The Restaurant Technology Guys Podcast brought to you by Custom Business Solutions
The Restaurant Technology Guys Podcast brought to you by Custom Business Solutions
The importance of Wowing Customers: a chat with Lucas Judice from Freatz.com
In this episode of the Restaurant Technology Guys podcast, the host welcomes Lucas Judice, the founder of Freet, a technology company focusing on improving customer experience through a deep understanding of consumer behavior. Originally from Brazil and a former lawyer, Lucas transitioned into technology and entrepreneurship after moving to the U.S. to pursue a master's degree. Freatz stands out by offering a unique method of collecting and analyzing consumer feedback at no net cost to restaurants, using AI to delve into consumer perceptions and behaviors. Lucas explains how Freatz incentivizes customers to provide feedback, leading to actionable insights for restaurants. Success stories are shared, highlighting Freatz impact on enhancing the dining experience and increasing sales by attentive adjustments based on consumer feedback. Freatz approach not only aids in operational improvements but also helps in identifying hidden opportunities for revenue growth. For restaurant operators and owners interested in elevating their customer experience and understanding the 'wow' factor through AI-driven insights, Freatz offers a promising solution.
00:00 Welcome and Introduction to the Guest
00:41 Lucas's Journey from Brazil to Tech Entrepreneur
02:01 The Birth and Mission of Freatz
06:03 Deep Dive into Freatz: Concept and Impact
09:19 Challenges and Solutions in Restaurant Feedback
14:28 Consumer Experience with Freatz
19:02 The Restaurant's Perspective: Utilizing Data for Growth
23:15 Leveraging AI for Enhanced Consumer Insights
31:50 Success Stories and the Freets Model Explained
35:59 How to Connect with Freets and Closing Thoughts
This is the Restaurant Technology Guys podcast. Helping you run your restaurant better.
Jeremy:Welcome back to the restaurant technology guys podcast. I thank everyone out there for joining us. as I say, each and every time I know you guys have got lots of choices, so I appreciate you guys spending time, with us today, we are joined by a technologist that, I got introduced through a mutual friend and, I think Lucas is doing some really cool stuff, but Lucas, before you jump into kind of what you guys are doing on the professional side, Tell us a little bit about who Lucas is and how did, how did we come to meet and how, how did you get to where you are today? Yeah.
Lucas Judice:for inviting me to be on the show. we got introduced by Steven Ronnow, good friend of mine here in LA and a friend of yours as well. And then the best connector ever that I met when I moved to the US, awesome guy. And then, again, as you mentioned, and then since I moved to the U S but, and talk a little bit about myself, I'm half Brazilian, half American. I grew up in Brazil with a lot of, good connections there. We're just not talking about Picanha, Xhorasco and that's my background. And, I came to the U S about, 13, 11 years ago, actually. And I was working as a lawyer, full time job lawyer. I had my own law office. And when I came to the U. S., I came, especially to take a master's at USC. And then after, basically one year away from my law office, I was like, you know what? I want to do this technology thing. I want to be an entrepreneur again. I want to start my own new thing, my own technology company. So long story short, I transitioned from being a full time lawyer. To a, intrapreneur within the, market research industry, customer experience, AI, understanding people. It's more like we open it and we create a company that it's a big, people understanding company. We understand consumers. We understand what they think, why they go to places, why they don't go to places, why they're like competitors, why they're like these or that kind of product or service, and then we transform that. We transform that into specifics. do's and don'ts for operators to boost their, sales, boost their connection to their clients. Anyways, again, it's interesting how, you never thought, I never thought in my life that I would go from being a lawyer to, a full time tech, founder, but here I am after, a couple of years, dealing and, running Fritz. that's a position.
Jeremy:And I love, entrepreneurial stories like that. I had a previous guest on and I tease him from time to time. Cause he was like, I don't know. He was like, he went from Welding or plumbering to being a marketing guy. And I'm like, how does this happen? So from your story, walk me through that journey. What, what took you down that path to being, you came to the U S study, get your master's, law, and then you decided, tell me a little bit more about why you decided to start Freedson and before we dig into deep. understanding of what it is that you guys are solving. I'd love to hear the origin story of where it came from. And was it something that you were frustrated about, or was it just something that you saw a problem in the market that you said, Hey, there's people that are going to be willing to spend money on this. Talk to me a little bit about that.
