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We were a city, we'd be Austin. We'd keep things weird. This is the face of all day breakfast. Late night munchies and the biggest, most delicious menu on the planet. Everyone gets to customize their munchie meal. We try our best to try to figure out how we give the voice of the people into our menu. That's probably why we have an egg roll. It's...
Why we have churros and tacos. We like to take the voice of the guests and we really like to execute what they want us to do. Jack in the Box has a menu that stands out from the rest. Sure, they have their famous burgers, tacos, and curly fries, but they also offer a variety of other options that you may not have known about. We do things that other QSRs would never do. We don't have a lot of rules because that makes us different. ♪♪
Hello, everyone, and welcome back to Experts of Experience. Today, we are diving into the world of quick service restaurants with Ryan Ostrom, the chief marketing officer of Jack in the Box. With more than 15 years of experience in branding and consumer strategy with brands such as GNC and KFC, Ryan now leads the charge in creating out-of-the-box, I had to, marketing campaigns and customer experiences for Jack in the Box.
So today we're going to dive into Ryan's secrets in creating iconic campaigns, the importance of creativity and fostering brand loyalty, and the future of customer experiences in the ever evolving landscape of quick service restaurants. So Ryan, how are you? Doing great.
I'm excited to be here. Excited to have you. So quick PSA before we get into it for everyone. I may say QSRs, which means quick service restaurants. And what I would love to start off by understanding is what do you think that most
QSRs get wrong when it comes to customer experience? When you think about QSRs and what that is, is basically any chain that has a drive-through. And it's all about speed and how fast that service is. It's always a challenge. And what some get wrong is we still want to create a great product, but make it fast. And I think sometimes chains make the wrong decision and they go for speed versus quality. And our whole job is that balance, that great balance that
Yes, you want a burger in five minutes and some fries and a drink, but you also want to enjoy that for the next half hour. And you want to be so happy that you come back. And I think brands that don't do that, that's where they get it wrong. That balance of both the speed and quality is really what is essential. And how about consistency? Where does consistency come into play? It does play in there, the consistency. Because what you don't want to do in our business, because it's all about
How often people come and what they get. And we all have our favorite order. I have my favorite order at all the restaurants. I mean, here, I love the spicy chicken sandwich. I actually love our egg rolls and our churros. Yes, we have a weird menu like that. That makes us us. We keep it a little weird sometimes.
But you want to make sure that consistency happens too. So it's that speed, the quality and the consistency that's so important in QSR. That keeps guests coming back over and over again because that is your order. That's what you get every single time. We're your comfort food on a rainy day or that snack you want to get late night after drinking.
And we want to be that same experience every time. There's nothing more disappointing than when you order, when you're like, I need this thing. I want that meal that I've had before. And you go and you get it and it's not the same. So that's why I ask about consistency, because when you have that balance of quality and speed,
it can be difficult to keep the quality at the same pace. How do you go about really creating that? Because I know you predominantly Jack in the Box or franchise restaurants, am I right? Correct.
So how do you go about really creating that consistency when you have many business owners all over the country? There's a bunch of components, but we kind of have the three-legged stool. We have supply chain, we have operations, and we have marketing. And as my team creates products, we really look at trends. We look at ideas. We look what's happening. But then we have to keep in mind, can we make that under a certain timeframe? Can we make it consistent over time? Can we find a supplier that provides that product within the right range?
And also do we have the equipment that can properly cook it the same way over and over again, despite who's making it? Because we know in QSR and fast food, there's some turnover of who's making the food, who's cooking the food, how we're training individuals. And so we want to make it as easy as possible in the back of house to keep that consistency, to keep that speed while maintaining that high quality that we expect in our food. And it
It's a challenge. It's a fun challenge. That's why I work in this business. I just I love food. And the best thing is we get to see the results right away. It's not like I have to wait months or years to say, is this consistently working or making? We have test kitchens here where we try it. We work through everything. And then I get to have a very glorious jack in a box lunch and say, yes, we are making this food the way it should be made.
So innovation is something that I know is very important in this business because you need to be constantly coming up with new ideas and ways to bring customers in the door. So tell me a little bit about how you go about innovating in this business in order to get
in order to enhance the customer experience as well as drive business growth? You know, we have a history of innovation. I think, you know, some people don't realize we created the two-way speaker box. Really? That's where Jack in the Box got its name. It got its name because there was a clown jackhead on the two-way speaker box that would speak to you. And so we were the first ones to do the drive-through two-way speaker box. And that's why it's called Jack in the Box. A little bit of a story. Yeah.
