't know , it was kind of natural . I was a musician , I went to Berkeley .

And so it did the law school thing and I contemplated being in music for a hot second , but I had an internship at an entertainment law firm and it was really very boring .

Then I had an internship at the Attorney General's Office in Massachusetts and that was even worse and I realized maybe I want to do this law thing after all , got hooked up with some brain strategy folks during the MBAs practicum or internship and the rest is history .

So it's custom research , brand tracking , innovation you know our innovation pipeline optimizing those concepts , thinking about our copy development and optimizing those commercials , our digital spots , qualitative work , talking to our guests , building out frameworks to help us understand who the guests are and why they come to our restaurant , how to improve the guest experience

obviously relevant for today's conversation . Yeah , I mean , I could go on . There's probably , oh , taste testing , sensory work . So working with our culinary team to take the ideas that we have , that we validate , turning it into actual food and then making sure that it delivers against that promise that we have to deliver great meals to our guests .

But I'm also not a proponent of , you know , throwing out good ideas , and so my kind of MO , an orientation , is , when things don't do well , I often give feedback to the team and say , all right , well , like , let's keep working on this in a way that's appropriate , given that maybe it isn't hitting the mark right now , whether it's the way we've positioned it

in an online test or the way it eats when we do a sensory test . So I think everything we put in front of our guests , even in a testing environment , we have a lot of confidence in for one reason or another , and if it's missing the mark in some way , like , let's keep thinking about it .

So even our you know , quote , unquote bad ideas , I think are all really good ideas . And I'll tell you , like , my favorite day is stage gate , where the culinary team brings out what they're working on and I just gorge myself on the best food I've ever had . It's all the best .

It is so when it's . I guess . When it's done right , it is just so perfect and the pickles are great and the sauce and the you know , the bun is just always so , because that's a big thing . Like I go to some other places and the buns are just gross . The buns are so bad I can't go back because of the buns . Popeye's buttered brioche so good .

And the apple pie .

Whether you are in the marketing team or the culinary team or the finance team or HR , everything we do needs to be thinking about and centered on improving that interaction in our restaurant with our crew , and I think , as an insights person , my mandate is to infuse the organization with , you know , a guest-centric approach , and a lot of times that's very easy ,

right . So we think about our stage gator innovation process or copy testing and making sure that we're using guest insight to inform those decisions . But that's the easy one .

But when you've got folks that are really a little bit further outside think about our legal team , for example , maybe a little bit further outside of that core work Well , ultimately we're all working towards the same goal and we all have to have a deep understanding of who our guest is and how the decisions we make and the actions we take impact those

interactions . So I think the guest experience needs to be at the forefront of everything we do .

So we have frameworks like a guest segmentation that looks at who our guests are , how they think about our brand , who they are as people beyond just being guests of our restaurant .

The goal is to share that information broadly across the organization , having an immersive space where everybody can put themselves in the shoes of our guests and really experience and see the world through their eyes .

I love that idea of like these posters . What would you put on these posters if we were to put them up there ? I think it's such an interesting idea like be the voice .

It's not just voice of the customer , but it's about translating that voice to other people to make sure that they understand what's going on , they understand who our customers are and what they should be thinking about . So what are some things you'd even like recommend they do to engage the ?

What's a one or two sentence descriptor of how this person thinks about QSR and how QSR quick serve restaurants and fits into their broader day-to-day routine ? Then some other detail that brings to life who they are as people , beyond just being people who are eating QSR Because , listen , qsr is a fact of life .

Eating in these restaurants is something that everybody does , but that's not how the average person thinks about themselves and defines themselves . Most people don't really think about restaurants all that much . They think about it when it's lunch or dinner and they want to go grab a bite , but it's not something that they orient their whole life around .

I think a good segmentation appreciates that these are real people . Of course , I didn't say this , but we need to be empathetic and understand who our guests are . More than justice one-dimensional someone with a credit card behind their chicken . It's about who are they ? What makes them tick . How do we use that information to build authentic relationships ?