Lucas Judice:yeah, even, even the transitioning from, a lawyer to entrepreneur that goes back, to my childhood, it's an interesting story, even though it's silly, but that's my story. to that extent that, when I was five years old and I remember that, like it was yesterday when I was five years old, I used to go to my family, beach house still in Brazil. And we will, we would go to the beach and then stay there the whole day. But then at some point I would stop playing with my friends and family. I would go, get, sand out of the good, I would get sand. I would get, shells. And so I would collect a lot of things from the beach. And then I would go back home, get mayonnaise, jar at the time was all glass, and then I would just. decorate that thing, go to the, front, front, front porch and just sell it, like a business person, like a salesperson when I was five years old. And then, funny story that a couple of years ago, my sister saw, she found a journal that she used to write when she was younger and then she was like, Oh, Lucas now selling jars and anyways, it was an awful kind of jar, but I was there selling. So I believe that my entrepreneurial, let's say blood or skin or willingness was always there. and even as a lawyer, I was, a manager, my, I created my law office. I opened my office. I was, the manager was an entrepreneur as a lawyer as well. But then my master's year in the U. S. It was, even though it was a business law masters, it was, I would say, 90 percent focus on venture capital, balance sheet and then international transactions and everything way more, practical, entrepreneurial, lifestyle, but not necessarily understanding law or applying law. And, a little before coming also, to take the master's, I was investing companies in Brazil. I invested back then in 2012, I invested like in four companies. We wouldn't call them startup companies back then. We would call, Oh, my friends has a, my, my friends have a, computer company, whatever. Nobody would actually call it startups. So I was investing these companies. And then after one year here in the masters. I just decided that, you know what, I think that five year old kid that wants to be, Sally and being an entrepreneur, I think he wants you to get back there. So I decided to sell my law office. at the time, as I mentioned, I had this, investment, so I bought the half of the company that I had with my partner in the investment company. And at some point I was doing investments in startup companies, technology companies. So from 2014 to 2017, I was investing people's, idea. dreams and at some point it was again, you know what I want in my dream. I want to invest in my dream, which is, creating my tech company and pushing forward with all the abilities and skill set that I, that I have and had at the time. And that was how I got to that moment in which I decided that I would open my own company, my own technology company. And that came fritz.
Jeremy:Yeah. I, and I appreciate that, that backstory. It's always funny to, to think back about, so some of those early days and you talk about remembering it, like it was yesterday that, the five year old that's Hey, what can I sell? What can, how can I go, you Create value for somebody. Cause clearly, your mayonnaise jar that was a glass that had sand and shells in it, somebody saw value in it and said, you know what, this kid went and worked hard to go make this happen. And so talk to us, what is freets, and I know you and I chatted about it pre show, but, it comes from the amalgamation of two different words, but what is freets? And then we can talk a little bit about kind of the problems that it solves for people.
