The 100+ location brand is using Ovation to get more operational data, reviews, and happy guests.
Friendly’s Restaurants, the iconic family diner and ice cream shop known for its delicious sundaes and burgers, today announced its partnership with Ovation as their guest feedback platform. With a goal to better measure and act on the guest experience, Friendly’s has leveraged Ovation’s real-time chat, short surveys, long surveys, powerful reporting, and AI-powered recovery systems to connect with guests and improve operations.
“We’ve been blown away by the platform,” said Carissa De Santis, Chief Technology Officer of BRIX Holdings, the parent company of Friendly’s. “We’re getting 24x more feedback than we were with our old survey system. But in actuality, we’re spending less time handling that feedback and reaching back out to the guests than we were previously…It’s been a game changer.”
Ovation has enabled Friendly’s to both create connections with guests and improve operationally. They gather significantly more feedback facilitated by integrations with solutions like the online ordering platform Olo and strategically positioned QR codes both on and off-premises. From there, happy guests drive revenue through gift card purchases, reviews, and catering orders. Unhappy guests are placed into a private conversation with management, who can resolve issues easily through AI-powered responses.
Feedback from all channels, including surveys and online reviews, is gathered and sorted into 34 restaurant-specific categories using an advanced categorization algorithm. From there, brand leaders can see overall trends, strengths, and weaknesses at both the brand and location levels. Then goals are set to monitor and improve.
Zack Oates, Founder and CEO of Ovation, remarked, “This is somewhat of a full-circle moment. My first job was at Friendly’s where I learned about hospitality and the guest experience and to come to this point where we can power the feedback is an honor!”
After six months of using Ovation, Friendly’s saw a 24X more feedback, 5X increase in long surveys taken, a 1.1 increase in average online rating, and over 3,500 saved guests.
Friendly’s Restaurants serve signature entrees, burgers, sandwiches and hand-crafted, specialty ice cream desserts in over 100 friendly, full-service restaurants. For over 80 years, Friendly’s, its franchisees and their dedicated service teams have delighted generations of guests by offering everyday value on great-tasting food and ice cream creations.
Friendly’s Restaurants, LLC, is a franchise portfolio company of BRIX Holdings, LLC, a Dallas-based multi-brand company specializing in chains with superior products and attractive growth prospects. For the future, Friendly’s has plans for introducing new and innovative food and ice cream offerings, bright new restaurants, and unique ways to reach and satisfy guests. For additional information, please visit https://www.FriendlysRestaurants.com. Franchising information is available at https://www.FriendlysRestaurants.com/franchise/.
Ovation is an enterprise operations tool built with actionable guest feedback that drives traffic. Through frictionless surveys and 50+ integrations, guests give more feedback. Through AI-powered responses, managers get more out of happy guests and recover unhappy guests. Through advanced categorization tools, brands have the operational insights they need to improve. To learn more, visit Ovationup.com.
