The Restaurant Technology Guys Podcast brought to you by Custom Business Solutions
The Restaurant Technology Guys Podcast brought to you by Custom Business Solutions
Boosting Corporate Dining: Insights from Laura Wilbur of Dinova
In this episode of the Restaurant Technology Guys podcast, host Jeremy Julian sits down with Laura Wilbur from Dinova to discuss strategies for attracting higher-spending corporate guests to restaurants. They delve into the benefits for both corporate diners and restaurant operators, including increased guest frequency, higher average check sizes, and loyal business relationships. Laura shares her professional insights on how Dinova helps bridge the gap between Fortune 1000 companies and high-quality dining establishments through tailored corporate dining programs. Key topics include restaurant vetting, managing guest experiences, and the specifics of business dining trends in today's economic climate.
00:00 Introduction to the Podcast
00:12 Meet Laura Wilbur from Dinova
00:19 The Importance of Corporate Guests
01:16 Laura's Background and Expertise
02:23 Understanding Expense Account Diners
03:44 How Dinova Connects Restaurants and Corporations
05:50 Navigating the Dinova App
07:31 Benefits for Diners and Corporations
11:13 Advantages for Restaurants
15:12 Ensuring Quality Experiences
19:58 Balancing Family and Business
20:26 Dining Out with Family vs. Business
21:24 The Importance of Customer Relationships
23:11 Challenges in the Restaurant Industry
26:54 Corporate Dining Best Practices
33:01 Engaging with Dinova
35:42 Conclusion and Contact Information
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Jeremy:In today's episode, we are joined by Laura Wilbur who worked for Dinova. Her. And I met at a conference a couple of years ago. And in today's up show, she's going to share how you can attract corporate guests, who statistically spend more and drive higher levels of frequency and profit to your restaurant. If you don't know me, my name is Jeremy Julian. I am the chief revenue officer for CBS north star. We developed the north star. point of sale product that is. Geared towards multiunit restaurants, check us out at cbsnorthstar.com and now onto our episode. Welcome back to the Restaurant Technology Guys podcast. I thank everyone out there for joining us. As I say, each and every time I don't take your days, this time for granted. And so thank you guys for joining us. I know you guys got lots of other choices. Today is a fun story because, Laura and I met a couple of years ago through a mutual introduction. I'm gonna let her tell her story a little bit more here in just a second, but. Very few times in the restaurant industry, am I at a conference? And one of the people that I'm talking to says, you really gotta know who Laura is. And so Laura, why don't you introduce yourself? who is Laura? Tell us a little bit about yourself, a little bit about your background, and then we can get, get into what you get to do professionally
Laura Wilber:Thank you so much, Jeremy. My name is Laura, and I help, busy restaurant operators get more expense account diners into their restaurants and keep the ones they have. I live in North San Diego County, Encinitas. I'm a mom to two kids, one who's a nurse, Sarah. She's a NICU nurse, and our son, Nick, sells financial services in Phoenix, Arizona. two fluffy dogs sitting over there that may, decide to say hi sometime during our conversation. But I've spent my whole career trying to help businesses grow and, I'm just really thankful to be working in this space, which is exclusively with business diners or expense account diners paying with the company's money.