Lucas Judice:So freets, the word freets comes from free eats, and then just, change the s for the z to make it more, modern, whatever, and then got both words, together. So that's freets. again, free eats is an idea that, If we want to get people's opinion, if you want to get people's understanding, we have to get that kind of incentive to, have them share their opinion. So that's basically the origin of the name, free eats in the sense that we're going to provide a free food in exchange for your opinion, because your opinion matters. but in other words, what we are solving here is the lack of knowledge. And that also my connection with my previous years As a lawyer, I'm always trying to understand to get the most knowledge that I can, knowledge about everything that I can, and then transform that into, a good, thesis for the lawsuit, whatever. So when, we are dealing with understanding consumers, we have to really understand everything that is happening within that, that experience. So the biggest problem that we saw in the market today, that's still a reality, nowadays, is the lack of knowledge. And, of course you need, all of us, we know that we need data, especially, hospitality businesses. We know that we need data about our consumers if they like, they don't like and etcetera. And then we also know that there are so many sources out there for consumer perception data that they're not quite complete. They're not quite reliable in terms of the quality of the data set. And they are very limited or sometimes they're so expensive that no one will actually pay for that. So there is a big problem in the market that no one is actually really pay attention to consumers. No one's really understanding how to wow people, how to get the most of the experience and how to give back to these consumers, which are by the way, the most important people that you serve to, how to give back their experience, what their expectations actually. So when you put all of that together, it's. Finding the best way to collect consumer perception, to understand consumer perception in a reliable way, accurate way, and then with nice volume of people, of metrics and etc. And that's how, when you get that reliability in terms of the data set they're collecting, that's when you can actually extract knowledge out of this. So that's a combination that we were able to solve. understanding that there is a lack in the market in terms of consumer knowledge, consumer understanding. And we created that, that mechanism, that, that method to, aggregate a lot of data directly from consumers and transform that into revenue growth, into better quality of perception, into finding hidden opportunities within, the day to day operation. And that's it, just a way to. To have a, that better understanding. And by the way, really interesting to mention that everything at no cost. Cause if we want to really get people's opinion, as I mentioned, we need the volume and no one would pay for a huge volume of information if that was too expensive. So we needed to create a way that made just a data collection profitable for everyone involved or at least no cost for our clients. And that's a game changer as well.
Jeremy:and so Lucas, you talk about what you guys are doing, but what are most restaurants that before they engage with freaks doing, you and I talked about it pre show, there's lots of different places to get this data. and, Historically, at least when I talk to restaurant operators, they only hear about the really bad ones or the really good ones. They don't hear about anything in between. And that creates a false sense of either dread if they only hear the really bad ones or they, it creates a false sense of security if they only hear about the people that have exceptional, experiences. And the other piece that you talked about, and I'll let you riff on it here for a few minutes is the volume is typically very low. single digit percentages historically has been how it has gone versus getting up into the 50, 60, 70 percent of people are giving you feedback. So talk to me a little bit about historically, how have people gotten that feedback? And what is the misnomer about just using Google reviews and Yelp and open table or whatever those tools are to get those, get that data?
Lucas Judice:Before I answer that, something that's interesting to have in mind as well is that when we talk a reliable data set, we need volume, as I mentioned, but volume divides into two main type of volumes. One would be volume of people, which is the one that you were mentioning that, X percent of people that are actually being public about, super super dislike that experience. But also there is a second component of the volume which is the number of metrics being assessed. if you are surveying someone, or maybe if you get that poll, that, that survey that has only, 10 questions, your perception is very limited of what's happening. Because as an operator, you don't have 10 things you have to pay attention to. You have 100, 200 things that you have to pay attention to. So in order for you, as an operator, to understand if, whatever the temperature, the bathroom, or, the speedness or the host, or if you want to understand who's impacting or what's impacting your business or your ability to wow people, you have to survey everything. And then you have to drill down to, okay, now that I know 100 things that are happening, what are the most important things? So that volume of KPIs, volume of metrics that you need to assess, that's also really important. So when we go back to the market, what's there in the market today? It's very, in our opinion, it's very flawed in terms of understanding consumer perception, and understanding, the correlation between what are you doing that is or is not, it isn't impacting the ability to wow people. you have many, several, you have several tools that are important to, avoid, a bad review, a bad experience from going public or, to gather a lot of information online that you see some things on Google Review, Yelp, or TripAdvisor, and then these platforms will just combine everything in one platform. these are amazing tools to help the operators to actually understand what's being said. But if you want to find operational opportunities, or if you want to find what's driving your wow ness up or down, you need more people, you need more indicators being assessed. And if you go back to your question, if you go to Google review, you won't be able to find it. If you go to Yelp, you won't be able to find it. If you go to traditional secret shopping companies, you won't be able to find it. It's either it's somewhat expensive. Companies will hire only one to, secret shoppers every one or every two or every three months. And you don't have enough sample size and they are the wrong consumers usually. So they, and they're being trained to be critics. when you get tablet surveys, It's very limited as well. You have up to five to seven to 10 questions. You don't see everything. And then you have, I don't want to get too technical, but you have that, what's called a self selection bias. People who are actually getting that tablet to answer it. They are either super positive or super negative. People that are going to Google review, they're either super positive, super negative. And we at Freets, we are getting the best understanding from people that you as an operator do not know about people that come and go and you don't have their name. You don't know who they are, where they came from, and then they're not going, online to say, good or bad things about you. So it's a 99 percent of the people that you serve to. That you never survey because they're not going again, online to share their opinion, but that's the average consumer that you serve to. So that's the kind of people that you have to understand. That's why it's interesting to, to have in mind that when we send, 60 people per month per location, and we're sending the right consumers to these locations, that's a really good source of information to know exactly what's happening, across your product, service, physical environment, the ability to have that emotional connection with your clients. Anyway, so that's a little bit of. How we stand out compared to whatever's out there in the market. And again, as I mentioned, everything at no net cost. So it's amazing to have the opportunity to have a deep, really deep understanding of your real consumers. Not the biased consumers, but your real consumers, the 99 percent of consumers that you serve to in a matter that you don't have to pay for.