We also created the first portable salad at QSR. We were the first to come out with breakfast sandwiches. We beat McDonald's at a breakfast sandwich. We have a history and innovation of Jack, and we maintain that every single day we work here. How do we drive that next innovation? So we have a very formal process. We have a six stage gate process that starts with idea generation all the way down to commercialization.
And I think the most fun is that idea generation. We talk to guests, we talk to franchisees. Everyone here has a recommendation of what is their favorite item that they wish we had on the menu. And, oh, we should try this sauce or that sauce. I ate at this restaurant last weekend and we share so many ideas. And then we put that through kind of a consumer sort of what aligns with our guests, what aligns with next gen opportunities, what's trending in the marketplace and,
And then that filters down, can we even make it? Because we could have a great idea of we want to do X, but it can't be made. A prime example is our latest innovation, which is Smash Jack, is we really tried to reintroduce the Smash Burger in a way, but make it in 2,200 stores, which hasn't been done. It's mainly been a mom and pop kind of solution.
And it took us two years to develop machinery that allows us to smash the patties in a more a bigger way and allow us to make it in a factory and bring it to our stores to cook and serve. And so we have to work through a lot of these ways to get it to commercialization. And I think right now we have over 500 to 700 ideas in that pipeline.
And it leads to a lot of fun taste tests because every probably month to two months, the team here, about 30 or 40 of us get together and we try all the new food that's passed through consumer taste tests. And we tried and then we try to tinker with a little bit before we go to commercialization. And yeah, it means I have to go to the gym a lot as much as possible, you know, all the jack in the box. But it's a fun job and I enjoy it. So innovation is a big part of us. And it's fun to do it. Yep.
Oh, it sounds like it. And so is that six-step process that you mentioned, is that specifically for coming up with new menu items or is that for other things? It's just new menu items. We have a full dedicated arm of just trying to come up with ideas and concepts out there. The reason why we have a formal process is it used to be, you know, it's sometimes a weakness. You ask what QSRs do sometimes wrong. Sometimes innovation can be the...
eye of the beholder, let's just say as CMO, I really love a cheeseburger with peanut butter on it. And without putting it through consumer taste test, and I just put it on the menu, it might not work, it might not sell. And so by having this formal process, the ideas of the guests come to light versus the idea of one.
And so it allows us to be very consistent with our innovation process. Tell me a little bit more about your relationship to your guests. How do you do the ideation and the innovation and all those steps with the consumer in mind?
Ideation is really big with guests. We scour social. We talk to guests. We're always we're very active on digital channels. We'll take ideas. We know what the guests want to have back on the menu that we've taken away. We know whether the items that they they've dreamed up that they want us to launch. And we try our best to try to figure out how we give the voice of the people into our menu. I mean, that's probably why we have an egg roll.
It's why we have churros and tacos. We like to take the voice of the guests and we really like to execute what they want us to do. And then throughout that stage gate, as I mentioned, we bring the consumers in. So it's not just ideation. It is then we do consumer taste tests. We do a consumer sort of what is the top ranking out of that 50 or 60 we put through a sort, what are the top three or four that they really like? And then once we get into market tests, they really get a vote with their purchases and
And we do our best to take that and then take it through the rest of the system in the country. And so we live and breathe by our guests and what they want. Like right now, I know if there's Jack in the Box guests listening to this, that they want the chicken tater milk back. We took it off the menu a year ago. I get hate mail for that somewhat. I get hate social posts. They know I've heard so many times that CMO of Jack should be fired for getting rid of that. Yeah.
It happens. There's a lot of reasons why we get rid of items. And so we hear it and we might be working on it. So it might be making an appearance sometime on the menu. I love it. Hold on. Chicken tater melt. Yeah. Oh, so it's like a cheese, like a chicken.
Chicken melt. It is, but it's also on a croissant. It's crazy. It is a hodgepodge of a croissant patty with cheese and bacon. And it's everything you've ever want. Part of our munchie meal late night that we did. And this goes back to, you know, this is why we got rid of it. And a lot of people know why I don't get rid of things sometimes.
is we always look at that balance between quality, speed, and consistency. And it was our most popular late night item, but the speed, it crashed our late night. Many people order it after 10 o'clock and it's late night and the lines are long at our drive-thru and it basically blew up our drive-thru. It took too long to make. So,
We had to kind of simplify our munchie meals to make sure that that speed is right, because you really can't get consistency without good speed. And so by doing this, we kind of balanced our late night offering a little bit and we knew we were going to upset some guests. And so we're working on how to bring it back for a limited time to say thank you for the guests that have been missing it for over a year. We have one guy who posts every single day on social. Like he's like, it's day 356 of you removing this item. Wow, that is amazing.