Jeremy:I love that. And, again, I know we met at a restaurant conference and I love that are passionate about this industry because I know we were talking about it pre show and oftentimes we'll do a, 10 or 15 minutes with every one of our guests on the show and we'll talk, help me understand, talk to me a little bit about it. And so I love that you're so passionate about that. For those that don't quite understand or can't get their head around, how do you get expense diners, business diners? Help me help tease that out a little bit, because I think it's a unique value proposition. And part of why I wanted to share your story and the story of what you guys get to do professionally with our
Laura Wilber:thanks for asking. if you think of it as the overall expense management function for a large company or a government agency, they have, procurement officers and folks in at the corporate office whose job it is to manage their expenses, right? So these folks will have direct relationships with airlines. Hotel groups and rental car companies that they're able to manage themselves because there are only a handful of players large enough to accommodate their needs. And for example, they'll send out a request for proposal to, let's say, the top five airlines and say, Hey, we're going to spend X million dollars on air travel in the next few years. Who wants to be our partner? They'll pick one, they'll alert all their teams traveling for business using a company card. Hey, everybody, we're flying. American is our partner, right? So if you have a business meeting in a city American doesn't fly to, you can fly United. But as a good steward of company resources, we need you to fly American drive the partner rental car. Stay at the partner hotel and dine at one of the partner restaurants. So because of the fragmented nature of the restaurant biz that, very well, they just don't have the bandwidth to have conversations and figure out who are these great restaurants that we should be going to, which restaurants might want to be our partner and have us start shifting our spending to them. and who might be able or interested in giving us some consideration if we do shift our spending to them. So they outsourced that to Dinova. Dinova has been at it about 16 years, and we've, we have about 560 global companies that have hired us to run this network for them, as well as, very large government agencies.
Jeremy:Yeah. So I'm, there's so many questions, Laura. So I'm going to start at the top. So if I'm one of those brands, say I'm Hilton hotels and, not all Hilton properties have a restaurant inside of them, but I want to now send our executives out and they're going to go out and be whining and dining, which, I have been that same consumer and we will talk a little bit about your previous experience. I am that guy. I'm the guy that picks when we're going out of town, I'm the person that picks oftentimes where we're going to eat. Literally an hour ago, I was talking, we have a show next week in Dallas in my hometown where I live and there's a show next week and we're bringing a customer out to finish up signing up a deal. And the sales rep goes, I'm not from Dallas. Help me understand where we need to go. So tease that out a little bit for me. I'm Hilton. I'm now going to Dallas for this conference. And I'm not going for this conference. Help me understand what that would look like, both from the. Brand side, the restaurant brand side, and then really from the consumer, brand, consumer side, the guy that's making the choice to go to X brand
Laura Wilber:Okay, I love it. So if you happen to be working at a fortune 1000 company, you would most likely have some sort of travel policy related to who your partners are, right? because you are a business owner, you get to pick right? so that's,
Jeremy:Yes, I do. Whether I feel like ribeye or I feel like, I feel like fish today. I get to choose where I'm going, but I
Laura Wilber:any
Jeremy:out of big company. There's yeah, exactly. But at a big company, you have certain policies that you got to adhere to. So keep teasing that out
Laura Wilber:So what you would do is you would go to your expense management tool. So concur or tripism or, whatever, or you could go to the Dinova app, which is just Dinova. com. For restaurants you would click on that and then there would be a list of all the restaurants in the city that you're going to In dallas so I could do it on my phone. As we talk i'll just pull up the search real quick It's a real easy, you know something for your smartphone And so for dallas I would just type in dallas or actually the zip code. So you're at the gaylord Okay. Okay. so i'll just do search And so it'll come up as, and you can probably just barely see the cuisine images, right? But if you get really specific and you do the search from your hotel, the Gaylord Texan in Grapevine, it'll show you all the restaurants that are closest in proximity to where you're staying. And you can pick by cuisine type. You can pick by, do they have a private dining room? Do they offer catering if you want to bring food in, to the resort? for a team or for a group of clients or something of that nature. so Pegasus City Brewery, Moe's Southwest Grill, Press Box Grill. Monarch, Sushi Bar Dallas, Paparazzi Chop House, Mendocino Farms, Leigh Madeline, The Operators Club, Truth and Alibi, Cheap Steaks, Deep Sushi, so lots and lots of options in Dallas. So you would likely find what you needed. Based on cuisine type and level of service,
