CASE STUDY
How Taziki’s Mediterranean Café Used Ovation to Bring Back the “Wow” Factor
About Taziki’s
Taziki’s Mediterranean Café is a celebrated fast-casual brand with over 100 locations and 25 years of success, known for their fresh, made-to-order Mediterranean dishes and heartfelt hospitality. After a milestone 25th anniversary, the Taziki’s team set out to reignite the “wow” factor that had been the foundation of their brand since day one.
The Challenge
As Taziki’s grew, guest feedback became harder to track. Reviews were scattered across Google, Yelp, Facebook, and their website — with no centralized platform to capture or respond to the guest experience in real time.
They needed a proactive way to listen to guests, recover dissatisfied diners, and empower their operators to take immediate action.
“We realized a couple of years ago that we had lost a little bit of that [hospitality magic].”
— Julie Wade, Head of Marketing at Taziki’s
“Ovation was the first place that put all of that together in one concise place for us — and it made a tremendous difference.”
The Solution
Julie and the Taziki’s team made the shift to simple, 2-question surveys that cut through the noise and got right to the guest experience. By placing QR codes on receipts for dine-in guests and integrating Ovation with their online ordering system, they created multiple frictionless ways for guests to share feedback.
Guests who ordered online began receiving a text message linking to the survey — opening up a real-time line of communication between guests and store management.
Positive feedback led to public 5-star reviews, while negative feedback was handled privately, allowing the team to resolve issues quickly and recover guests before the complaint ever went public.
Operators quickly embraced the platform, calling it a game changer for day-to-day operations, guest recovery, and reputation management.
The Results
Since implementing Ovation, Taziki’s has jumped to collecting over 150 surveys per month at each location, driven a 106% increase in online reviews, and recovered 20+ guests each month per location who otherwise would have been lost — all while improving their Google ratings by 10%.
Negative reviews dropped by 30%, and real-time feedback helped stores address operational issues faster than ever before.
Julie and the team have made Ovation a core part of fixing issues in the moment and at scale, leading to thousands of “wow” moments for guests.
“I can’t tell you how many guests I’ve seen comments from saying, ‘Wow! I’ve never had a company text me back so quickly!’ It’s unexpected and powerful.”