That is loyalty. Yes. Every single day on our social posts, he posts the same thing. So yeah, that's amazing. I love it. You have a very diverse menu. Yes. It's kind of all over the place, but clearly there is like a reason for those things.
This is kind of a random question, but what do you think your menu says about your consumers? That people's tastes kind of move occasionally. We do everything different. If we were a city, we'd be Austin. Like we'd keep things weird. That's what we do. And we have a strong late night presence. People have different cravings at different times. You know, sometimes you want Asian, sometimes you want Mexican, sometimes you just want good old classic burger. We have all those options.
And we have that solved for you. We sell more tacos than a lot of taco places. And that is crazy to say, but that's been on our menu for 40, 50 years. It's just been an item that has been legendary us. And our egg rolls, you know, I get always asked, why do you guys carry egg rolls?
It sells. We sell a lot of egg rolls and we sell it with ranch of all things. Like you dip your egg roll in ranch. It sounds horrific. We have shirts that say I dip my egg rolls in ranch. Our employees wear them because it is true. It's a consumer insight that people love our ranch so much they dip the egg rolls in it. I recommend anyone to try it because it is actually it's amazing.
And we just have fun with our menu. We know we have a late night crowd. We know that we are part of the party, but also part of the after party and you crave different things. So we're here for it. Completely. I love it. There's so many different quick service restaurants that people can choose from.
When it comes to customer experience specifically, let's put food aside for a moment. When it comes to your customer experience, what do you think sets Jack in the Box apart? I think it is, it's going to be a little bit of our variety. I think you kind of hit on that previously with our variety because we have that wide range, but we also...
have very good food. I love our food. I've worked at other QSRs. I love our food. And it's not just, I might be biased because I work here. I grew up on Jack in a Box. We try our best to make the best quality food. We're not here to give the bare minimum to guests. And it shows with our latest burger, the Smash Jack burger we just rolled out. It shows with our chicken. Our chicken sandwiches are the same size as the chicken places like Popeye's and everybody else. We
We try to give the best to the guests in everything we do because we know that's the ultimate experience is the food. You look at competitors like In-N-Out. I mean, they're not about speed. They have good food. People come back. We respect In-N-Out. They do amazing things. And so we try to follow that, say we want to provide the best food possible and make it as consistent as possible and hopefully make it fast. And that balance is key. So and that's what stands out with us. And I also think we're a little edgier. We do...
We do things that other QSRs would never do. We're all day breakfast. We don't care when you get up. We don't have an 11 o'clock morning curfew to get breakfast. We despise those companies like McDonald's and Wendy's and everybody else that shuts down at 11 for breakfast. If you want breakfast at...
Six o'clock at night, come to Jack in the Box. That's what we do. And we also have all day menu. You can serve anything, anytime. You can customize anything, any way you want. We kind of don't have a lot of rules because that's what makes us different. We kind of we kind of balk at those rules that the competitors do. Yeah, I really appreciate that, especially the all day breakfast. I'm someone who like I have to have an egg.
Every day. It doesn't matter what time it is. Like I have to eat eggs. I have to eat breakfast no matter the time. We have your soul. You can always come to Jack in the Box and get breakfast all day. It's really good to know. Thank you so much. So kind of going back to the topic of innovation and creativity.
When you're leading your team to think about how can we improve this experience? How can we come up with new items or solutions that are going to really deliver on what our customers are asking for? How do you really foster a culture of innovation and creativity here?
amongst your team? One thing I missed my last one, my team goes on food safaris. And so they go across the country. They partner with certain suppliers. They were just in Miami. So they're looking at the food scene in Miami. They eat nonstop for 48 hours. They have ideation sessions. What are the trends coming into Miami? What are the food trends? I think
They did Chicago last year. So we get the team around the United States to try what's trending, what's what's going. And it's not just food like fast food. It's higher end restaurants. It's the trending restaurants, because our goal is to say, how do you take these trends that might be.