Jeremy:Okay. And so with that, as the consumer that's using this product, I'm looking for a business meal. I'm looking for a, what's the value to me other than it meets my policy. And my boss, isn't going to yell at me about my expense report. Most Southwest is a fast, casual concept. It's not. Taking a client. likely you're not going to take a client out to most Southwest for a business meal, nothing wrong with most Southwest. It's awesome. Great food, but you're probably not going to take a client out to that. Some of those other options that you rattled off that were in Dallas, you would take a client too. And so what would the value for me be? If I'm just, you know what, I've got a per diem. I know that I can go spend it at Chipotle or Moe's or Qdoba, which are all very similar price points of all very similar products. And you know what? I'm going to go do that. So talk me through as the. Person that's at one of those fortune 1000 companies. Why would I choose to go to Mo's and even go look that up if I'm just having a solitary meal versus going and looking, looking for a business meal type of thing. And then we can tease out the
Laura Wilber:Okay. Sounds great. So yes, as you know with when you're traveling for business, You need a solution from morning coffee to last call at the bar to a quick drive thru to a bagel Whatever you need, right? And you know for me as I mentioned earlier Being a good steward of company resources. It's, you're a business owner, right? When you hire, when you onboard somebody and you tell them the rules, if you're going to give them a company card, there are just a few rules, right? you have a policy. And so most of the folks that are traveling for official company business are good steward of good stewards of company resources. Not every company has a policy. again, we're only working with about half of the fortune 1000, so I'm not sure what they do, but really, it's the conscientious traveler that's doing their best to be a good steward. In addition to that, they earn reward points individually when they dine at an in network restaurant that they can redeem for different gift cards or, whatever. Items that they would like on the Dinova marketplace,
Jeremy:Okay. That's as a diner. I get rewarded for using so instead of going to chipotle and nothing wrong with chipotle but instead of going to chipotle if I choose to go to moe's it's going to benefit me as the user Of that car App and of your guys's solution. Okay. At corporate, I think I get what their benefit is. Corporate's going to be able to get the benefit of they're going to know where those things are at. It's a little bit easier. Do they also get rewarded for partnering with them? So if I am American Airlines or if I'm Hilton and I've now a partner of yours, and I've now put this policy in place, do they also And now a word from one of our sponsors. Every restaurant operator understands the chaos of a Restaurant kitchen during the meal rush restaurant technologies, oil, total oil management solutions, and end to end automated oil management system that delivers filters, monitors, and recycles your cooking oil, taking the dirtiest jobs out of your kitchen and letting your employees focus on more important tasks. Control the kitchen chaos with restaurant technologies and make your kitchen safer. No upfront costs to learn more, check out rti inc. com or call 888 796 4997.
Laura Wilber:Yes So that's a good point that I think I left out Jeremy is that the whole reason that they shift their dining spend to their Partners is that they receive some consideration back from the partner and in the case of Dinova It's a loyalty rebate as a percentage of what they spend Once a month and it's a relatively small percent, compared to certainly third party delivery or other third party solutions out there. but it is, there is a, cash, if you will, loyalty rebate that the restaurants provide. To the corporations that shift their spending to them. The reason that they, they believe that makes sense is that it's early and midweek when the restaurant's not at capacity, typically, and the average check when the company's buying is 50 to 200 percent higher than when a consumer is paying with their own money. And especially right now, as consumers are pulling back, due to inflation and a variety of reasons, Traffic is down. That's no secret. Consumers are just watching their pennies a little bit closer. Things have gotten a lot more expensive since the pandemic. So if consumer traffic is down and you have empty and perishing inventory, empty seats, early and mid week, why not invite a high spending business diner there? The business diners want to be home for dinner with their family by Friday night if they can. And, it's, they're not familiar with your menu, per se. They don't care or know if you've had to raise prices on your menu five times in the last three years. they just, they're willing to pay for a great experience.