Jeremy:Yeah, I have a myriad of questions, Lucas. I'm going to start down the path of as a consumer. What is the experience like for me? we can get as technical as you need to, one of the challenges that you have historically with survey companies is that it's hard. in the past, we've had, tattle on the show. We've had, ovation on the show. We've had SR, SMG on the show. So we've had different survey companies that have done that. We've had Yelp on that. on the show in the past. So they all take a different approach, but historically they find that people aren't willing to spend the time and willing to spend the energy. You probably get, 10 surveys a week sent to you via email. Tell me how this product was. Tell me how the service was. And if it's not easy, you choose not to, or if you had a really good example or really bad example, you might take the time to do it. But otherwise it's you know what? If it's what I expected, I'm okay. So talk to me a little bit about as a consumer. Let's talk about that experience because I think it's critical to making sure that restaurants understand that it is a value add for the consumer as well as for your brand. And then we can talk about how the brand deals with it.
Lucas Judice:Yeah, no one wants to get opinion from voucher seekers, right? People are just there just for the money or etc. On the other side, no one is actually willing to share their opinion if they have no upside on that. Just because they want to share their opinion will be again, either super positive or super negative. So the way around that is that you have to incentivize people to answer surveys. But again, we don't want to voucher seekers. So we created, the base, the creation of this company is that we are not creating a panel of respondents. We're creating a community of opinion leaders, we're creating a community of foodies or a community of consumers that like to share their opinion, that like to help places to grow. And then, they are, of course, they are getting reimbursed in exchange for their opinion, but most likely they are liking the fact that they would be important to that restaurant. And then there are several ways and several avenues for us to make sure that we are actually building that community. And one of them, not to mention all of them, but one of them is, giving back to these consumers what their opinion, how their opinion helped these places. So every now and then, let's say every, three to four to six months, we have a, a report that is directed to the consumers to say, you know what consumers now we've just collected, 10, 20, 15, 30, 40, 50, 000 surveys. And these 50, 000 surveys helped. X, Y, and Z restaurants, X, Y, and Z jobs, and, you're important because, you created, X, Y, and Z different products. So it's actually, we're providing that feedback back to them because they like to know they're being helpful, they're helping, and, they want to be also helping more and more. That's one point. The second point is that, even though they are sharing their opinion in exchange for a cashback could be, it isn't like one, two, 3 percent cashback. They are getting like a full meal. They're getting 20, 30, 50, 40, 50 in cash back. So it's actually more like a reimbursement, but not necessarily cash back. But they are not doing only one restaurant per month. They're doing, two, three, four, five per week. So after the full month, it's basically another salary they're getting, right? Because they get their salary, they pay, but then they're getting the cash back. So it's an extra money that they're making at the end of the month. So it's very profitable for the consumers. And at the end of the day, they're answering a survey that will take maybe five to seven minutes. That's something of course we pay attention to, even though it's a long survey, basically around 50 to 60 questions. It's very long, but at the same time, it is designed in a way that people will go through 60 questions. Let's say again, in five to six minutes, it's super quick, fast. And then, it just, it's a good combination that everyone wins. We are getting paid. Thank you. the restaurant is paying, but they're getting, that money back to their, revenue. So it's actually profitable for them as I mentioned, and I can explain, more in detail, and then, the consumers are getting, financial, incentive as well. So it's a win, win situation that just helps, the methodology to work, which is we need volume of people, volume of metrics, and that will lead to, greater understanding of, that place. Thanks.