40, $50 meals and how do I bring them down for the average guest or average consumer can enjoy them? Because we see big wins when we're able to do this, but also keep that authentic taste and authentic kind of feel for the guest. We really drive our innovation that way is getting out in the market, trying food. You know, we also have a shared site on social where we share nonstop ideas we see on social. Like you're following all the influencers like, oh, they just cooked this in their kitchen. Wait, can we do this?
And it's fun. And I try to make a habit of every day going down into our test kitchen downstairs. There's always something cooking, always something being made. You always try it. It's so much fun. I get lost in it sometimes, the ideation kind of creation side, because...
Food is what we do and we try to do as best as possible. I can imagine. I can imagine it's hard to make the habit of going downstairs and trying whatever's cooking. I will say this where the gym comes in. You got to hit the gym or I don't get to go down in the kitchen. It's kind of like I have to eat my vegetables before I get dessert. It's that little thing. If I don't go to the gym, I'm like, I can't go to the kitchen because I'll go down there. They're like, we're working on a new chicken sandwich. I'm like, let's try that. Yeah, yeah.
Your eyes light up and you're like, sign me up. I'll try to take a bite. And I have experts on my team and this is, you know, they have to do this a lot. So they almost do tastings like they're tasting wine. They kind of almost have food spit cups. It's disgusting. I just said that. But because they have to try so much food.
they're like, I want to try the taste and the feel and it tastes good, but they only want one bite. And then they have to just keep saying is you get consistency, but they won't eat the whole thing versus me who has no control. You give me a chicken sandwich. I'm not letting that go to waste. It sounds like the culture of innovation also requires portion control. Yes, it does. Yes, it does.
So you can have classes on that. Yeah, that's great. So I always like to ask this question to leaders like yourself. What's a hard lesson that you've recently learned? For anything, you can't cut corners when it deals with innovation in food, because at the end of the day, when when we want to make the best food possible, like we've
We did some things with our classic burger and we have the buttery jack. And you always have the argument between the three leg is between supply chain ops and marketing to say, hey, OK, you have this specific bun on the buttery jack. It's on its own. It's the only burger we put it on. That's an extra cost. We've got to store another bun. How do we reduce our SKUs?
And so sometimes you make decisions because they're the right financial decisions, but they're not the right business decisions. We've realized that on the, on the buttery Jack, we've actually brought back that original bun. We're bringing back the original sauces because what you find out is over the year that that burger's 10 years old plus, and it changed the game in burgers 10 years ago. But over the years we've cut things out. Like you start like, Oh, this sauce is exclusive. Let's go to the normal sauce. Oh, this lettuce is different. Oh, let's get the same lettuce. Um,
And when you do small cuts, it turns into a bad situation because those small cuts add up and you start having basically something that's dying. It's not what the guests want anymore. It's not the taste profile. It's not what they want. And
And it's just a hard lesson to learn that just because it's one little change now, they add up. And we're starting to really look at all our products, all our offerings, where we've made small cuts, where we haven't, and how do we really elevate the guest experience through the food? How do you go about tracking that? Like the changing opinion of...
based on those cuts? How do you correlate them? We have a good guest insights team. So we monitor guest insights of, you know, do they have the same score, the same repeatability? Do they want to come back and purchase again that consistency piece? So we do a lot of consumer research. And also all that ends up in sales. I mean, if guests don't, you start seeing the sales drop off of a product that's been legendary, you have to say, okay,
Is the consumer taste preferences changing or is something just not aligned with what's going on in the market or culturally relevant? And you just you start asking those questions and you realize what changed and what we changed this lettuce. We changed this. We changed the cheese. It's like, oh, it doesn't taste the same. And yeah.
And so we really are how to improve the core is one of our pillars we have in marketing. So we look at all our core products and say, how do we make it better versus how do we save money? How do we make it better? Better tasting for the guests.
and better to make that consistent kind of experience for the guest. Speaking of that, I know that you've been investing in a digital experience as well at Jack in the Box. Can you tell us a little bit about that? And then I have some more questions. It's one of our largest opportunities. I think Jack, before I got here, was doing a lot of third party, like so the DoorDashes of the world, it was performing really well for delivery. We've just...
been really last three years focused on our own first party app in-store pickup and our digital experience that way. And we're still one of the fastest growing digital QSRs out there by solving some of these experiences and making them better. We still have a long way to go. We're simply just getting the app pickup experience optimized now. That's our big push over the next six months. We see a lot of opportunity to say how, just like speed, we talked about speed. We
When people order on the app late night, where they want to go, they want to go through the drive-thru. Well, that drive-thru is already packed with a lot of people. So how do you make sure that that pickup experience is consistent for the guest? And we're really working on speeding that up, making sure there's a way for those guests to get their food faster and quicker. And then you start getting into the next-gen digital solutions of kiosks and AI digital menu boards and how to make it easier to order and easier to upsell and easier to provide what the guest wants and loyalty programs.