Jeremy:Okay. Yeah. And I think that's, that's a fantastic, from, from the, which really shifts I guess from the restaurant side, they're looking for more diners. They're looking for more wallet spend. They're looking for to hit that, to get to that consumer. What other advantages does the restaurant see other than potentially an uptick in guest count and in, I guess just guest count and really traffic because I know for myself and again, exact example I chose. And again, business owner, I can make the choices. I always like to dine at restaurants that we do business with, which is always good because then I can give feedback to the owners that I have a good experience, that I have a bad experience. But I also know when I'm taking somebody out that I'm trying to court, I'm I know what my experience, what I want my experience to look like. And so there's a reason I chose to go to this one brand versus a different brand. and we can talk through that, but what other benefits does the restaurant receive other than the potential of extra traffic from that
Laura Wilber:thankfully it's guaranteed extra traffic, right? So we know that when we send, when you go live and you get added to company policy, there are 18 million corporate cardholders that are, that we're managing this dining network for, right? You're absolutely going to get some business from it. I have signed up. There's a, there's a. Yogurt shop with two locations in Murrieta, Georgia. they are not seeing a ton of business travelers through, but they are getting some, right? So why not be on the part on the, in the network? it doesn't cost you anything to join the network. And if nobody comes, all you've done is gained exposure to a really high value guests. So there's great value in that, right? There's no work whatsoever for staff or guests. We're not in your POS, which I know is your business. There are no tablets. there's no special loyalty cards or anything. It's all tracked through the company card. And, the manager, the data is managed by the corporations themselves. for that reason, for the restaurant, no friction, no discounting to the consumer, either of these consumers are paying full price, they're telling their colleagues. about a great restaurant in the city. They're not exposed to your local marketing because 71 percent of the guests we send any restaurant are coming in from out of area. And you just gave that example, Jeremy, about how you're in this case of this conference, it happens to be in your home city. you are in your home market and the company will pick up the tab for that dinner, but usually it's, it's a vendor traveling. To see their customer who isn't necessarily in their home market. They're not as familiar with the restaurants. And so they're reliant on their corporate company policy to identify who are our partners. We already know, colleagues have had great experiences there. They've been vetted and, that's how they're finding the restaurants.
Jeremy:So I've got two series of questions. The first of which is really. wrapped around, you just made a comment that says there, they're going to get a good experience if they're in network, talk to me about how you guys monitor and manage that to ensure that these business diners aren't constantly having bad experiences. Obviously you guys can't manage every transaction or every, you said 18 million corporate crowd. And that's insane to me that you guys are driving that much potential traffic. So looking at that there, but. if I happen to go to X, Y, Z, Ruth, Chris, and I had a bad experience in the city, that could be poor to the network, the network effect. Talk, talk to me a little bit about how you guys manage that. Cause when you look at other third party marketplaces, whether that's a DoorDash, whether that's a Yelp, whether that's a Google, other, and I say third party marketplaces, other places where you can go do discovery of where you want to go. You can see the reviews. Do you guys do something similar to that? Do you guys pull them from the network? Talk me through a little bit of how that. How that whole thing would work. If in fact you guys are constantly seeing, poor performance, Growing your business can mean big time logistical questions like, how am I going to keep up with all these local deliveries? Let UberDirect offer you a helping hand. With UberDirect, you can take orders on your website, via app, or by phone. Then drivers who are part of the Uber courier network will pick them up from your store and deliver them to your customer's doorsteps. Sounds simple, right? Delivery just got better with UberDirect. Check out uberdirect. com to learn more.
Laura Wilber:we don't have a problem with that. So we'll hear directly from our corporate clients if there is a problem, which is incredibly rare. So these corporate diners like yourself, right? These are business leaders. business owners in some cases, and they're very experienced in their ordering of catering or ordering food for teams, they're very specific about what they want and need. And they're just savvy customers. They know if there's a bad experience, that the right thing to do is to deal directly with the restaurant on that. and allow the restaurant the chance to make it right. We don't hear, thankfully. at least in my role, we don't hear much about any negative experiences and really just the vetting of the restaurants, right? So we get referrals like I know you do for your company, for your POS company. So those are a lot of our, a lot of our restaurants that are in our network are referred by other great restaurants in our network and people will vouch for the restaurants and say, Hey, this is a great restaurant. My buddy works over here or, they've had a great experience at the restaurant and they believe that more business diners would enjoy it, but certainly just like you, Jeremy, when you're vetting a new restaurant partner to potentially add as a customer, you're doing your due diligence about the business, right? Spending.
