In this episode of Give an Ovation, we welcome Erin Levzow, a hospitality marketing and technology expert with nearly 20 years of experience working with brands like Caesars, MGM, Wingstop, and Del Taco. Erin shares her insights on how technology enhances guest experience, the power of emotional marketing, and the importance of consistency in hospitality.

Keeping the Guest at the Center (00:01:43)

“Most people forget about the guest. It always comes back to: Do you remember who your guest is and where they want to be?” – Erin Levzow

Erin emphasizes that hospitality brands must stop assuming all guests behave the same way. Some prefer in-person experiences, others use mobile apps, and their preferences may change daily. The key to success is meeting guests where they are and providing a seamless experience across all touchpoints.

Balancing Consistency and Connection (00:03:14)

“People want consistency in their lives. Let’s give it to them.” – Erin Levzow

Erin discusses the importance of delivering a consistent experience—whether a guest is dining in, ordering online, or using third-party delivery. She highlights Olive Garden’s approach as an example of predictable, reliable service that builds guest trust.

Technology’s Role in Enhancing Hospitality (00:04:46)

“The human experience is so important, and technology should enhance it—not replace it.” – Erin Levzow

Erin explains how technology can create emotional connections with guests when used strategically. By combining data with human psychology, brands can personalize experiences, streamline service, and strengthen relationships with their customers.

How to Scale Human Connection (00:05:58)

“Connection does scale—it’s about embedding it into your brand’s DNA.” – Erin Levzow

Erin debunks the myth that hospitality can’t scale in large organizations. Using Buc-ee’s as an example, she explains how their consistent guest experience, employee engagement, and strong company culture allow them to grow without losing their hospitality roots.

Understanding Your Customers (00:10:06)

“Before jumping into tactics, ask: Who is your guest? Where are they? How do they want to be spoken to?” – Erin Levzow

Erin encourages brands to gather real customer insights rather than making assumptions. She shares how Wingstop shifted their messaging to better reflect how their audience actually spoke, leading to stronger engagement and brand connection.

Who Deserves an Ovation? (00:17:05)

Erin gives a shoutout to Jennifer Loper from C3, praising her ability to bring light and positivity into any space she enters while making an impact in the hospitality industry.

Follow Erin Levzow:

LinkedIn: Erin Levzow

Tune in to learn how Erin’s expertise in marketing, technology, and guest experience is shaping the future of hospitality.

Thanks, Erin!

Transcript

00:00:00:02 – 00:00:22:02

Zack Oates

Welcome to another edition of Give an Ovation, the Restaurant Guest Experience podcast, where I talk to industry experts to get their strategies and tactics you can use to create a five star guest experience. This podcast is sponsored by ovation, an operations and guest recovery platform for multi-unit restaurants that gives all the answers without annoying guests with all the questions.

00:00:22:03 – 00:00:47:11

Zack Oates

Learn more at ovation up.com. And today we have part Dr.. Which is going to be a lot better than the Joker movie. Erin leaves out almost 20 years in hospitality marketing tech with brands like Caesars, MGM, Wingstop, Freebirds. She’s actually the former VP of Tech at Del Taco, CMO of I Love this, Museum of Ice Cream. Yes, she was a CMO at other places too, but the Museum of Ice Cream is like the real big one for me.

00:00:47:13 – 00:01:01:20

Zack Oates

And now she’s an advisor, board member, and podcast host. Hence, if you’re listening, you’re about to hear the silky voice that has been on this podcast because she’s got the mic set up of professionals. What’s up? Erin.

00:01:01:22 – 00:01:08:20

Erin Levzow

I don’t think it’s silky, but thank you and I’m glad to be here for, yeah, our second time around.

00:01:08:21 – 00:01:12:01

Zack Oates

I have been trying to get Erin on the podcast for months, and she’s been.

00:01:12:01 – 00:01:13:18

Erin Levzow

That is not true. She has. It’s not.

00:01:13:18 – 00:01:24:00

Zack Oates

Me off. And I’m so glad that we finally cornered her on a Friday to record this the day before my birthday. And that was her birthday present to me is getting on this podcast, so thank you.

00:01:24:02 – 00:01:26:16

Erin Levzow

Happy birthday. Happy happy birthday.

00:01:26:19 – 00:01:43:15

Zack Oates

Okay Aaron, let’s talk about this. You have seen so much in the marketing and the tech space. And let me just start with a question that I love to ask people who have amazing experience like you do, which is what are most people doing wrong?

00:01:43:17 – 00:02:03:12

Erin Levzow

I mean, they forget about the guest. It always comes back to, do you remember who your guest is and where they want to be? And we in our nature, try and silo guests and say they all want to use an app, or they all want to use the website, or they all want to come in person. They don’t.

