Picture this: You’re driving down the road and you see a familiar sign that gets your stomach grumbling, so you quickly pull into the drive-through, place an order and, within minutes, you’re enjoying a tasty bite of what you were craving. That’s not a hard scenario to imagine. Odds are, we’ve all gone through that exact sequence of events in our lives. And that’s great for those businesses, and even for other stores where the foot traffic drives people in to shop. But that kind of customer isn’t the only one you should be relying on. Smart operators know that there are huge portions of the population who don’t often find themselves in those serendipitous moments when they can make that impulsive decision to buy something on the spot. Angelo Frigo is one of those smart operators, and as the head of customer experience at Burger King, he is trying to move beyond the drive-through and reach customers in new, exciting ways — particularly online and through Burger King’s digital app. On this episode of Up Next in Commerce, Angelo and I go into some of the ways businesses can think about targeting and engaging with customers outside of in-person and spur-of-the-moment experiences. Plus, we also dug into Angelo’s background, which is fascinating, and includes stops at McDonald’s, Feeding America, and even the White House. Enjoy this episode!
Main Takeaways:
- A Bigger Burden: In the government sector, customer experience is often boiled down to measuring the “burden” of something. And, thanks to an old school definition, “burden” is sometimes thought of literally as paperwork. So, reducing “burden” means reducing paperwork. As a result, the customer experience when dealing with government agencies hasn’t been optimized in all the ways we’re used to. Part of improving the customer experience at the government level begins with simply redefining what is included in the experience, and then removing friction at all points.
- Moving Beyond The Drive-Thru: Expanding reach beyond the drive-thru is one of the main areas of focus for chains like Burger King, which are attempting to market to people who traditionally only buy from quick-service restaurants when they see them close by and it becomes top of mind. To combat that, chains need to develop digital apps and ordering services with profiles, personalization, and creative marketing, design, and participation opportunities.
- Testing, Testing: It’s important to think outside the box in all areas of the business. In the app space, you should look outside your industry for ideas and inspiration rather than copying what’s most trendy or what’s working with your immediate competition. Then create prototypes and test ideas whether that’s with customers or with team members at all levels across your company.
For an in-depth look at this episode, check out the full transcript below. Quotes have been edited for clarity and length.
Key Quotes:
“To me, customer experience has really emerged out of the design world and the way that customer experience is the management of the value that design brings. Design looks holistically and looks at the end to end for creating value for customers and understanding the human experience, and CX is a way to manage that and measure and manage return on investment for creating value through design.”
“A lot of agencies think that customer experience is what happens when they call in for help and that they measure satisfaction of those calls or interactions with their call center and their support center. But it’s, of course, so much broader than that. And trying to preempt those calls from ever happening in the first place is where we’re trying to move them.”
“How are we making sure that we’re bringing people in and retaining them? But also on the cost side of it is [asking] is this saving time, is this increasing value? And the important pieces for a customer experience in government is to recognize that there’s both the design side of it, as well as the customer experience management side of it looking at costs and, and bringing that thinking to the balance sheet so that it’s not just a battle between reducing spending on operations, but rather they see that as a cost to mitigate.”
“Lots of really great digital transformations are happening at Burger King and across the QSR industry. What I was brought in to help with is exactly that — it’s looking at the importance of digital in that whole market and that whole industry to bring greater convenience to the guest to bring greater personalization and really help expand the reach beyond the drive through. That’s a lot of ways, the biggest competitor to digital transformation and the industry, because the drive through is already fairly fast and straightforward. So we are trying to think through how can we help them get delivery to their home? How can we help them have a better pickup experience? How can we help them with curbside table service, to see other ways to fit this into their lives when they’re not right around the corner from us.”
“In general, the quick serve restaurant market is a very impromptu decision. It’s something that you’re not thinking about until you see that sign in front of you, or you’re driving around and you need to eat within the next 15 minutes or something to that effect. So it’s something that there’s not a lot of advanced planning. So what we try to bring to that is really just knowing who they are and what they like so that they know what they’re going to get is going to be the way that they want it with the customization in the app. So you can set up your favorites, you have a lot of control over every individual component of the meal, which is I think a really critical benefit of digital services and digital ordering.”