Jeremy:Just to make sure that they're not going to be a bad customer because at the end of the day, that hurts all of us. So the second thing that I wanted to talk about, Laura, is you've said something about an increased spend on corporate dining. And as a owner, I've had to look through expense reports and go, Hey, why was this meal so expensive? But. Statistically, you found that it's, I think he said between 70 and 200 percent higher than if I was going in with my family for that same meal, same party of four, same party of six, whatever that, whatever that meal is, it's that much higher. Talk me through, I'm certain I'm entertaining different, cultural things, different industries, but talk me through one. What does that really look like? Is it. Is the trend even holding as we're getting into, into the, this recessionary or whatever you want to call it, inflationary period. Is it still happening? talk me through a little bit of that. Cause I'd love, I think restaurants that aren't exposed to this type of guest should really be considering it. Even if, because a lot of times when I talk to people about what you guys do, it's like, I'm a, I'm a competitor to Moe's. Why would anybody care about this? Which is part of why I want to make sure you tease that out. But that's a huge uptick in sales, that they should be able to take advantage of if they're doing it properly. So talk me through what is the statistics cold? Why do we think that's the case? and where does it go in, in that? Because they still have a policy to uphold. They still have to deal with the corporate rules for these fortune 1000 companies. you got both sides on their attention, but you're still seeing that it's
Laura Wilber:Oh, yeah, and again take yourself as an example So when you're eating out with your family, and I don't know how large your family is jeremy. Oh my goodness
Jeremy:to have a son. I happen to have a son named Nick. So when you said Nick was your son, I happen to have a son. He's my oldest. he's a second year in college. And then I've got three teenagers, two at home. And then I, eight year old who will turn nine in a couple of weeks. So life is very full for
Laura Wilber:Definitely. there's a book called full catastrophe living i'm digressing here But it's based on the it's based on the movie Zorba the Greek, and it, the idea, the reason for the catastrophe is, Zorba is asked, are you married? And he goes, oh yeah, wife, kids, the full catastrophe, right? Which is just, the more full your life is, the more chance for great joy and great heart, heartache too. But,
Jeremy:No, I, four kids is a lot, but, and my, and sometimes my parents are like, what, you guys are never home. You never, but, and they're all in competitive sports and we're very active at church and, so yes, life is very full. And I. Happen to run a business, that sells point of sale to restaurants that never closed. It feels like so sorry. I'll let you keep going.
Laura Wilber:love it. So you are, you have a large family, so eating out with your family is, probably more expensive than some families or just couples that are going out to eat, but I would imagine that when you're out with your family of six, you're not always, trying the appetizers. order, trading up on the wine list or ordering the fancy cocktails for everyone to try. you're maybe not, ordering desserts or several desserts for everyone to, to try. You're maybe not ordering the seafood tower as an appetizer. But tell me about your experience when you're entertaining groups for business. Yeah.
Jeremy:no, absolutely. you either go around the table and figure out what, Hey, these are the three appetizers or half the time when I'm doing it. I just ordered them. Does anybody at the table really need those extra, thousand calories in that meal? Probably not, but everybody does. And, for somebody that travels, a hundred. 20 nights a year. I eat a lot of meals out and, I often eat more calories than I should when I'm out on the road. So you are a hundred percent
Laura Wilber:and that's really what drives up that average check, Jeremy, is, it's that fun, celebratory, splurging. And you and I both know, the time that we get with our existing customers is a chance to say thank you. It's pretty rare. And so when we're at a fine dining restaurant and we have a chance to really sit with them and get to know them, we want to, celebrate and experience new fun things on the menu and ocean prime is one of our partners and has been for many years. And, that's, I was thinking of the seafood tower there. they also have.
Jeremy:I've had it multiple times. I've had it where a vendor has paid for it. I've had
Laura Wilber:There you go,
Jeremy:for a customer. So I've been on both sides
Laura Wilber:but you it is but it's something again like you and I are blessed to be able To dine out for business, right? So if you're gonna go With the family, you might say, I'm going to wait and get that seafood tower when I'm going for business, and experience that with a customer. So again, that's a lot of it.