Jeremy:and you talked about the fact that, I love that idea that you guys are giving the consumers the feedback about what they're impacted. I say it all the time. Oftentimes when people complain, it's because they want you to be better. They want you to hear them and acknowledge them and then fix it. And so those brands that can pivot and hear what the guests are saying, and again, you're those guests that are going to be the. What did you call them? Voucher seekers. You've got those guests that are only doing the survey for that. But many of them, I love the fact that you guys are focusing in on those that are trying to make the brand better as a restaurateur, what does it look like? Cause you know, if, and again, I was just talking to a restaurant operator this week at a trade show. and we were talking about how, what are you guys doing with this data? Are you using it to impact your menu selection? Are you using it to change your service styles? Are you using it to change packaging? I was just on the phone. I was just recording a podcast earlier with a brand that changed their packaging for their fried foods to something different because their complaints came back that the fried foods were constantly soggy when they were delivered. Great feedback tool, great opportunity to make the guest experience better. If you don't do it. Ultimately, the guests are going to be dissatisfied or they're going to go away and you're not going to know about it. So as a restaurateur, how do I receive this data and how does it not get overwhelming that I'm just getting inundated with 50, 000 surveys and I don't know what just, I'm playing whack a mole, like that game at the carnival where you're hitting the little mole that pops up and you gotta hit this one and then you gotta hit this one. You gotta hit this one. Tell me a little bit about the restaurant experience and how they're getting this data to make it actionable because. Restaurant tours have so much on their plates. It's really hard to focus if you're not directing their energy Anybody that's ever run a restaurant knows the craziness that happens during a meal period in a rush. One of our partners, Restaurant Technologies, Total Oil Management Solution, is an end to end oil management system that delivers, filters, monitors, and recycles your cooking oil, taking one of the jobs that none of your team wants to do and takes it off your hands, allowing your team members to focus on their guests. Control the kitchen chaos with Total Uh, restaurant technologies and make your kitchen safer while maximizing your staff's time. The solution can be provided at no upfront costs. If you want to learn more, please check out rti inc. com or call 888 796 4997.
Lucas Judice:so yeah, it's a great question. And then, A lot of operators will say, Lucas, I have so much data that I don't know what to do with that. And then that again, goes back to the origin of the company, which is we needed not only to have, to make sure that we have the best data set possible, but also make sure that every, Every cross analysis that we do, every way that we understand that data set is actually usable by the operators, right? By the restaurateur, because it doesn't make sense, to be another, data company out there, sharing a lot of reports that will not be used. So again, When I say that we are tracking like a hundred metrics, I'm not saying that we're going to be providing a hundred metrics to our clients. Actually, we need, as I mentioned, we need to track everything. So then we can somewhat, it isn't the best explanation, but it's a good one. we, we can apply that Pareto, like the H20 rule to understand, okay, what are the, what's the 20% that you have to pay attention to that will lead to 80 percent of your results. but again, to get to that 20%, I have to have a greater perception of everything that's happening. when we collect that data, we are making sure again, that we are, cross analyzing that data and break it down into small specific reports. So we have more than 70 reports and each one of these reports have either two, three, four, slides. Or they are on the dashboard, or it's a really quick and direct message on, on, on the email. So it's a very, bite sized information, very like small and bite sized information that it's easy to take actions on, right? And then one of the reports that we have, for example, is what we call the, revenue growth plan of action, in which we'll understand everything that is happening in that place. And applying the what we call the cause and effect relationship, maybe, in other words, finding correlation and causation. We'll understand, okay, what's the best course of action, which is basically a one slide, what's the best course of action for you as an operator, to implement the X, Y, and Z actions. And then you would see a greater revenue, greater quality of perception, greater, reputation and et cetera. So it's all about making sure that. It's simple to use the dashboard is simple to use the PDFs is simple to understand and they read they know the actions and then take actions and then of course next month they can see how much they grew in terms of again finance, revenue or maybe quality perception.