00:02:03:14 – 00:02:26:03

Erin Levzow

Every guest is a little bit different. And so really putting them front and center is I think where people get it wrong is they forget. I also think they try and they feel they need a company for everything. Right. And you don’t need 75 tech companies to run your brand. Go back to what is core to it, what’s important, and then focus their.

00:02:26:05 – 00:02:48:07

Zack Oates

How would you go about. And by the way, I love that idea of not all consumers want to be treated the same. And I would add and here’s another layer of fun. Not all consumers want to be treated the same every time. So it’s like, I want to go into a restaurant, I want to order DoorDash, but yet I’m expecting the same amount of care from you as a brand.

00:02:48:09 – 00:02:52:00

Zack Oates

And it’s up to you to meet me where I’m at when I’m there.

00:02:52:02 – 00:02:53:24

Erin Levzow

And that just care about consistency.

00:02:54:03 – 00:02:54:18

Zack Oates

Yes.

00:02:54:18 – 00:03:14:05

Erin Levzow

Do you know why my daughter flippin loves to go to Olive garden? And I’m like, fine, I do want the Tour of Italy. It’s great, but it’s because it’s consistent. You know exactly what you’re going to get. You know exactly what the food’s going to come out. You know the salad’s going to come out, you know, the breadsticks are going to come out no matter how I order it.

00:03:14:05 – 00:03:22:13

Erin Levzow

You know what you’re getting. And there’s a lot of consistency in what we need. Our lives are crazy. Let’s give people consistency.

00:03:22:15 – 00:03:47:07

Zack Oates

I love that and consistency. I mean, when I talk about the three C’s of guest experience, it’s convenience, consistency and connection, right? And I think tech a lot of times can help us, especially with the consistency to measure things. But when I always say you can’t take the humans at hospitality, it’s because when you get to that connection point, Aaron, you need that human touch, right?

00:03:47:09 – 00:04:16:10

Erin Levzow

Yeah. Well, I mean, the human experience is so important. And so I say what we get to do in technology is emotional connection. And it’s emotional technology because there’s still this heart. I have a heart. You have a heart. Let’s connect those. But what connects those is technology. And when you find someone who leads marketing technology, who understands the emotion and the psychology behind it, and they also understand the technology behind it, that’s a winner.

00:04:16:12 – 00:04:37:08

Erin Levzow

Those are some of the best folks I’ve ever worked with. Are people that understand the psychology right. It’s your typical traditional marketers who understand the creative and the feelings that get evoked. And then you marry that with technology and that’s what wins. But it’s still human connection. It’s just helping. And again, it gets said over and over and over.

00:04:37:08 – 00:04:46:10

Erin Levzow

But right person, right time, right place. It’s really that technology helps you get there. It’s the emotion that evokes is what connects with the human.

00:04:46:12 – 00:04:58:11

Zack Oates

But Aaron, that doesn’t scale. I have a lot of restaurants, I have a lot of customers coming in, like I can’t connect with all of them. It doesn’t scale.

00:04:58:12 – 00:05:21:03

Erin Levzow

It does scale. We went from being the wing experts and I was like, well, you’re the wing experts. And I was like, but that doesn’t connect with our people, right? To get at it, get at it as a way of life. That became their slogan. I’m not sure if it’s still their slogan, but like, it was this idea of how you attack life and that connected and resonated and it did scale.

00:05:21:05 – 00:05:44:05

Erin Levzow

When you find something that the psychology puts in place, that is about the demographic, that is about the customer, it will scale. But it’s finding the right thing because wing experts didn’t. It wasn’t the right thing. Get at it. How you get after life, whether it’s you’re riding a bike or you’re attacking wings because you don’t eat wings, they’re not a simple food to eat.

00:05:44:07 – 00:05:53:14

Erin Levzow

You get messy how you get after life. That was exciting for Wingstop and it definitely resonated and scaled.

00:05:53:16 – 00:06:13:14

Zack Oates

I love that I right now and wearing a $45 Bucky’s sweatshirt. Yes, I got Bucky’s. And who doesn’t? I actually have two Bucky’s shirts, but whenever I wear a Bucky shirt, people smile when they see my shirt to see a little beaver chipmunk. I don’t even know what it is. Actually.

00:06:13:14 – 00:06:19:09

Erin Levzow

It’s enjoyable. And do you need gas? Do you need to do your Christmas shopping? Do you just need popcorn? They have it all.