Jeremy:Love that. the last, line of questioning is before the show kicked off, you and I talked about your history prior to joining the organization you're with now, why is it something that you're so passionate about helping both the brands and even the consumers to experience this? Because. You were in my role at some point in your career prior to, and so I love that you're so passionate about helping people to achieve success as it relates to this endeavor, because prior to meeting you a couple of years ago, I didn't even know something like this existed. And so because of it, it's like, why are, and I said it to you, when we're, Pre recording. It's like, why are more people not doing this? And you're like, I don't know. They need to talk to me. why are you so passionate about making sure that this is, this is such a success for the brands that you
Laura Wilber:Oh my gosh. there are so many reasons, Jeremy, that I feel, like I said, very blessed to be where I'm at today, representing this network of 24, 000 restaurants, that are. If you break it down to what the solution is for the restaurants, really, when you think about it, it's automating something that is very time consuming for any of us. So again, you and I, as sales professionals, we know how long it takes to get someone on the phone to talk to us or, that whole process. Imagine, if you were a restaurant trying to get into fortune 1000 companies and government agencies from across the United States to say, come to my restaurant or my restaurants. And this is the reason why, and we want to partner with you and we're going to roll out the red carpet and we're going to provide you with an incentive to be our customer. if we think the restaurant operator, screening game is good, try, top security government agency right to try to get that meeting, right?
Jeremy:Yeah. There's a reason we don't sell to government agencies because they're a pain in the butt, and the amount of paperwork you got to go through is really challenging.
Laura Wilber:we're so thankful to have, most of these companies will white label the Dinova network and call it. Their company dining program. So one of them is D. O. D. Dine smart, right? They have their own logo for it. it's something that you know that people at the government agency will drive past a lot of restaurants to go to one that's part of company policy. So again, I'm I feel very blessed to be coming to you from my kitchen here in North San Diego County. I'm yeah. Less to work from home. I didn't always get to do that. So I used to be national sales manager at a large radio group, in Los Angeles, really big one. And so my job was to wine and dine my ad agency buyers at restaurants in all the big cities across the country. And I would say, Hey, go, I'll be in New York, one week, every quarter. Which Michelin starred restaurant haven't you dined at yet? And then we would just go to those restaurants for a week, right? And then do it again in another city. And, I remember in Chicago one year when chef Charlie Trotter was still alive, I had a week that all of my customers wanted to go to Charlie Trotter's restaurant. So I think.
Jeremy:Yeah. That's not a bad gig
Laura Wilber:Yes, he was. And the chance to get to meet him in the kitchen and, because if you're a customer that's coming in that much, and I think I was
Jeremy:They get to know who you are because
Laura Wilber:Yeah. And I'm also like very curious and friendly and definitely want to see behind the curtain and figure out what makes this place tick. so again, that was part of my career in the past as to experiencing a great restaurant experience as a business traveler and a business diner. And, so fast forward to now, I'm really looking for restaurant operators and for my customers to figure out what's the lowest cost way that I can acquire. The highest value guest at my restaurant and not really have to do a lot of heavy lifting because as we know, restaurant operators are incredibly busy. Their attention and time is stretched really thin. So our solution at Dinova corporate dining is to tell that story for these great restaurant operators to the who's who in business and government travel. that's all we do is say, Hey, you're traveling to Dallas. You need to make sure that you're dining at these great restaurants. And here are the reasons why. And same goes for every city in the U S and in Canada.
