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TGI Fridays: It's all about the customer, customer journey
When it comes to enhancing the customer experience the prime focus for TGI Fridays is on one thing and one thing only: the customer. Sherif Mityas, the brand's chief experience officer, shared CX strategy, philosophy and best practices at the Interactive Customer Experience Summit/CONNECT: The Mobile CX Summit event.
July 18, 2019 by Judy Mottl — Editor, RetailCustomerExperience.com & DigitalSignageToday.com
There are three words one will hear often from Sherif Mityas, TGI Fridays' chief experience officer, when he's talking about his focus: the customer journey.
And it doesn't matter where that journey starts — whether it's via an order off the brand's website or the mobile app or from a customer sitting down in one of more than 900 locations across 60-plus countries.
The 54-year-old brand, headquartered in Dallas, has been about the customer experience since opening its first restaurant in New York City. Today, it operates 490 locations in the U.S., with about 80% operating as franchises and 20% operating as corporate-owned.
"For us it's about connecting the dots, marketing, technology, digital, operations — the functional silos of a B-to-C organization. The thing is, customers don't think like that so why are we, as an organization, thinking that way? In leading the customer experience you need to look at the journey, and as an organization you must be aligned with the customer's journey, whether that's an hour sitting at the bar or enjoying Jack Daniels ribs at a table or at home," Mityas said in kicking off his keynote presentation at the Interactive Customer Experience Summit/CONNECT: The Mobile CX Summit held in June.
But connecting the dots and creating alignment across both the physical and digital customer journey, is no simple task when a brand is serving 500,000 customers a day — averaging about 50 million a year. Especially, as Mityas noted, if the goal is to connect with the guest in an engaging, relevant experience. Yet, as he shared in his talk at the three-day conference, it can be done and done well. A brand just has to realize that it's going to take lots of testing, lots of learning and the capability to keep the goal front of mind.
Getting personal
That goal is creating a highly-personalized, seamless and friction-less interaction, while also engaging with a customer no matter where they are.
TGI Fridays guests can order online, via its app (which also lets customers reserve a table and pay ahead of order delivery or pickup), or by visiting a location. The brand is using various tools and technologies to learn as much as it can about a customer's wants and needs in order to foster that personalized interaction and believes the personal aspect is key to customer loyalty.
By tracking previous visits and orders, TGI Fridays can reach out to customers with reminder/re-order messaging and "invite" prompts, explained Mityas. For example, asking, "Are you hungry for that salad?" or sending a reminder like, "Hey, it's 5 p.m. — time for wings."
It's critical that personal messaging is spot on, he said, given the increasing competition for customer mind share.
"We have eight seconds to capture their interest, to personalize, when a customer is thinking about food and the food experience. It's a battle for real estate. Am I on someone's mobile device and can I stay there?" he said.
Clearly, TGI Fridays is on many a mobile device given five million customers have download its app with one million using it.
Now the goal, said the CX leader, is to get app users to "stop and interact" with the brand.
So, while the first step is getting to know the customer the second step is just as critical — to integrate mobile, e-order and the on-premise experience to gain a unified and expandable view of the guest.
"You need to know the customer. When do they eat lunch? When do they eat dinner? Where are they? And then you need to be where they are," said Mityas. "Are they driving around? And, if so, we need to be in the vehicles," he said, adding that's why TGI Fridays joined GM's OnStar/Marketplace vehicle commerce platform.
"We need to be at home where they 'chill,'" he added, and that's why TGI Fridays developed an Amazon Echo Alexa skill that lets customers order via the voice-assistant technology.
"You need to create the opportunity to make it [ordering] easy. Let them talk to Google, make the order, pick it up or have it delivered. Be where they are," he stressed. "We're eliminating the friction, the pain point [in ordering] and we create an opportunity for them to be in control. They will respond and they will engage."
How technology is playing a big part
To make all that personalization happen TGI Fridays is relying heavily on artificial intelligence technology — from crafting marketing copy (including social media outreach) to creating engaging messaging (which includes chatbots).
"We are aiming to be irreverent, cheeky, in our brand voice so we're teaching our AI tool to be flirty ... in interacting with our guests," said the CX leader, adding it's "all different conversations and it's difficult but has to be done as you have to be where the guest is."
And while it hasn't been quick and easy, and involves a lot of trial and error and testing, it's clearly starting to work well. The brand has seen a 40% increase in drink orders when it comes to providing self-serve technology, he shared.
One test involved reaching out to 10,000 guests with specific, timely "reminder" messaging. The result was that 76% ordered and that was without any discount incentive, noted Mityas.
"It was timely, relevant and personal in that experience. It works and works well," he said. "All the data and tech provide opportunity to do something powerful."
The AI effort has proved to be successful in many ways — the brand has seen a 500% increase in social interaction, as well as increases in online ordering, reservations and in-restaurant social engagement.
In concluding his talk Mityas offered up best practices and advice to other brands aiming to drive a personalized customer experience. He stressed that there needs to be one-to-one personal engagement and that stickiness with the guest is very important. He recommends providing staff emerging tools to help all that happen as that will increase retention rates as well as staff will be more engaged in their roles.
"They enjoy the work more and they're able to spend more time on floor with guests and team members. If team members are having fun so are our guests," he told the audience.
What's ahead for TGI Fridays
Another initiative the brand has put into place is a quarterly get-together with technology startups. Mityas and his staff are able to learn and see new technology and whether it may be a good fit for their customer experience strategy. One successful result from the startup interaction was the creation of TGI Friday's "Flanagan," an AI-driven bartender that creates one-of-a-kind drinks for guests.
Customers provide insight on why they're having a drink (celebration/occasion), any dietary restrictions and flavors they like. Flanagan creates a drink that the customer then gets to name. At first Flanagan failed as a bartender as the initial drinks in a 10-r4estaurant pilot were horrible, shared Mityas. But Flanagan, like every AI-inspired tool, kept learning and learning.
"After a few weeks the drinks were great and we started seeing a 40% increase among those who drink two drinks on average," said Mityas.
Not only did Flanagan make the experience of ordering a drink more personal and engaging, it's given bartender staff the opportunity to become mixologists and make more money in their jobs.
"It's an example of taking something that's long been a customer experience (ordering a drink) and making it a different customer experience and creating a new and unique customer experience by engagement with the customer in a personal, one-to-one experience," said Mityas. "You don't have to be the smartest in the room [when developing CX strategies] but you always have to start with the guest in mind."
The Interactive Customer Experience (ICX) Summit, an official event of the ICX Association, and CONNECT: The Mobile CX Summit gave brands an opportunity to discover a full range of technologies and strategies to create engaging and meaningful customer experiences. It just one of several industry-leading events and conferences from Networld Media Group taking place each year. Here's a look at upcoming events thought leaders across retail, food and technology may want to check out: Have you checked out our upcoming events?
Bank Customer Experience (BCX) Summit
September 23-25, 2019
Chicago, IL
Fast Casual Executive Summit
October 13-15, 2019
Austin, TX
Restaurant Franchising & Innovation Summit
March 16-18, 2020
Atlanta, GA
About Judy Mottl
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