So , when you think about what that asset looks like . It's who they are , how they think about QSR , where it fits into their life and other really important rich detail about who they are as people , beyond just that particular activity .

You're serving humans , yeah , humans who are on their way to work , humans who are on their way home from picking up their kids at soccer practice , humans who are looking for a break , humans who need an apple pie and a spicy chicken sandwich because they had a rough day . Like .

It's not that someone is , and if you look at the retention rates , we see that , on average , people will dine at a restaurant once every eight months if they're coming back , and it might be different in your particular brands , but one of the things that we've seen is that people don't define themselves by like oh , I'm like a Popeyes guy .

There's gonna be very few people that get the Popeyes logo tattooed on their calf Now . There will be some of them , but that's not what makes Popeyes Popeyes .

What makes Popeyes Popeyes is this convenience factor of appealing to a broad number of people who can swing by and get that spicy chicken sandwich and apple pie when they wanna indulge a little bit , as opposed to like oh , let me stop by for lunch every single day , like . That's not what's driving the business .

The other piece is quoting from Byron Sharp , who wrote how brands grow your consumers . No one cares about your brand as much as you do . We have this fantasy that people care deeply . Oh , they're loyal to our brand , but truth is they don't .

And there , to your point , there are other factors that influence why and when someone chooses to eat in any restaurant and the idea that I think you're right . There's a small subset of people , myself included , who are Popeyes superfans , like I can't drive past a Popeyes half the time without stopping in , and I think there are people like that .

But the average person has a million other factors that influence when and why and how they choose to make or eat their food and dinner , lunch for themselves , for their families , and so appreciating that we are not really top of mind in the way that . You know , breathing is for people , you know we're not saying people are really coming about .

Oh , my gosh , do I love the beans and rice ? And I grew up with a grandma who she's still alive she's my only grandma alive and she is obsessed with Popeyes and she like instilled in me this like , oh , we gotta go get their beans and rice .

And I was , like you know , I grew up with beans and rice because I grew up in a Hispanic household , and those beans and rice , though , and Popeyes , they just hit different , and so , but again , you gotta have these things that are like so memorable , lovable , that can hook people .

But realizing that I love how you phrase that no one's ever gonna love your brand as much as you , and you gotta take a step back and realize holistically who is my guest and why do they care about me and when do they care about me and how do I make myself as convenient for them as possible to lower the effort to try me out , because the easier it is

to try me , the more often people are gonna do it . If you've got table stakes of food service , impression Right .

We do a lot of things in the back of house to ensure that what we're serving to our guests is high quality , handmade homemade chicken , which is not typical Most restaurants . The magic or the secret sauce is in finding shortcuts to deliver food as quickly as possible . We don't take shortcuts . We don't make sense . We just we wanna do it the right way .

So you talk about convenience . I think it's a very fascinating thing that , yes , that's the primary driver for many people , and yet we at Popeyes never use the shortcut to make it more convenient for us , and yet we're delivering the food in a way that's convenient for our guests .

It's got a really cool vibe as a small up and coming restaurant chain , obviously there focused on sustainable foods , and I think I think what we talked about in this sustainability space is it's not just for people who care about the environment . It needs to be for everyone . I think the challenge for years has been making that food delicious .

It's always been idealistic , but is it really good ? I think they do a great job over at Plant Burger .

I don't think he would mind me sharing this , but they are well above the average restaurant in innovation in terms of how much people love them . Their love group is huge . They do a great job . As someone who is allergic to milk , I love being able to go there and get a milkshake in a burger .

I think it's a captive audience , people who are going to be at least interested in trying this , if not already predisposed to liking what you're doing . That certainly has helped Really really good , Awesome .

But , Zach , you're very persuasive .

If you'd like to learn how we can help you measure and create a better guest experience , visit us at ovationupcom .