Jeremy:I love that. not necessarily related to what you do every day, but are there any best practices that you've found for corporate dining? I happen to, so one of our clients is Perry's Steakhouse based in Houston. Fantastic food. If you've not gotten a chance to go to Perry's and I happen to have our. Host our Christmas party there for our Dallas based staff. It was one of the most remarkable private dining pre experiences that I had. And from pre experience, they did a great job of prepping the menu. What was going to be on the tables? What was where they failed, which I say they failed. And I've talked to them about this. I don't feel like I'm talking out of school where they struggled is at the end of the meal. I was sitting behind and a big long table and they didn't just take care of the check and deal with it. So I had to get up and go pay the check and deal with all of that, which, I've told them, Hey, you knew, I already told you that I was just going to just put it on and keep it on the same card. So it created a little bit of an awkward experience for me at the end. It happened to be all my staff and their spouses. So it was easy. And at the same time, the pre experience was great. I've also had the opposite happen where You show up and you're supposed to have a reservation for 20 and it's not great. And you're like, Oh crap, what are we going to do? I got customer, and so are there any best practices that you have learned through dealing with this group of people and group of restaurants that you might give to our audience that they need to consider if they're going to go down this path of truly being a destination for corporate
Laura Wilber:Yes. And, really it's what you said about the pre work, right? So if a restaurant doesn't already have on their website, different tabs related to. Private dining, semi private dining, catering, carry out to go third party delivery, whatever they have, make it absolutely obvious for the business decision maker to figure out, Oh, your restaurant does do this. And then take it further too. So in your experience, I'm not sure if Perry's had a form for you to fill out online. Did they? Okay.
Jeremy:and then I had a phone call with the catering lady or the private events. It happened to be a lady in this case. And she's okay, tell me what the, in the forum said it was for a Christmas party and we were going to have spouses and all of that. Did you want pre prepped wine? Did you not want pre prepped wine? Did you want to order off the wine list? Did you want to let them go to the highest level of the menu or do you want to keep them under a certain dollar threshold? We went through all of that over the phone and, I made my decisions at the time, but I'll let you keep going. But yes. We, I filled out the form, then I got a phone call. We scheduled a phone call on zoom or teams or whatever, jumped on a quick phone call, talk through what my experience that I wanted to have. And, they, we did it off the menu or maybe we even shrunk down the menu a little bit, but didn't go completely to three items, which. We've all been at those dinings where you're like, Oh, I get the Caesar salad or I get the French onion soup. Those are my two options today.
Laura Wilber:I hate both.
Jeremy:but we've done that and that's fine. there's times that works. And then there's times that you're like, Oh, I really wanted to try that. can I pay for the tomato bisque soup myself? kind of thing. we've all been there and done that if we've dined out on the corporate side, but I just find that some brands do it really well. And I'm not going to pick on the one that I showed up and it's Hey, we've got a party at 20 and nobody even knows that we're coming. cause that's happened too. And that's embarrassing and that's really hard to figure out. And I'm like, I'm in the restaurant business and I'm taking a client out to dinner. And yeah, so I'll let you keep going. What are the best practices? So the pre prep work you
Laura Wilber:So again, if you're, if you have a restaurant and again, your website is critically important. People need to understand, ideally, if you can even have a picture of what is this private dining space going to look like, cuisine, if you can have a couple images, beautiful images, it's absolutely worth spending the money on professional photography. Yeah. Absolutely. to give them a sense of maybe a signature dish. And, the thing about what we do at Dinova is we're the invitation. The restaurant is the party, right? So we can get them there. The restaurant has to do it well and execute as and that's where we hand it off and we have to trust that our restaurant operators are going to take good care of our business diners. what's great is that the number of repeat visits from a new customer that we send to any restaurant, I just went through an analysis with our team yesterday for a brand. And the, I think the number of repeat visits in. In six months was three times for this brand, which a lot of brands will tell us, Hey, we've, we figured you could help us with the discovery. We're not sure how much, how often these folks are coming to our market for dining there. They're usually really pleasantly surprised by the number of repeat visits. And that makes me think that our restaurant partners are executing. Cause people, as won't come back if they have a bad experience. Usually. And it's not rectified, but there is something else that Dinova, does for fine dining. We have a concierge service called Dine Assist, Dinova Dine Assist. You could just go online. You can see the form. It's if you'd Googled it, Dinova Dine Assist, it'll come right up and we just help our business travelers figure out which restaurants in our network and the city they're traveling to can accommodate their group, right? So we'll figure out. How many people do you need to serve? Does it need to be private or can it be semi private? how close to the zip code where, or the address of where your meeting is do you need this restaurant to be? We'll narrow it down to the top three. And then from there, they will take that, they will pick one and then they'll deal directly with the restaurant on booking.
