Friendly’s Restaurants Franchising has tapped Ovation as its guest feedback platform, which allows usage of Ovation’s real-time chat, short surveys, long surveys, reporting and AI-powered recovery systems to connect with guests and improve operations.
“We’ve been blown away by the platform,” Carissa De Santis, CTO of BRIX Holdings, the parent company of Friendly’s, said in a company press release. “We’re getting 24x more feedback than we were with our old survey system. But in actuality, we’re spending less time handling that feedback and reaching back out to the guests than we were previously…It’s been a game changer.”
Ovation gathers feedback facilitated by integrations with solutions like the online ordering platform Olo and strategically positioned QR codes both on and off premises. From there, happy guests drive revenue through gift card purchases, reviews and catering orders. Unhappy guests are placed into a private conversation with management, who can resolve issues easily through AI-powered responses, said Zack Oates, founder and CEO of Ovation.
Feedback from all channels, including surveys and online reviews, is gathered and sorted into 34 restaurant-specific categories using an advanced categorization algorithm. From there, brand leaders can see overall trends, strengths and weaknesses at both the brand and location levels. Then goals are set to monitor and improve.
“This is somewhat of a full-circle moment. My first job was at Friendly’s where I learned about hospitality and the guest experience and to come to this point where we can power the feedback is an honor,” Oates said in the release.
After six months of using Ovation, Friendly’s saw 24 times more feedback, a 5-times increase in long surveys taken, a 1.1 increase in average online rating and saved over 3,500 guests.