We're all just, I know if I had to rate us from a one to 10, I think we're like at a six and that's good because we've been growing fast. It's been working, but we still have a lot of growth to go. What are some of the,
features that you're excited to implement in the future? I think really optimizing that in-store pickup solution. To the guest, it's done everywhere between consistent pickup counters to making sure the accuracy of the food's right in the bag. You just said the worst thing is when your food's not right. Well, it's really bad when it's not the right food in the bag.
And so putting in the operations and the aspects in place for the guests can, you know, get to a jack, pick up their mobile order, leave within seconds. I think the guests have been trained from the brands like Chipotle and Starbucks. And we got to get to that experience, that kind of seamless pickup experience. We're not there yet. And once we get it, it should alleviate some stress in the stores from just managing the drive through all the time.
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I hear this a lot from guests on our show that the competition is often the competitive experiences. Like someone's not...
I mean, this may happen, but more often than not, I would imagine if someone's really wanting a coffee and they're like a normal Starbucks user, they're going to Starbucks. They're not necessarily like comparing, you know, should I get a coffee versus a burger at Jack in the Box, right? But they are going to both and experiencing both and then comparing that experience. And so bringing more elements of...
you know, highly respected experiences into the fold can be really helpful for you. Like I hear people speak a lot about Amazon and how Amazon's really changed the game. Like that, that speed that we now expect, that immediacy that we now expect has really shifted for consumers. And I can imagine you've experienced those changing demands over time. You hit it right on the head. I mean, honestly,
And on digital experiences, we compare ourselves to the best in the industry. And those are like the Starbucks of the world. It is Amazon. And people have those experiences and their expectations change. Our whole job as marketers is making sure we're meeting those expectations. And the competitors are just raising the bar of what those expectations and what is speed considered. I remember when I was working at Yum and KFC, there was a lot of conversations of,
Well, is delivery ever going to really be a big thing for chicken? Because it's faster to go through the drive-thru. Because it takes 45 minutes to get your delivery order. But I think there's a whole generation of people in younger generations that the order is simply as long as it takes to put on your phone. That's it. They don't...
If it comes in 45 minutes, that's fine. They only took those minute and a half to place the order. That's fast to them. When the food comes, the food comes. And yours has to come in a reasonable time. We're not talking two hours. And so it just changed what speed is. And so speed on how fast you order on the app, how fast they get through the transaction, how fast they can pay. Those are different forms now of speed that we have to really look at in the digital guest experience. Yeah. Yeah.
And I can imagine that it's an app that you have, right? It's your own app, your own experience. It's fully Jack in the Box look and feel. I can imagine how that has been a big game changer for some of your customers in terms of being able to really be a part of the Jack in the Box experience even more so, especially if they're ordering online, right? Correct.
Correct. And that's the big thing I think COVID accelerated in our business of QSR was people got so comfortable with ordering from restaurants on apps and even third-party delivery like DoorDash and Uber Eats that it transformed the business overnight. And now with those expectations of those other brands, it's
It goes back to that speed and consistency in the food. And there's this whole new battleground, which is interesting now. This is like the hot thing is everything will QSR brand. It's the value wars going on on mobile and digital is ridiculous now because it's all about capturing customer data, building a relationship with our guests, you
and being able to give them specific offers when they need it. And so you think about fast food users, they aren't as brand loyal as other consumers. Like you probably have your favorite apparel brand. You're really loyal. Go to it like food. You're kind of like you have your favorite, but you probably have a roster of three and four. Like you're like food. I like to eat at these three or four places.
So you're battling for that eating occasion. And so those are the places you belong to, those three or four spots you're probably loyalty members on. And whoever gets you with the right message at the right time, you're like, I will eat there tonight. And it's become a very new way of thinking for our franchisees and even for the employees here. Just saying we have this whole new channel that takes a different way to communicate with our guests and our loyal members.
Mm-hmm. I'm curious to know more about that personalization element. Now that you have them in the app, you can learn a little bit more about them. What are some of the things that you're, one, what are some of the data you're collecting? And two, what are you doing with that data to create a more personalized experience?