00:06:19:11 – 00:06:43:14

Zack Oates

And I got to. Maybe I want to buy a grill I don’t know right. It’s like they’ve got it all. But here’s the crazy thing Aaron I walked into a Bucky’s last weekend, 2 a.m. in South Carolina and the doors open. I walk in 2 a.m. and what do I hear? I hear from four people. Welcome to Bucky’s.

00:06:43:16 – 00:06:48:24

Erin Levzow

They pay well too. They pay their employees well there and instantly.

00:06:48:24 – 00:06:58:05

Zack Oates

So when we talk about how connection can’t scale that is so ingrained. When was the last time I was greeted walk into a gas station?

00:06:58:07 – 00:07:00:08

Erin Levzow

I know, I know.

00:07:00:10 – 00:07:10:14

Zack Oates

And so I bring that up just as an example of hospitality. Doesn’t care about your industry. Hospitality cares about the guests feeling cared about. That’s what hospitality.

00:07:10:14 – 00:07:24:00

Erin Levzow

Is. And Bucky’s has scaled. Just to be clear, they have scale. They’ve continued to grow. They’ve been calculated with their growth. So they’re not just growing to grow. And they’ve done that on purpose. Right? They give you an experience.

00:07:24:02 – 00:07:38:19

Zack Oates

And there’s some technology there. Yes, but it’s the heart of the people. They hire the right people, they retain the right people. And they make sure that even at 2 a.m. that those people are friendly, which is.

00:07:38:22 – 00:07:46:12

Erin Levzow

Crazy. You don’t even know what to do. You’re probably shocked. That’s why you remember it, because you were like, who’s ever greeted me at 2 a.m..

00:07:46:14 – 00:07:58:03

Zack Oates

And at the fudge counter at 2 a.m.? Obviously I had to go walking all around the store asking, hey, is there anyone working the fudge counter? No, I didn’t, you know what happened? There were.

00:07:58:03 – 00:07:59:05

Erin Levzow

Two people at.

00:07:59:05 – 00:07:59:16

Zack Oates

The fudge.

00:07:59:16 – 00:08:00:23

Erin Levzow

Counter. That’s insane.

00:08:01:04 – 00:08:05:04

Zack Oates

Two of them. And they both said, would you like a sample?

00:08:05:06 – 00:08:07:03

Erin Levzow

You’re like, I do. It’s two and.

00:08:07:05 – 00:08:10:18

Zack Oates

Four people behind the beef jerky counter.

00:08:10:20 – 00:08:14:19

Erin Levzow

That’s crazy. Yeah, it’s they have a wonderful establishment.

00:08:14:21 – 00:08:30:19

Zack Oates

They do. And it creates raving fans who get on podcast and talk about it. So talking about the guest, I love that your focus on technology and marketing is really getting focus on the guest. What do you think is one of the most important aspects of guest experience nowadays?

00:08:30:21 – 00:08:50:10

Erin Levzow

Again, it goes back to don’t forget about the guest. Actually the human connection. I said to someone this morning, I said, oh, how so-and-so doing? And he goes, who’s so-and-so? And I said, you know, so-and-so? And I regurgitated that gentleman’s life story and he goes, oh, you mean this person? And I said, oh, well, I got his name wrong.

00:08:50:10 – 00:09:09:15

Erin Levzow

But I remembered the whole life story, and it’s because it really has to do with the human. How do you connect with that human? And I think as people, we want that. Right? I want nothing more than for someone to look at me and go, I see you. I want that from a company, too. It turns out right.

00:09:09:17 – 00:09:33:24

Zack Oates

Yeah. It’s like unreasonable hospitality, which is all about love, right? I think that that’s the whole gist of it. And I just went to a conference. It was two days of, I mean, a thousand tactics of how to improve the restaurant. And it was amazing. And then I got up there and for my keynote, I talked about the human connection and these are all amazing things.

00:09:33:24 – 00:09:55:07

Zack Oates

And please do all of these and take notes and bring them back to your restaurant. But we need to remember why. Why are we in this industry that is got tough margins. It’s got tough employment. It goes up and down with the economy. It’s very volatile because we care. That’s what I feel like. It’s so easy to forget.

00:09:55:11 – 00:10:06:09

Zack Oates

So what would you do? You go into a restaurant brand and you’re sitting down with the C-suite and they say, Aaron, what do we do? We want to connect more with our guests. What are some tactics that you would give them?

00:10:06:11 – 00:10:24:09

Erin Levzow

Well, I want to just jump right into that. I would ask them, who is your guest? I’ve walked into restaurant companies and they’re like, we need an app. And I was like, okay, why? Why do we need an app? Why do we need this? What do we know currently about our customer? What don’t we know? And then I would move into tactics.