“I especially like to look outside of our industry for inspiration. There’s a lot of copying, and as a customer experience [guy] who is really designed and innovation minded, I really like to bring prototyping as a capability to our teams to think through several different ways of solving a problem, rather than just gravitating to the one that’s most familiar in the industry.”
Bio
Angelo Frigo is the Head of CX and Digital Product at Burger King. Prior to joining Burger King, he was in the White House Presidential Innovation Fellows Class of 2020. Prior to being named a Presidential Innovation Fellow, Angelo consulted to Feeding America on the digital transformation of food rescue and charitable food distribution. From 2015 to 2019 he helped establish the Corporate Digital UX function at McDonald’s where he led the research, digital strategy, design, and piloting of the mobile app and service operations for Mobile Order & Pay, Loyalty Rewards, and Table Service. He also co-founded Corp Digital’s innovation governance and portfolio management process.
For the ten years prior to McDonald’s, Angelo led consulting teams as a Senior Manager at Doblin, now the innovation practice of Deloitte, and as Director of the Transformation Programs team at What If Innovation, now part of Accenture. He continues to coach executives and their teams on innovation strategy and effectiveness. Past clients as an independent advisor include The World Bank, Hitachi, Fisher & Paykel, and UBS.
Angelo holds a Master of Design degree from the Institute of Design at IIT, and a BS in Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
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Transcript:
Stephanie:
Welcome back to Up Next in Commerce. I’m your host, Stephanie Postles CEO at mission.org. Today on the show, we have Angelo Frigo who serves as a head of customer experience at Burger King. Angelo, welcome to the show.
Angelo:
Thanks so much for having me.
Stephanie:
Yeah, so you have a very cool background. Very, very impressive. You’ve gone from McDonald’s to Feeding America to the White House, to now Burger King. And I actually wanted to start all the way at the beginning and hear about how you even got into the world of customer experience and what your journey was like through all of that.
Angelo:
Sure. So I was originally an engineer and was a practicing engineer doing project management and really just got excited about business growth and helping the company that I was working for explore new areas, get into new areas of business. In this case, it was Underwriters Laboratories and they didn’t have a sustainability initiative. They didn’t have an initiative to help companies certify their products for sustainability. They were exclusively testing for safety, for human safety but not for environmental safety. So really got the bug of just general entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship, helping to think through new strategies and growth opportunities and adjacencies for that business. Didn’t know all that at the time. And, but got a chance to pitch an idea like that to the chief marketing officer and that person, as well as a couple other people told me that maybe I should be looking into that realm of business and went to graduate school had a program called the Institute of Design in Chicago, which really changed my world.
Angelo:
It is a design program but it really focuses on how design creates value for businesses beyond just the look and feel of a product and looks at the whole business as an opportunity for creative exploration and new ideas and innovation. I spent the formative years of my career finishing school at a firm called Doblin, which does that professionally. And to me customer experience has really emerged out of the design world in the way that customer experience is the management of the value that design brings. Design looks holistically and looks at the end to end for creating value for customers and understanding the human experience and CX is a way to manage that and manage return on investment for creating value through design.
Angelo:
So that’s really where it all started at Dolin as a consultant. And when I left there to start my own practice and join McDonald’s, it Really, customer experience really took off with Agile and Lean and other digital product management practices. And it’s grown tremendously since then and spent some time at Feeding America after McDonald’s. Even in the nonprofit sector they’re starting to look at that customer experience too, which is really exciting. Happy to talk more about that.
Angelo:
And then an opportunity that really was incredibly excited to participate in of the Presidential Innovation Fellows Program at the White House. I was selected to be the representative for the office of management and budget, their first advisor on customer experience, still fairly new customer experience, still fairly new in the government sector but a lot of really great things happening there. So and now back to the QSR industry, which I actually really, really enjoy because it touches so many people’s lives and it has that added challenge of needing to blend the digital and the physical, which I really enjoy getting into the operations side of fulfilling on the promise of digital convenience.