It's more about just making sure we provide the right offer. So if you're a burger person, we want to give you burger offers. If you're a chicken player, we want to give you chicken offers. Or if you're an adventure eater, we know that you go around our menu. We're like, OK, we can direct you in certain spots and give you the right offer. I think with any business, you try not to give discounts on things that people would have bought anyways. Like you're trying to give the offer to get
to try something else in that category, to try something different. And that's really what we only do. And we always try to say, hey, is there a different day part that this person wants to eat at? Like, if you're a morning person, can I get you to come in at dinner? Can I try to get you to come in at a different time? I think our real goal is just providing value to the guest that gives them a deeper kind of relationship with Jack. And that's really only why we use personalization and data is to do that. But we all know what Amazon, Amazon's the king of this. I mean, Amazon,
I think sometimes they listen to us because I'll be like just yesterday. I was ordering a new pizza oven because we're having a party, a little pizza oven. I went on Google pizza oven. Next thing I know, I'm getting targeted on Amazon for pizza.
ovens and then I'm getting targeted on social media for pizza ovens. I'm like, dude, everybody knows I just Googled pizza ovens across the entire web. And this is so annoying right now because, and then today I wake up, I have like emails about pizza ovens and I'm like, man, I've already bought one. It's over. It's done. Totally. It's like, it's almost like,
Track me. Okay. But also know when it's over. Conclusion. Exactly. Like it's already over. The decision's already been made. I do enjoy that though. Sometimes if I'm like curious about something, like I was trying to buy a black leather backpack, I had a very like specific thing in mind. And I was like, if I find found one that I liked, but it wasn't quite it. I was like kind of praying and hoping, please retarget me with the right backpack. Yeah.
It works a lot. And it's great when you get the right offer and they give you the right message and they know what mindset you're in. And it's just funny to me just how much
gets a little bit overboard in certain situations that it has that creepy thing. You're like, are they listening to me right now? Is there like satellites that are just saying, hey, I just know what you're looking for right now. And with us, it's a little different because we're not going to do that as much because you're in the instance of looking for food. So even if I have certain data, I'm just trying to say, hey, do you want to have dinner tonight? Or do you want to have breakfast tomorrow? It's not like you're buying a car or a backpack or a purse. Like this is a short window we have to get to the right message. So it's...
It's a growth opportunity, I think, across all QSRs. I think, you know, you got some of the bigger players doing it better than others, but it's just a new skill set for organizations and QSRs to say, how do we leverage data the right way? Completely. So I wanted to ask you a little bit about working with your franchisees because it's completely...
Complex in itself to be driving this innovation, changing the digital experience, the pickup experience, all of that. That's one thing. But then having someone else, a different business owner, essentially adopt that and then implement it with consistency is a whole other level. So I'd love to understand a little bit about how you actually go about driving adoption of innovation.
new experiences with your franchisees? You know, our franchisees are great operators. I mean, they've been in this business long before I've been here. A lot of them even got their start within Jack and then became franchisees. So they know the business so well, more so than I think I ever could.
And so really with a lot of these new experiences or new opportunities or digital or even new products, we try to bring them along as much as possible to say, here's why we need to do this. Here's where we need to go. There's a lot of two-way education because they know the stores so well. So when you talk about that consistency versus quality,
My team might come up with a product innovation that will blow up the stores and they'll be like, this was this will not work. This is this this is going to be too tough. It's too much on ops. So let's figure it out. It goes to three stations to make this product versus two. And so they're really great at providing that insight and that knowledge. We have an ongoing relationship with them. And it's been very helpful just saying, how do we optimize this business?
I think, you know, they educate us. We try our best to educate them because, you know, the changing landscape of digital.
Five years ago, digital was 1% of our business. It's now 12 to 13% of our business. And that's, that's a, it takes a whole new way of investment, a whole new way of taking our money and where we got to do it to build this channel. And so trying to educate them on, on why this is the future channel, because the drive-through used to be the fastest part of this business. Now that now digital is the fastest growing component of all QSR. And it's just different. It's a different mindset, a different business model, but,
And it takes us and the franchisees to hold hands and say, how are we going to continue to grow this channel together the right way for the guest while still providing the best food possible? Completely. And I'm curious to go one level deeper on this and forgive me if you're not the right person to ask, but when it comes to the employees of those franchisees, the people who are actually servicing the consumer, how do you create consistency there? Because something that I know having...