Jeremy:that's awesome. And again, I could see the repeat business. My neighbor who I go to the bus stop with, he works for Schwab and he's always in Austin, then he's in Houston. Then he's in Denver and he always stays at the same hotel. He takes the same flights he goes. And so he's you know what? It's just easy. I just know where I'm going to have dinner tonight and I know I'm going to have dinner tomorrow night. And I know I'm going to have dinner the next night. Cause it's just easy. It's one of these three places. And so from that perspective, that's not surprising, but. Unless you get discovered and get into that, that queue, because humans really are ultimately, at the end of the day, are creatures of habit. They don't want to make as many decisions as we think we want to make. And I was like, you know what? I know if I go here that I'm going to get the meal that I need and deserve. So how do people learn more? How do people get engaged? Talk to me a little bit about what this would look like. I'm Perry's, I'm not a client. I don't know if they are or not. It doesn't matter. But now I'm sitting here and I'm Perry's Steakhouse and I'm listening to this and going, I need what Laura has. How do I get, how do I learn more? How do I get engaged there to, to spend some time with you guys and figure out
Laura Wilber:Okay. Perry's, I would absolutely love to meet you. I, have not yet. And, I've been in the restaurant in Austin speaking of, traveling in Texas.
Jeremy:are, they're based in Houston. They fantastic. Every time I've ever gone, they're like one of my go to's if they're in a city. I love it. happened to be a client. Awesome. Awesome team down there. But, so maybe we can figure out
Laura Wilber:Okay. I'll buy dinner at Perry's next time. I'm in Dallas. Okay. that would be fun. So yeah, so it's really just as easy as a 15 minute phone conversation to get a sense of, do you have open availability early in midweek? is there a need? Because if not, then, then why would you offer our corporate clients any type of consideration for shifting their spending to you? So that's number one in that 15 minute exploratory call. It's for me to understand. I know from what you've shared about Perry's. And just from seeing the restaurants myself, that they would absolutely be, of interest to the, to a lot of our corporate clients. So there would definitely be interest. There's definitely a lot of money and dining spend being spent in the cities that they serve. And there are, there is a need for more fine dining. So we, I know that we would have demand there for them. And then it would just be a matter of figuring out the economics of, what's that loyalty rebate percent. how do we make that as affordable as possible so that it pencils out? And we do that calculation together and sometimes it does, and sometimes it doesn't and that's okay. it usually does, but again, there has to be a need from the restaurant side.
Jeremy:I love that. so I'll put your, and I know we talked about it. So you best way to connect with you, email, phone call carrier pigeon. I know you said LinkedIn, so how should they schedule that time with you? And getting they're sitting listening. They're like, Hey, we got to get this going. what would you suggest their
Laura Wilber:I would say the easiest if you're on LinkedIn is just to find me, Laura Wilber, at LinkedIn. I'll come right up or you could Google search me there. there's a button that says book a meeting for a 15 minute exploratory call just to find out if it is a fit and I'll answer any question that you have. also, email is easy, which is L Wilber, W I L B E R at Dinova. You can also go to the website to do your own research, Dinova. com and click on four restaurants and you'll be able to learn a lot about how it works.
Jeremy:thank you for that. And, as I said at the onset, there's a reason why everybody likes talking to you and hanging out with you. Cause you really help restaurants and solve some problems that they might have, especially in that early part of the week. So thank you for coming on. Thank you for hanging out with our audience. to our audience guys, like I said at the beginning, I know you guys have got lots of choices. So thank you guys for hanging out with us. If you know somebody that you want to have on the show, send them my way. Restaurant technology guys. com. There's a, requesting inquiry for being on the show. If you haven't already subscribed on whatever your podcast, and or YouTube channel, pleasure is please do so Laura, thank you so much. And to our listeners,
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