Stephanie:
Wow. That’s cool. Okay. So then to go back from McDonald’s to Feeding America, what does it look like building customer experience for a company like McDonald’s to then going to a nonprofit that has very different resource issues probably and thinks about things very differently, what was that jump like?
Angelo:
There was a bit of an adjustment going from having a large team to having a fairly small team, needing to make some compromises that I wouldn’t have previously been comfortable with around quality and the ability to ensure a great experience for the customer but at the same time surprising amount of interest and really importance. So in the… Of course, we come to an opportunity like Feeding America with a lens around how we can create convenience and better speed of service. I think what I… I understood less going in was the importance of stigma in that sector and the importance of anonymity. So we try to find a right, with customer experience, we try to find a right balance of, do you have a lot of human touchpoint?
Angelo:
Do you try to bring the human element into it so that there is that connection when they’re picking up their food? But in some cases people want that to be invisible and they want themselves to be in invisible. So mobile ordering and pick up for food in that space of the folks who are food insecure is growing rapidly across Feeding America. They’re a network of 200 food banks and I think it really can transform how comfortable people are choosing when they’re, especially when they’re early having just maybe slipped into being food insecure and still not wanting to go and take that. Because in many cases, it’s somebody who just wants, who wants somebody who’s more in need to have that but for anybody listening there’s there is of food and it is for you. So I really encourage you to go and take up Feeding America on what they can do.
Stephanie:
Wow. That’s yeah, good to hear very, I’m sure different perspective, different style of customers and a lot of learnings that went into that. So then you jump to the White House. And I mean, when I think about customer experience and government, it’s hard for me to maybe put two and two together. So what did you do there? What was your project? What were you working on?
Angelo:
Sure. There’s a team at the office of management and budget that’s focused on customer experience from a performance perspective. And first thing really is just helping them understand what we mean by service design and the experience with a service as delivered by a program. So in the government space, just to give a sense of hierarchy of terms, there are departments and agencies at the highest level, Department of Homeland Security and there are multiple agencies within those enormous organizations.
Angelo:
So food and nutrition is an agency in the department of agriculture and there are programs then within those agencies, like the women and infant children’s program and then those agencies deliver services. And so just helping agencies understand that service delivery is a priority and can be improved and that they have a responsibility to improve that even though their program may be administered by states. So in some ways, sure, yes, those programs may be administered by an entirely different non-federal entity.
Angelo:
Figuring out how that is an important priority for the agency in terms of uptake of usage of the benefits that they’re trying to offer. So that was step one. And then step two is really just helping understand that customer experience is more than just customer support. A lot of agencies think that customer experiences is what happens when they call in for help and that they measure satisfaction of those calls or interactions with their call center or their support center. But it’s of course so much broader than that. And trying to preempt those calls from ever happening in the first place is where we’re trying to move them.
Stephanie:
Yeah. So, what were some of maybe stories around things that you were trying to implement? Were there any surprises as you were trying to move forward and teaching them while also trying to get things done? What did it look like behind the scenes there?
Angelo:
Sure. So, for folks who are really interested in this topic, I would point them to an article in the Atlantic called The Time Tax and really terrific, really, really well written on this topic that Cass Sunstein has also really written a book on that he calls Sludge. Pam Hur., Don Moynihan, speak about administrative burden. And so a lot of really smart people talking about this topic and they don’t… The customer experience and customer experience design, service design are more the solution to the problem but the problem is burden and burden is the equivalent term in government for friction in the e-commerce world.
Angelo:
Reducing friction from that experience is obviously commonplace. They use a little bit of a different term there and burden just a little bit of history there, has been identified as a, was identified a problem with the Bush administration, the paperwork reduction act, that is a law that went into place and established an organization called the Office of Information Regulatory Affairs to help agencies reduce the burden of paperwork on the businesses and the public.