I mean, predominantly I've worked in SAS, but I've also worked in B2C businesses. And the people who are actually servicing the guests and the way that they show up has a massive impact on how someone actually feels in that restaurant, in that store, in that experience.
experience? For us, we have an amazing ops team here led by Tony Darden, our ops lead. And it goes to training. It's with everything, repetitive training. Every time we roll out a new window, so the way we do, we have marketing windows, we have seven of them a year. We roll out training for each of those, but we also continuously train the employees on our core items, the ones that are there all the time. And
By doing that, you start realizing that that's how you drive the consistency. You start realizing, hey, this is the same process because it is repetitive in our business. It's all about that speed, that consistency, as we talked about. And so that training is key. The team does a great job and the franchisees take pride in ownership of making a great product. And that's where that relationship back to the franchisees is key. They love their employees. They make sure they take care of them really well. And I think it's about making sure they're trained to provide the best guests. Now,
It's not easy. I've spent time in the back of our kitchens and it's challenging. And that's where it comes back to, you know, sometimes do we have too many items? Do we have too much variety? The 24 hour breakfast? It's a challenge because the Jack in the Box employees have to make nine extra items all day long that our competitors don't have to. And that's just a balance of what's right for our brand, what's right for the guests versus, hey, how do we balance that with the ability of the employees to create the best product? Mm hmm.
And what I'm hearing you say there is it's really important for the marketing team to understand the experience of those employees so that they can really build around it. Correct. Because otherwise they're not going to want to do it. Correct. And we hear about it. This is where the franchisees do a great job of saying, hey, this is putting too much pressure on our employees. It's driving around the store too much. It's slowing down our speed of service.
And we try to get ahead of all those things. We're not always perfect. And then we have to make some quick adjustments if we end up impacting the employees, because at the end of the day, the employees are the brand. It's not myself. It's not our marketing. It's the employees who serve the food that they represent the brand more than anybody. Mm hmm.
Something that I think about a lot, and I think this applies to any type of business, is that the employee experience drives the customer experience. They're very interconnected. And I'm curious to know, and you know, the franchisee component just adds another layer to it. But what does Jack in the Box do to create that employee experience that really helps to...
pass on a great experience to the customer. When I got here, we had them in button downs and we had them in polos and we had them in formal attire and we switched it to be a little more fun. We have Jack t-shirts now the employees can wear. We relaxed, you know, what they can be comfortable and at work because we all like to be comfortable at work. It's the post-COVID world where none of us, I mean, I'm trying to think the last time I wore a full suit to anywhere.
It's just changed. And I think we want the employees want to be comfortable in their work. And so we try our best to make them comfortable. We have, like I said, some really cool shirts that we put out that I actually wear. I wear around town. I just wear employee shirts as T-shirts because I like them. So we try to make them comfortable at work. I think it goes back to every single conversation we have in here. It goes back to.
How much work does this put on our employees? And we every single window launch, every single product we get feedback. Was this more complex, less complex? Is it is it too hard? Is it too complex for them as as trying to balance the workload of what's going on behind the house? What is the labor it takes to prep an item?
between shredding the lettuce and doing certain things, there's time and everything. And so you start looking at it and try to say, how do we alleviate as much as possible while still standing for what we stand for? And that's, I always say that's always a struggle with us because of our variety and our pillars of 24 hour menu. We always will be a little more tough in what we serve, but at the same time, we're trying to make it as fun as possible to work at Jack. You say something that's
really important, which is employee effort matters. And we talk a lot about reducing customer effort, trying to provide them with like sooner time to value and less friction in their experience. And we really need to apply the same thinking to our employees because we
At the end of the day, they're not going to be able to deliver quickly if they're being bogged down by complex processes. And that's why you're starting to see a lot more technology help in this spot. You start seeing the kiosk take orders. So all the repetitive things like kiosk taking orders, AI in the drive-thru, certain things that technology can help solve for then the employee can work for and on the guest experience and providing the best food possible.
