Find out how to keep good people, the two most important aspects of the guest experience, and more from the CEO of Your Pie Franchising.
Give An Ovation is the podcast where we interview restaurant owners, operators, and experts, to get their strategies and tactics so that you can deliver a 5-star guest experience. Available on all major podcasting sites.
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by Restaurant Experts
Are you ready for an intro? David McDougall has over 40 years of experience in the restaurant industry. With high-level experience at Denny’s, Cinnabon, Focus Brands, NexCen Brands, and Back Yard Burgers, he is now the CEO of Your Pie Franchising, a brand with 77 locations and 40 more in the works. Get ready for a power-packed 25 minutes!
Here’s one of our takeaways from this episode and David’s answers to some of our questions:
Featured Takeaway: Make Memorable Experiences
“Experiences are what people remember… And whether it’s in a good way or in a not in a good way, experiences are what we all remember.”
What’s the most important aspect of the guest experience nowadays?
“Today, for us, over half of our customers are using us digitally. So managing that digital impression and experience is so, so important…
The two things that are probably most critical that we are focused on are speed and accuracy. Those two things are really what set somebody off. If one, they show up or a 3rd party delivery driver shows up and the order is not ready. And two, when they get the order taken home or it gets delivered, it’s not right.”
What’s something successful you’ve seen or tried lately?
“For us it has really been ramping up our whole digital platform. It was really out of necessity, obviously, but it has shown as a revenue stream that the potential upside reaches beyond just a location on a street corner, but it has changed the way that we do business…
Did we get better at it? Absolutely. A lot better. Do we still have room to improve? Absolutely.”
Who is someone in the industry that deserves an Ovation?
1) “Brian Niccol over there at Chipotle has done a phenomenal job. He is certainly leading the way. I mean, if you think back a few years ago, and some of the challenges Chipotle had… I just kind of watched in awe at what they’ve done. “
2) “Another person that that’s local here in Atlanta is Paul Brown. I got to meet Paul when he was the CEO of Arby’s. Arby’s was another company that I mean, a lot of people just counted out – that they were headed right out of business. And Paul got in there and put a great team together, and they really got that turned around…The crazy thing with Paul is that he went on and created Inspire Brands, which is now one of the largest restaurant companies in the world.”
For more, you can follow David on LinkedIn or Your Pie on Instagram.
Thanks for reading! Make sure to check out the whole episode, as well as other interviews with restaurant gurus by checking out “Give an Ovation: A Podcast For Restaurants” on ovationup.com/podcast or your favorite place to listen to podcasts.