Angelo:
So, just a little bit of history and context there but fast forward a couple decades and we’re still doing that very poorly. The way in which burden is measured is in some ways limited by that original definition as paperwork. So we all know if you need to do your taxes or apply for a passport or go through TSA or to get through an airport. Any of these services that these agencies and programs administer, the paperwork is important, no doubt. To minimize that and streamline that but that’s a minor fraction of really the entire experience. So from a customer experience designer, we’re looking at the whole end to end and they don’t measure service time from end to end for their participants, for the public.
Angelo:
So we did a little work here and in some cases we found that agencies were, by just measuring only the paperwork they were only accounting for just a few percentage points, a few minute of what could be hours of an experience to get through. So people know this just intuitively that takes hours. And they’re just not thinking about that entire end to end experience. So, yeah, lots of stories there. But I think the end point here is that by recognizing that some of these programs take a long time to get through and if they were to account for that and think about the cost of that because it’s, sometimes there are hundreds of millions of people that are using these programs. We’re look looking at upwards of, it could be a trillion dollars in annual lost, opportunity cost because of the amount of time that the entire US population and just the public at large needs to spend going through government services that are onerous and not thoughtful of their time.
Stephanie:
Yeah. So was there any maybe learnings that you could actually take from government and then bring to Burger King or was it so wildly different where it’s, actually it could only be the other way around?
Angelo:
Oh, that’s a… I mean, the intent of the Presidential Innovation Fellows Program that Obama stood up and made permanent with his last action in office, was just to bring the expertise of the private sector to government. So that’s the main intent there and to provide an opportunity for technologists and end designers to do a year of service and give back, which is what really attracted me to it. So that’s the main intent to, I think, it’s just, anytime you enter a new space where a concept is new, you have to really use planner language for how you talk about things. I needed to adjust some of the industry lexicon of terms and I’m just explain customer experience in a way that anyone can understand. And I think that’s just generally a good thing to bring back to the private sector too.
Stephanie:
So when thinking about these government programs and you’re there auditing and looking at these different customer experiences of them, which I’m sure is very difficult, like you said, there’s so many, what maybe is one tangible story or something you looked at and that you maybe were trying to figure out the ROI of, should we be this a better customer experience? How do I think about that, auditing it in general? Do you have any stories around that?
Angelo:
Sure, sure. Yep. We audited several services that are delivered by what are called high impact service providers in government. That’s a term being used by the office of management and budget to think through which agencies have the most impact on the public’s lives. And SSA is a part of that. The Department of Revenue is a part of that, doing your taxes and also the FNS, food and nutrition services, including the WIC program is part of that. And WIC is an interesting one that we looked at because I think a lot of people don’t realize that half of the mothers in the country use the WIC program to get food for their babies and get nutrition and health services for themselves and their babies.
Angelo:
So it really does affect a lot more people than people realize. And it provides a ton of benefit to them in terms of just reducing the costs to raise a child. And, but it is a bit onerous to go through. There are really extensive eligibility checks just to get approved to get those WIC benefits. Of course, this is meant in the spirit of program integrity, to make sure that it’s not being abused as a government program, which is super important too. And that’s often the trade off to customer experience simplicity and making things really, really easy and low friction. So this trade off between friction and customer experience and program, and integrity is one that we looked at really closely. So with WIC, a mother starting this program may not even know about it but they may hear about it through word of mouth, or they may have seen it from a state website and they may start their experience trying to find a place where they can go and fill out paperwork.
Angelo:
They may try to fill out the paperwork online. The paperwork alone could take an hour. And, but then there are also many appointments that they need to take to go in and have their baby weighed, to watch mandatory videos around breastfeeding, things like that. This is all friction in the experience of getting signed up. And we’re not really accounting for all that time that people need to spend to get themselves to these appointments, get themselves back, waiting while they’re there. Just accounting for that time spent, if agencies were to look at that and think about that as an opportunity cost, it would be hundreds of millions of dollars. And it would be something that you really start to question whether all these eligibility checks are really worth it. And you really start to wonder, should we be relaxing some of these program integrity rules? And you look at other countries and other countries, they don’t perform the WIC program, the way that we do, they provide maternity benefits and any mother who wants them can get them.