I think that's what the employee should be there for. And I think some of these other opportunities of digitizing the order taking is an opportunity that you're going to start seeing more and more often. You start seeing a lot of brands testing and now they're testing different solutions. And this is why. Because you just you look at the employee experience as something that can be done by yourself.
technology today. And then the employee can be really focused on creating a better guest experience. What you say there is really important in the fact that we still need humans to help create that seamless experience. If the tech doesn't work, we need someone else to be there who's ready and available to help make sure that they get what they, that that customer gets what they need. And I
I don't know it's been proven out enough. I mean, we'll see it. I think in the next two years, you'll see some robotics in restaurants, but who wants to go to a restaurant where a robot made all their food? I feel like there's a little disconnect there and it's just me because then I might as well go to a kiosk and have a kiosk that's like
print me out a pizza and call it a day. But I feel like, is that the best pizza I could get? I think there's going to be a balance. There's going to be technology in here. It's just, where is it? Where is it implemented? And I do think that human interaction, human touch that, you know, we started that two-way speaker box. We started it. And so that engagement of two people talking to each other through technology is where we got our start. And I think there's that balance. We're going to continue. Two last questions for you to wrap it up. We always like to ask these. I
I'd love to hear about a recent experience that you had with a brand that left you impressed. We are partners with the Lakers. And so, you know, the two tacos, we want tacos chant that goes on in Lakers. We've been partners with them for 20 plus years. And we were talking to their president at the time and the way they addressed their business kind of blew me away because he said, we're not in the ticket business. We're in the experience business.
We're here just to provide an experience. And by creating a great experience, the tickets will sell. They have a wait list now of many of tickets. Like they don't they don't have to worry about ticket sales anymore. They don't. They're about providing a unique experience to guests and giving unique access and letting people experience the brand.
And just engaging that, what they put on the court and how they treat people and how they engage community wise. And they do things the right way because they transform their brand and from what it was, just what it is, which is a basketball game into a full cultural experience. And I think that's what every brand tries to do. And our marketing strategy is craved. How I make the brand more craved, which stands for cultural, relevant, authentic, visible, easy and distinctive.
And everything we do is saying, are we being culturally relevant, but doing it in a way that's distinctively stand out? Is it easy for the guests to get, understand? Is it visible, right message, the right people at the right time? And is it authentically Jack? Like we kind of work through this with everything we do. And so the brands that do it well kind of hit on all those premises. And I think, you know, the Lakers are one of them. They're great. I love, this is my shameless plug. I love these guys.
Liquid death. They're transforming water. They're doing what Red Bull did to energy drinks a while ago. They're now doing the water business and it's just taking a different approach to
And being authentically themselves on everything they do from their social to their marketing, how they talk about the brand and then even the flavors and the product they put out. And I thought buying bottled water was expensive. Then you buy their water and that's even more expensive. But I'm very happy to buy their water because it tastes amazing. Great taste. Great experience. And I just I love that.
just reading their cans every time I get one. They just do a really good job of promoting their brand in a unique way. So being a brand person, I kind of love all brands. And so you always see what's the best, what are they trying to do? My wife despises watching TV with me because I analyze every single TV ad. You're like, I'm here for the ads. I'm like, what are they doing? I don't get that ad at all. She's like, I don't get that one either. And then you see a good one. You're like, oh man, that was good. I wish we did that. That
got to note that one down. So yeah, we're always looking at brands and analyzing what's good, what's bad. And I think what you also get is you realize where brands stumble. You probably had guests talk about on this show what happened to Budweiser and everything there. We know how it all happened. Every brand in America knows how they got there. We know how it happened. And then we're all scrambling, could that happen here? Could we all of a sudden take the wrong step? And so you just really analyze brands
all the time in this business. Awesome. Well, thanks for sharing that. I mean, my takeaway there is like the experience, the holistic experience is really what matters and makes you remember that that is something that's making, it's what makes you crave it and to have it again. Correct. Alrighty. Well, my last question for you, what is one piece of advice that you think every customer experience leader should hear? Know who you are.
If you don't know who you are, you can't convince guests and other people on who you are. And I think Jack had to go through this last three years where, you know, we are a late night brand. That's who we are. I can't I can't change that. That's who we are.
And we have to own it and be who we are, be authentically us. We're edgy. We're going to we're going to be that way. Jack is that way. Our CEO, the character Jack, is that way. It's just really owning up to that, knowing who you are as a brand and then owning it and being consistent with that messaging. That's that's my advice, because what I think where I see brands fumbles and they try to be something they're not.
You can't convince people who you're not if you don't know who you are. Amazing. Well, Ryan, thank you so much for all of these bits of wisdom. Really appreciate you coming on the show. I'm sufficiently starving after all of this talk and I'm going to have to go get lunch. So I can't wait. I've never had it. Now I need to. All righty. Well, we'll talk to you soon. All right. Talk to you later. Thank you.
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