Jeremy:to me, you mentioned it in the onset about the use of AI to capture this data. How are you guys, wouldn't be a, it wouldn't be a technology podcast in 2024 if we didn't talk about AI and in some way, shape, or form, so talk to me a little bit about how AI is helping accelerate the learnings that you guys are having and then ultimately able to deliver back to the restaurateur.
Lucas Judice:Awesome. So basically AI is the base foundation of our company. we don't, everything that we do, since, from the moment the consumer shares their opinion, again, it isn't one consumer, but many consumers. We don't do anything else. It's just a click of a button. Everything is ready. And then that click of a button will bring. machine learning because we have so many different restaurants being, analyzed and we know exactly what each restaurant is doing in terms of what are the actions they're implementing that we know which action works better than others. And then the machine learning is analyzing everything. And then also we have. image, analysis, automated analysis, which is we receive so many pictures directly from the consumers and these pictures may have a burger, a pizza, a soda, whatever it is. And then the AI is actually analyzing if there is any problem. What's the ranking between all the products that we're receiving and what's the top performer and then the worst performer, depending on not necessarily sales, the quality perception. And then we have also sentiment analysis. all these surveys, not only they have to answer, multiple choice, questions, but also they have to type a few comments. So that sentiment analysis is automatically understanding. What they like, what they don't like and how to, again, find hidden opportunities. So it's all about AI. We don't do anything. And in our, understanding. An AI company can be summarized in so many different ways. In our way, one of the ways that we can say that we are an AI company is that we have algorithm thinking for a human. We have, 100, 200, 1, 000 surveys. It's a lot of lines in a spreadsheet. It's a lot of millions of lines in a code. but then press of a button, the algorithm will understand everything and will spit one page saying, okay, that's the best page for you. if you want to increase revenue by X percent. And there is a direct relation between. Increasing wow factor and increasing revenue. That's just amazing how technology can get that far.
Jeremy:and I think it's, I think it's something that, we are constantly. Can I continue to innovate? And I think the, the use of AI, like I said, I just got back from a trade show and the amount of people that were talking about how AI is accelerating staff and guests ability to make decisions has been incredible. Talk to me about a couple of success stories, Lucas, from a couple of the brands that you guys worked with. What does it look like? Is it a 1 percent increase in sales? Is it a 1 percent increase in customer attention? Is it a, talk to me a little bit about what people can expect if they move forward with something like freets.
Lucas Judice:before I answer to that, something that I just thought about, going back to the AI question, which for me is interesting to explain is that, everyone knows about chat GPT nowadays, and then you can ask everything to, for chat GPT, and then you'll answer, sometimes we'll hallucinate. and then when talking about hospitality, company, when talking about hospitality company, the understanding of what's, what, what needed to be, what needs to be done goes back to the consumers because you're selling to these consumers and et cetera. So you cannot, as a, you can use chat dbt to help you manage your restaurants because. Chat TPT may know, the base standard, do's and don'ts for restaurants, but chat TPT has no idea of your consumer's perception, your consumer expectations. again, explaining what we do in another way, comparing with chat TPT, I have a feature, which, we call the free to system, which is basically ask anything. Oh, how do I increase sales? what about my, pizza, whatever, flavor? What about this? What about that? I can ask anything. And then, the AI will actually bring the answer without hallucinating, but that answer will be based 100 percent on the consumer's perception of that specific place. So I'm not going to, publicly, I'm not gonna get answers, of public sources, but chatGBT usually does, but from specifically that group of consumers that will make or break that place. So that's another way just to, to show how far we went in terms of using AI to, again, ask a question, you got the answer based on your consumers, people who are paying the bills for you. yeah, go ahead.
Jeremy:how, I would say, so how do you deliver this for free? Like net, net free, it sounds too good to be true, Lucas. I am eager to hear how you're delivering this to these restaurants at a net, no cost to them. Because I think, it's like, what's the catch. Tell me what the catch is before, before they learn a little bit more about how to, how to get in touch with you and sign up.