Angelo:
And I think it’s hard to make that argument in our current climate where we don’t look at time and we don’t look at customer experience as a business cost but if we do, it makes those simpler more easier administrated programs like a maternity benefit, a lot more rational. So I’m hoping that the customer experience push there to look at time and look at cost and think of customer experience at the same level as an operations expense that can be optimized and reduced will help us understand how we could, from ground up, rethink how we administer these benefits like WIC and so many others that would be nearly automatic. And so just available for everyone, the costs would be main point, costs would be less to just give WIC benefits to every mother who wants it, rather than having them go through all these hoops to get these benefits.
Stephanie:
Yeah. That, I mean, that makes sense. It’s like a lot of different government organizations looking at that right now. I think even people in jail, they’re like, okay, it actually costs way more for a lot of people who did a crime, that’s not even a crime anymore and went to jail for something that is now not even illegal. And I think there’s a lot of programs like that, that could be audited. But then also thinking about, I know you’re mentioning opportunity costs, that would only be a net benefit to the economy if they were actually doing something in the economy, I guess would be maybe the trade off of if they actually go out and work, then they’re bringing revenue and tax dollars in. But if they’re not, then maybe a little bit harder to measure if it’s actually a net benefit, minus just taking out the administration costs of all the requirements.
Angelo:
Yes, that’s spot on. The current difficulties we have with talent and keeping people in work we should, in their jobs, which we should just make it as easy as possible. And some of these government programs make it hard to keep a job. If you can’t get time off to go and sit and wait in line or if you have to take days off in order to do those things, it’s really forcing difficult decisions on the public that if they didn’t have to make, it would just make it so much easier to stay in their work, which is what they want to be doing.
Stephanie:
Yeah. Yeah. It seems like there’s sometimes a lack of long term thinking around, okay, it might be a short term expense where you’re not getting any benefit to the economy. It’s just actually helping this person, however, after that they can enter their workforce really quickly afterwards and then be much bigger of a benefit than wasting time in line and with paperwork and actually making it way harder upfront.
Angelo:
Yes. Yeah. The, so these are, what excites me now, moving from a customer experience designer and a strategist, focusing on the solutions themselves and figuring out how to make those experiences great and design them to be low friction and enjoyable. Now moving to be more of a head of customer experience in my current role where I work with designers but my focus is really on more of the business side, how are we making sure that we’re bringing people in and retaining them but also just the cost side of it, is this saving time, is this increasing value? And that’s what the, I think, the important piece is for a customer experience in government is to recognize that there’s both the design side of it, as well as the customer experience management side of it, looking at costs and bringing that thinking to the balance sheet. So that it’s not just a battle between reducing spending on operations but rather they see that as a cost to mitigate.
Stephanie:
Yeah. So then, okay. Now shifting over to Burger King, where you’re at now, I’m sure is a very different world, what were you hired for? What was your first 90 days supposed to look like? What were you most excited about changing?
Angelo:
So lots of really great digital transformation happening at Burger King and across the QSR industry. What I was brought to help with is exactly that, it’s looking at the importance of digital and that whole market and that whole industry to bring greater convenience to the guest, to bring, greater personalization and really help expand the reach beyond the drive-thru. That’s in a lot of ways the biggest competitor to digital transformation in the industry because the drive-thru is already fairly fast and straightforward. So and we are trying to think through how can we help them get delivery to their home? How can we help them have a better pickup experience? How can we help them with curbside table service? To see other ways to fit this into their lives when they’re not right around the corn or from a Burger King,
Stephanie:
What are ways that you’re encouraging people to maybe change their mindset around those experiences? Because when I think about fast food, I’m like, “Okay, I’m going to go through a drive-thru, oh there it is, great. Okay. I’m hungry.” Maybe you don’t often open up door dash and be like, “Oh, okay. I’m going to get some Burger King.” There’s so many options. So have you guys gone about changing that thought around actually the industry as a whole and why maybe I can buy in different places and that’s a new, cool thing to do.