00:10:24:09 – 00:10:42:19

Erin Levzow

And sometimes it’s as easy as like, hey, you’re just not talking to them. You’re just not talking to them in the right way. Again, at Wingstop, we had to change how we talk to our customer, the language that our customer was using and the language we were using. It was like your father talking to your kid, and we didn’t want to be that person.

00:10:42:19 – 00:11:00:12

Erin Levzow

We wanted to be your friend while you talk to your friend a different way than a father talking to a kid. So changing how that is communicated and then where you’re talking to them, right? Don’t talk to them in email if they don’t ever check their email. Right. My daughter has an email. I’m like, did you get my email?

00:11:00:12 – 00:11:21:12

Erin Levzow

She’s like, no, no, is it when’s the last time you checked your email? She’s like, I don’t know. That’s just not a thing she does. I said, but if I snap her, sure, shit, she reads it, talk to them where they’re at. It’s that simple. And again, I know I’m simplifying marketing in general, but at the idea of who are you trying to speak to?

00:11:21:14 – 00:11:28:07

Erin Levzow

How are you trying to speak to them? And then where are you trying to speak to them is really the core of marketing.

00:11:28:09 – 00:11:36:19

Zack Oates

For a brand who might not have a whole marketing team? How do I go about discover who are my customers?

00:11:36:21 – 00:11:57:20

Erin Levzow

It could be as simple as looking at Google Analytics, who’s coming to your website, and it will show you the demo and it will literally tell you how old they are, what they look like, what they’re doing, where else they’ve been, start there. Right. And that’s basic information. But then literally sit in your store, marketers go inside. I remember at Freebirds I had to work.

00:11:57:20 – 00:12:17:04

Erin Levzow

Everybody has to work in the restaurant. I worked in the restaurant, I’m rolling burritos, and I was not good at it. I was very, very horrible at it. But I got to see everybody that was coming through. And as I’m rolling this burrito, this woman looks at me and she’s watching me and I’m trying. I was struggling to get it to fold.

00:12:17:09 – 00:12:35:18

Erin Levzow

And she goes, are you an idiot? And I said, I don’t, I might be I’m actually an incredible marketer, but I might not be a good burrito roller. We can all agree on that. But I did get to see exactly who came into the restaurants and what they looked like, and how they spoke and what was engaging to them and what they wore.

00:12:35:20 – 00:12:40:24

Erin Levzow

And there’s nothing better than actually just observing people.

00:12:41:01 – 00:12:43:20

Zack Oates

Isn’t that kind of weird, though?

00:12:43:22 – 00:13:00:10

Erin Levzow

I don’t think so. I mean, it’s free. It turns out it’s very free for me to stand in a restaurant. I don’t know, I probably lost them some money when I was working in there, but like, you could watch all of these folks come through and I could go, all right, I understand who’s coming in at lunch. I understand who’s coming in at dinner.

00:13:00:12 – 00:13:04:17

Erin Levzow

All right. Where do you think they play? Let’s go target them there.

00:13:04:19 – 00:13:21:21

Zack Oates

I love that he’s been a bit facetious before because I did the same thing with ovation. I remember in the beginning of ovation, I would sit there and just watch people engage with QR codes. I would see them. What did they talk about as they picked it up? How did they use at the back of the day we had like schemes.

00:13:21:21 – 00:13:32:12

Erin Levzow

For you, right? It changed pre-COVID, post-Covid, how people interacted with QR codes. It was night and day. I feel like, yeah, how they interact now than what they did.

00:13:32:14 – 00:13:52:00

Zack Oates

Because before they were like, oh, QR codes, do you have an app for that? And so which is why pre-COVID we had iPad kiosks with smiley faces on them, and then post-Covid everyone kind of got on board with the QR code and so didn’t need that. But there are so many things I learned by watching people use our technology.

00:13:52:00 – 00:13:58:12

Zack Oates

So I think not only restaurant tours, but any tech person listening go watch people use your technology.

00:13:58:14 – 00:14:31:19

Erin Levzow

You just hit it on the head. Tech people typically do not watch, they do not. So when your technology department and your marketing department actually can come together is when you when and there’s still so many segmented and separated tech and marketing departments and marketing or while in restaurants and when they can come together and go, hey, we care about the emotion because marketers typically are like, I can tell you all about the customer and technologist go, I can tell you about the technology when you get them to work hand in hand.

00:14:31:21 – 00:14:36:20

Erin Levzow

It’s a win. So go in and watch. Bring your IT friend with you.