Lucas Judice:Awesome. And I do want to go back to the case studies later, because that's interesting, very interesting questions as well, but the no net free cost. no net cost actually is just, the idea that at the end of the month, at the end of the campaign, let's say the survey campaign, the restaurant will actually have either no cost or actually we'll make profits out of that data collection process. So let me bring one example that will, be easier to understand. So let's say we do a cashback, let's say we do a survey that we are, reimbursing 40. Okay. for that consumer, will launch that voucher in our platform. The consumer will reserve that voucher and by reserving the voucher, the consumer knows that he or she will have 40 in that example. if they go to the restaurant within three days, eat whatever they want to eat. Pay with their money, go back to the website, fill out the survey, and as soon as that survey, as soon as that survey is approved, meaning it's a good survey, not that the rating is good, but it was, it's a logical survey, we'll provide that cashback. even though we're providing that 40 in cashback for that example, when the consumer goes to that place, he or she will not spend only 40. Because you know what, if I'm getting 40 in cashback, why not getting that dessert or maybe more drinks, more appetizer, whatever. So on average, our users are spending 50 percent on top of the cashback. So for that example, if they're getting 40, they'll be spending 60 just because they ate a 60 meal, but in their mind cost only 20 because they know they're getting 40. Not only this, but they don't want to go by themselves. They want to take friends and family with them. And these extra people do not have the right to be reimbursed, but they're going there anyways, because our users, have the voucher. and these extra people, again, each one of them will spend, let's say the average check in that location. So going back to the mathematics. If our users got 40 in cash back, but they spent 60, but then the, let's say they took one, one gas with them, that gas is spending another 40. So for that one experience in which we gave 40 in cash back. Actually, the bill was, what here, 100.
Jeremy:A hundred with a 40 discount. So net 60. Yeah.
Lucas Judice:exactly. So that's a profitable data collection. And of course, we have the service fee, which in our case, we want to make sure that we're creating volume. everything is automated on our side. if we want to create volume and everything is automated, I don't need to charge 100, 200, 300 per survey. I can charge 10 per survey, sometimes even less. So it really depends on how, the length of the contract or everything. But the point is, even if we charge 10 per survey, plus the 40 for that example, for the cashback, that consumer spend 100. Let's say they take two people with them, three, four, five. So the more guests they take with them, bigger the check. And then of course, better revenue they'll have. and even if you, discount the food cost. They're still making money on average to every 1, 000 that is invested on Fritz, including cashback plus a service fee, we're generating 1, 900 in sales. So that makes everything profitable. And that's the incentive that the operator needed in order to decide, okay, you know what? If it's profitable, even though it isn't like a huge profit, it doesn't need to be a huge profit. We're not a sales channel, but if there is a profit or even if it is net profit, even if it's zeros out, I invest a thousand and we created like whatever, even if considering the food costs, even if the operators zeros out the investment. they're still getting a lot of data that will help them increase revenue down the line. So if it's profitable or at least known at cost, why not survey 40, 50, 60, 70 people per month? That's a catch.