Angelo:
Yeah. I think the, in general, the quick serve restaurant market is a very impromptu decision. It’s something that you’re not thinking about until you see the sign in front of you or you’re driving around and you, “Okay. I need to to eat within the next 15 minutes.” Or something to that effect. So it’s something that there’s not a lot of advanced planning. So what we try to bring to that is really just knowing who they are and what they like. So that they know what they’re going to get, is going to be the way that they want it. With that, so the custom in the app, so that you can set up your favorites, have a lot of control over every individual component of the meal is I think a really critical benefit of digital services and digital ordering. So that and you can say, “Hey, yes, I want my Whopper but I want it the way that I’ve predefined and not have to go through all of those options every single time.”
Stephanie:
Yeah. Or telling someone.
Angelo:
It gets repetitive.
Stephanie:
Then you’re like, “No mayonnaise.”
Angelo:
Yes.
Stephanie:
Yes to mustard, no lettuce. It’s such a long process. At a point where I feel like I actually just give up, I’m like the way it is, is fine. I’ll just take things off so yep.
Angelo:
Yes. There’s a lot of stress in drive-thru of not wanting to slow down the flow and feeling bad for people behind you if you’re taking too much time. So we really try to reduce that stress and just have it be a really low stress experience when you get to the restaurant. Yeah.
Stephanie:
So tell me a bit about the app. So, I mean, it’s for ordering, keeping your presets, what else is inside the app and how have you seen it performing?
Angelo:
So it’s been, certainly we want more of our guests to be using it, the ones that do love it, we have a lot of promotions that go through a lot of ways to engage them, like the crypto campaign that we recently ran and that was a big success, so that’s one way, which we try to engage and just a lot of new products that we want people to be aware of. Like the impossible products are new. Impossible nuggets building upon the success of the impossible Whopper. So that’s something that they use the app for, just to browse the menu and see what’s there. And then of course, to make it really easy to just go through and order right from the menu there and pick it up at their convenience.
Stephanie:
Yeah. Okay. So tell me about the crypto project. I saw it on your website, it said Burger King with the side of crypto. And I was like, “What is that?” So tell me more about that.
Angelo:
Yes, yes. So just from the designer side in me, there’s a lot of legalese that needed to be displayed there on the homepage. So that’s not what the ideal state there but everyone has forgiven us for that. So and it’s gotten really great update, really great reviews, really. I mean, the sentiment score is nearly at a hundred percent, we’ve seen 40% increase in downloads from that program. So, the idea there really is just is on brand to democratize a trending topic. A lot of people were just interested but had never really engaged with crypto. This is just a great co-brand sweepstakes type offering with Robin Hood that really struck a nerve. So we’re giving away 10 Bitcoin and I believe only two have been claimed so far. So if you’re-
Stephanie:
Get in there people.
Angelo:
Any of your listeners, they may have one in their inbox waiting for them. So they should make sure that they check that.
Stephanie:
Come on everyone! So once you get people on your app and they come in through a campaign like that, how do you keep them engaged? Because I can see people getting really excited and then what, how do you keep them coming back?
Angelo:
Yes. So like I was saying with the personalization and favoriting making it really easy so that they know when they go there next time, this is the way they get it, exactly what they want it and make sure it’s going to be accurate. Royal Perks is also new in the app and brings a lot of fun engagement with accelerators, ways to get extra crowns with your order. So different quests that you can go on to browse different parts of the menu. So we try to encourage discovery of some of the newer products. So earning accelerators when you try impossible nuggets or the ghost pepper nuggets, also a big hit. So give them a little bit of a bonus for trying something that they haven’t tried before, while also making their routine familiar orders really easy. And with the right condiments and things like that.
Stephanie:
Got it. Are there any other brands that you watch when thinking about your user experience and your digital experience? Because I’m even thinking back to my, an interview I did a few weeks ago with Walmart and Cynthia was telling about her super app that they were building and why they took multiple apps and formed it in one. And how to think about that. But is there anyone that you look at and see what they’re doing to maybe influence strategy a bit?