00:14:36:22 – 00:15:00:19

Zack Oates

I love that I grew up in the advertising space and we would go and do not just surveys, not just focus groups, but ethnographies. And an ethnography is when you follow someone around not just to what they’re doing. So I was working for a project on a book company, and they have a bunch of bookstores around the country, and I followed one of their consumers around.

00:15:00:21 – 00:15:17:07

Zack Oates

I went with her, got to her house in the morning, and it she was making breakfast for the kids and getting them out the door for school. We sat down and we chatted for a while as she was like doing laundry. And then she went shopping and went to the bookstore. We followed her round and then we went to lunch with her.

00:15:17:09 – 00:15:21:15

Zack Oates

So we were together for like probably five hours, and the whole time just recording the whole.

00:15:21:15 – 00:15:25:13

Erin Levzow

Thing, just understanding who she was and why she made the decisions. She did.

00:15:25:15 – 00:15:50:05

Zack Oates

Exactly. And how did the bookstore fit into her life and the things that were around her house from the bookstore, and how she wanted to feel in the bookstore and as a result of this quote unquote marketing experience, the recommendation was in the bookstores. They should lower their shelves because she wanted to feel more like a home, and she wanted to feel less like a library.

00:15:50:10 – 00:16:02:19

Zack Oates

So they lowered the bookshelves to give people, you know, so they can see what’s going on in other places and not feel like they were trapped inside these aisles. So it reduced the SKUs, but it didn’t prove the guest experience.

00:16:02:24 – 00:16:12:02

Erin Levzow

Well, and you just again hit something on the head, which is we are not the most important part of someone’s day. We’d like to believe we are. Isn’t that crazy?

00:16:12:03 – 00:16:15:09

Zack Oates

Isn’t everyone thinking about Wingstop all day, every day, all day?

00:16:15:11 – 00:16:34:15

Erin Levzow

Like any restaurant, they’ll be like, oh, well, obviously they want to come to us. I was like, they might have made that decision two minutes ago, right? They literally might have been driving by, but like figure out what piece of that puzzle. And like, you followed her around and you figured out where that fit into her life. And I don’t think we do that enough.

00:16:34:17 – 00:16:52:24

Zack Oates

Yeah, I love that. You and I could chat all day and we do. And we’re a trade shows, which is always fun. You are one of the shining lights. It’s so fun to see you at trade shows. If you’re at a trade show and you see Aaron, be prepared to feel the love because she has such a dynamic energy about her.

00:16:53:04 – 00:17:05:16

Zack Oates

You’re awesome Aaron. You do so much great stuff for this industry and I’m grateful that you came on the podcast. But before we leave, I want to hear who is someone that you think deserves an ovation in the restaurant industry, who’s someone that we should be following?

00:17:05:18 – 00:17:32:11

Erin Levzow

I mean, there’s lots of people, but I would say I actually just spoke to her this morning. Jennifer Loper from C3. She is also someone who I believe that you can’t have without darkness. And no matter what she brings to light, and she is a beautiful, shining star of that. And I’ve known her for a while now, and every time she shows up in a room, she brings light with her.

00:17:32:11 – 00:17:37:24

Erin Levzow

And I like to put myself next to people who I feel brighten my day too.

00:17:38:01 – 00:17:42:21

Zack Oates

I love that well, Aaron, where can people go to follow you?

00:17:42:23 – 00:17:53:00

Erin Levzow

Anywhere. If you want to see myself and my daughter doing TikTok dances, you can find us on TikTok. If you Snapchat anything, LinkedIn, there’s really no platform that I’m not on.

00:17:53:02 – 00:17:56:09

Zack Oates

And she’s got over 16,000 followers on LinkedIn.

00:17:56:09 – 00:18:02:22

Erin Levzow

So yeah, there’s a lot going. I don’t remember your name was that. I remember your whole life story, that’s for sure.

00:18:02:24 – 00:18:03:24

Zack Oates

And I love that.

00:18:03:24 – 00:18:06:03

Erin Levzow

And thank you for remembering me.

00:18:06:05 – 00:18:18:04

Zack Oates

Absolutely. And well, for grounding us in the guests and for helping me pick my birthday dinner this weekend. Olive garden, today’s ovation goes to you. Thank you for joining us. I give an ovation.

00:18:18:06 – 00:18:19:12

Erin Levzow

Thank you.

00:18:19:14 – 00:18:42:00

Zack Oates

Thanks for joining us today. If you like this episode, leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or your favorite place to listen. We’re all about feedback here. Again, this episode was sponsored by ovation, a two question, SMS based, actionable guest feedback platform built for multi-unit restaurants. If you’d like to learn how we can help you measure and create a better guest experience, visit us at Ovation up.com.