Jeremy:and at the end of the day, those people are going to come back because you're fixing their problems. And so Lucas, why don't you talk through just one quick case study before we let people know how to get in touch with you? Cause we're, I know typically when I get to about that 35 to 40 minute mark, people start to tune out and I start to see the retention drop off. So talk to me a little bit about somebody that you guys have done this for that really is seeing great results. Both from the guest satisfaction and really, issuing these surveys and what it's looked like for them and how it's, how it's helped their business grow. Oh yeah. And
Lucas Judice:Okay. so actually I'm gonna give two quick examples.'cause they are, that they add on to each other. One wa was a case that it's a brand. They have one hundred and twenty one hundred thirty locations and then we run a pilot with them, was an interesting one. That's super, recent, this one. And then out of these 120, 100 and 30 locations. 10 locations were actually really paying attention to the data set. And in that, for that 10 locations, we were able to understand what were the most important indicators that were driving their revenue down. Or which, were the actions they would need to take in order to increase that wow factor. And by increasing the wow factor, people would be happier, they would come back more, they would, have less churn. they would, just their NPS would be better. Anyway, so we're able to understand for that specific, situation that friendliness was playing a good, role in that. Decoration as well. Speedness. And then, the last one was, ooh, let me remember here. Oh, flavor and quality. these are basic things, right? But these 10 stores, they really paid attention to that. They didn't change the menu items. It didn't change anything. It was just paying attention to these four items. And they were able to, implement actions. They were implemented training sessions. They implemented, just, they set the expectation a little better for their consumers. Long story short. These, 10 stores increase revenue by 17 percent compared to the other 120 stores, just because they were, nothing else happened. No one, no competitor closed the doors across the street. Nothing else happens, but they were just paying attention. Of course, I'm just simplifying a much longer, kind of case study, but the point is. After paying attention to their consumers, paying attention to the ability of wow, wowing their consumers, they were able to increase their returning clients, their frequency as well. And that at the end of the month, actually at the end of the year, made them increase 17 percent in sales for that specific example. Another quick example here as well, that's interesting, which is more like a hidden opportunity that we're able to uncover with the first one was more trying to understand what impacts wow and how to wow people better. But the second one, wasn't related to wowing people, but was, More like a hidden opportunity. Easy one to see, but no one was seeing. But this place, fine dining restaurant, full, full service. They were, for the past six months, they were increasing, sales, figure for wine. They're selling more wine for the past six months. But then when we ran the service, meaning they were happy, with, increasing sales figures for a wine offering. After running the survey, we saw that only 13 percent of their waiters were actually being proactive in offering that wine. So we created a, this plan of action for them. They implement a few actions to have the waiters increase that effectiveness for upselling wine. And after three to four months, they were able to increase every check. By 20 percent because now more people are buying wine and of course, more people are, the average checks just higher for, as a whole for these, consumers, and then that will impact overall average check across, that, that experience that, that place. again, selling more or less wine wouldn't impact the wow factor, but that was a hidden opportunity that we're able to uncover, even though in the past six months, they were increasing, wine sales. Anyways, these are two quick examples that, when you pay attention to wowing people, you can, and you track that you can actually, see value, see increasing in revenue, down the line.
Jeremy:at the day, the guests win, the restaurant wins. and, as you said, it's a, everybody wins. so how do people get in touch with you, Lucas? How do people learn more about, other than if you're friends with Stephen, You got to call Stephen and say, Hey, how do I get in touch with Lucas? Which, I'm teasing cause Stephen feels, it feels like Stephen knows everybody, but, teasing just a little bit, but, but, how do people get in touch with Freeds? How they learn more, figure out if it's right for their restaurant and how they can, they can implement a solution like what you guys have.
Lucas Judice:quick way, LinkedIn, Lucas, Judas, LinkedIn, or maybe freets. com. to go directly to the, institutional page, b2b. fritz. com. That's also another, potential link, but whoever is willing to embrace that objective to wowing their customers. In every, touch point, if they are wowing people and then what are the metrics that will make people be more or less wowed. And if they are willing to track that wow ness, that's a good starting point to have them, think about, okay, what are the tools out there in the market? And do I want to go like full deep dive to really understand what's happening? Do I want to go more like just touch the surface, be, not necessarily too deep, but anyways, There are space, there, there's room for, a lot of potential avenues, but if they want to get in touch, if they are willing to get that, that, that tracking, done, we are more than welcome, welcome to talk to them.
Jeremy:I love what you guys are solving for. I know there's lots of different ways that people are solving this problem, but you guys have some unique value proposition and some unique ways about going about it. So Lucas, thank you. Thank you for sharing some of your wisdom on how you guys are solving these problems. I always love entrepreneurs that are solving real world problems. to our listeners, guys, we know that you guys have got lots of choices while you guys are online. Go check out freets. com. go check out restaurant. Technology guys. com subscribe to the newsletter. Once a month, you'll get an email with all of the episodes, Lucas. Thank you so much for your time. And to our listeners, make it a great day.
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