Angelo:
Oh, absolutely. Yeah. So of course there are the apps in our own industry that we look at and benchmark against. Of course, Starbucks is the most successful in terms of digital adoption. And so we certainly look to them and McDonald’s, Chick-fil-A, Wendy’s, many other apps that we look at but I also especially like to look outside of our industry for inspiration, just because there’s a lot of copying and as a customer experience and who’s really designed and innovation minded, I, I really like to bring prototyping as a capability to our teams to think through several different ways of solving a problem rather than just gravitating to the one that’s most familiar in the industry. And so looking outside, I’m a big fan of the Exxon Mobil app actually. If you’re a driver and you like to get gas for that car, if you need to get gas for your car still-
Stephanie:
I need to get gas. So tell me about it. What’s nice about it?
Angelo:
Well, the design is very, is really, really great but I really, again, as a end to end, thinking end to end for customer experience, even though there’s the digital aspects of that are at the center, it’s the way into that experience. And the integration with retail that I find are still a big opportunities for improvement. You can certainly make the digital experience seconds, minutes faster. But if it’s still going to take a long time at the restaurant, the total time is the same. And so looking at that retail integration piece, I just think that they did a really great job with app clips and with Google Pay integration at the pump, so that when you pull up, I’m in Chicago, it’s starting to get cold. You can stay in your car and get all the payment elements sorted away so that you’re spending the least amount of time out in the cold pumping gas. And they just to have really nice technical integration with, with Bluetooth and GPS and NFC codes. So yeah worth looking at.
Stephanie:
Wow. Is there anything that you, what are you all exploring around trying to get in that omnichannel experience correct? I mean, are you trying to get people to come into the locations more? Or what does that look like for you all?
Angelo:
I mean, we want to serve them wherever they are and wherever they want to be served. So delivery of course is a huge growth opportunity for the industry. So if they want to be at home, we’re going to bring it to them or if they want to be at the park, we want to bring it to them there. And for those that come to a store, we want them to be able to just have that magic moment where they walk up and the team there hands them their food, freshly prepared. So that’s the goal there. And it’s that timing. It’s the handshake between digital and restaurant that is so vexing and so interesting as a challenge. So making sure that when they get there, we can use their name to greet them or what we presented them in the app is a mirror image off what they’re going to see when they get there. Same order numbers, things like that. So that they know exactly what they do when they get there. Again, reducing the stress of that real world experiences is top of mind and what we’re trying to put our big bets.
Stephanie:
Yep. Very cool. So earlier you were mentioning thinking outside the box and prototyping with your team, not trying to copy others. Are there any big projects that you’ve worked on over the past year that either you really thought were going to work and then it didn’t or at your whole team didn’t think it would work. And you’re like, “Let’s try this a anyways.” Any fun stories about projects, like big thinking projects like that, that you’ve worked on?
Stephanie:
Do have any stories come to mind around something that maybe you thought was going to work and it didn’t or maybe everyone else is telling you it shouldn’t work and you tried anyways and it did, anything come up for that?
Angelo:
Yeah. So I’ll go to a story that has more to do with the person to person interactions there. I think it’s, digital experience is a part of the problem. This is a recurring theme here but getting into the non-digital parts is equally important. And at McDonald’s that has to do with physical environment, of course but it also has to do with the personal interactions that you have with the people that you’re there meeting. And we all know in the QR space that sometimes people get pretty angry, whether that’s, they got a coffee wasn’t the right way or the line took a lot longer or they were charged improperly. There are a lot of reasons that people get fairly hot under the collar, just go to YouTube and you’ll see lots of videos of violent interactions. It’s terrible. It’s the worst part of the experience for crew people in the restaurant. Dealing with nasty customers even ranks higher than dealing with nasty bosses.
Angelo:
So we had a program there we’re trying to improve certainly the guest experience but also improve the employee experience and the way we went about that, which a lot of people did not have a lot of trust in was to do some scenario planning and empathy building training. So and we brought in a group of actors actually, to play different customer personas. And we taught the restaurant team that they were acting too, so they could put on a different persona. They could act like a tour guide or they could act like a thoughtful host. So there were a number of different personas that we let them try to play the role of and take themselves out of it a little bit to depersonalize that interaction a little bit and just this idea of, of acting to try to make it fun.
Angelo:
And so the people would come through the drive-thru and the crew, people wouldn’t know what their persona was yet but maybe it was a mother who has crying babies in the back seat. Or it’s a senior who comes there every day and people still forget what he wants. Things like that, just to help them understand the backstory, that customer interaction isn’t just a moment in time but it’s part of a longer continuum of that person’s life. And the going through this scenario training and having and acting this out and playing out these scenarios was tremendously fun. A lot of laughing and even a lot of crying because they were learning skills on how deal with angry people and deescalate that they immediately recognized that they can bring home to their families.
Angelo:
And so we ran this program with, as a pilot with several stores and turnover at those store dropped precipitously. People just were able to tolerate their day more and tolerate each other more. And I think customer experience really needs to think about the employee experience and helping them develop those skills in a, especially in our industry where it’s many people’s first time job and many people who work in our stores, they work in neighborhoods where you may be brought up learning to respond to anger with anger. And so I just think there’s a tremendous opportunity for customer experience to improve the human experience.
Stephanie:
Wow. I love that. That’s yeah, a very fun scenario to think about. And honestly, any company I think could also use that tactic for just dealing with, like you said, your coworkers and bosses in just thinking about, okay, this anger here or frustration might be from something else. And how can I be more empathetic towards that instead of actually escalating it even more than what it needs to be. That’s cool. Very powerful.
Angelo:
Yeah.
Stephanie:
Okay. Let’s shift over to the lightning round. The lightning round’s brought to you by Salesforce Commerce Cloud. This is where I ask you a question and you have a minute or less to answer. Are you ready?
Angelo:
Okay.
Stephanie:
All right. First, what’s your go-to order at Burger King?
Angelo:
My go-to order at Burger King. I am a big fan of the Chi’king. So I’ll go with the Chi’king. Sometimes. It’s the double junior. It’s also a really great one.
Stephanie:
Perfect. What’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said about you?
Angelo:
I think, so people have told me that I am tireless and that I care deeply about the people that I’m trying to help. And so that always just hits me in the feels. And so that’s yeah. That’s why it’s, it’s easy. It’s even hard to talk about because I just want to get emotional about it but yeah.
Stephanie:
Well that’s good. I mean, I think that’s nice to be able to remember what people are saying and bring it back. So that’s great. If you were to have a podcast, what would it be about and who would your first guest be?
Angelo:
If I were to have a podcast. So going back to the government work, still really hopeful of transformation there. And I would love to speak with folks who are leading that. So Cass Sunstein. Would love to talk with Jason Miller, who’s the head of the office of management and budget. Would love to talk with the president about the importance of customer experience and public experience.
Stephanie:
Yeah. I think we need that ASAP. So much work seems to still be, need to be done there. They need you. What’s up next on your reading list?
Angelo:
On my reading list. So it’s not a professional book.
Stephanie:
That’s okay.
Angelo:
But, and I did just finish Cass Sunstein’s Sludge. So that’s why I had that in mind and I’m reading a book about running. So my son and I, he’s taken up across country and it’s become a time that he and I get to share together. And we get to talk about that and talk about, it’s one time away from my computer, away from his computer and where we can just be together and have time to have real conversations. So I’m really appreciating that time right now.
Stephanie:
So sweet. My Angelo, thank you so much for coming on the podcast, sharing your wisdom and all about Burger King. Where can people find out more about you and the work that you’re doing?
Angelo:
Certainly the LinkedIn page, try to post things there regularly about what I’m up to and easy to reach me there and check out the BK website, a lot of really exciting things happening there and I would love to know what you think about it. Tell me, give me feedback on LinkedIn if you can.
Stephanie:
Cool. Go get your crypto, everyone. Get your Bitcoin, before it’s all out. All right. Thanks Angelo.
Angelo:
Thanks.
