Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Kickfin has been a longtime partner of this the Restaurant Strategy Podcast. Because it's a software I really believe in. It actually helps independent restaurant owners streamline, build more efficient operations and it helps all the employees who we we hire to work for us. Today I'm thrilled to be joined by one of the co founders of Kickfin as well as the director of marketing for Union. They've got a really interesting partnership now between Union, POS and Kickfin. You're hear all about it on today's episode of Restaurant Strategy.
There's an old saying that goes something like this. You'll only find three kinds of people in the world. Those who see, those who will never see, and those who can see when shown. This is Restaurant Strategy, a podcast with answers for anyone who's looking.
Hey everyone, thanks for tuning in. My name is Chip Close and I am your host host of the Restaurant Strategy Podcast. Every week we've got two new episodes, all meant to help you increase the profitability of your restaurants. I love this show and I love the community that we've built over the last six plus years. Did you know I also have another community? I run a group coaching program. It's called the P3 mastermind. To date, we've put hundreds of people through the program.
If you struggle with profitability in your restaurant, then we should have a conversation. Absolutely. No pressure. 30 minutes, totally free. You grab time on the calendar by visiting restaurantstrategypodcast.com schedule. You will grab time on the calendar. You'll chat with me or someone from my team. We get to ask each other a whole bunch of questions so we can see if we're a good fit again. RestaurantStrategyPodcast.com schedule as always, that link is in the show notes.
Thousands of restaurants across the country use Kickfin to send instant cashless tip payouts directly to their employees bank accounts the second their shift ends. It's a really simple solution to what's become a really big problem. Because let's face it, paying out cash tips to your workers day after day, shift after shift, it's kind of a nightmare. Tedious tip distribution takes your managers away from work that actually matters. It's sometimes hard to track payments, which leads to accounting and compliance headaches.
Plus, cash tip outs create the perfect opportunity for theft. And there's never been, there's never enough cash on hand to pay out those tips. So what? What happens? Your managers are constantly having to make bank runs. Bottom line, there's never been a secure, efficient way to tip out until now meet Kickfin. Kickfin is an easy to use software that sends real time cashless tip payouts straight to your employees. Bank accounts 24 7, 365.
Tipping out with Kickfin gives managers and operators hours back in their day. It makes reporting a breeze and protects your business from mistakes and theft. And guess what? Employees love it. So it becomes a really powerful recruiting tool. Best of all, restaurants can have Kickfin up and running overnight. Employees can enroll in seconds. No hardware, no contracts and no setup fees. Get in touch today for a personalized demo and see how restaurants and bars across the country are tipping out with Kickfin. Visit kickfin.comdemo and yes, that link is in the show notes.
Okay. On today's episode of the restaurant strategy podcast, I've got two guests. Number one, I'm thrilled to welcome back Brian Hassan. He's the co CEO, one of the co founders of Kickfin. You guys know Kickfin. They've been a sponsor of this show for a very, very, very long time. Not because they want to be, I assume they do want to be after all these years, but because I wanted them to be because it's a solution that I very much believe in. I' talking about them. They have done many of my live events together. So I'm thrilled to welcome Brian back. And we also have Lane Cox. She is the CMO of Union. So an operator and a vendor here. We're going to talk about so much over the course of the next little while. But first I want to welcome these guys to the show, give them a chance to introduce themselves. Brian, welcome. Give a quick introduction beyond what I already did, Chip.
[00:04:11] Speaker B: You did, you did all the hard work right there. Yeah. Brian Hassan, co founder, co CEO of Kickfin. We're the largest tip management platform in the United States serving thousands of restaurants and hundreds of thousands of employees in every state. So excited to be here. Excited to be chatting with Lane here from Union as well.
[00:04:30] Speaker A: Yeah. So Lane, same thing. What did I, what did I miss in your bio? I know you have extensive background in the, in the industry, so it's probably a good place to start tell people how you got to where you got to all of that by saying why you're worth listening to.
[00:04:44] Speaker C: Awesome, Chip. Thanks for having me here today. I'm the chief marketing officer here at Union. We're a point of sale company that's built specifically for high volume bars and restaurants. I've had the opportunity to spend, I don't want to age myself but over 20 years in hospitality. I started as a Lunch lady with Aramark and sort of have worked my way through multiple different technology stacks. Seamless Slice ibotta really enabling. How do you, how do you get the right solutions in place to serve your business and your customers and do it better?
So excited to be here specifically with kickfind as well as like we just partnered together to really provide the power of CH voice integration opportunities through our point of sale system. So thanks.
[00:05:25] Speaker A: Awesome. What I wanted to talk about and this sort of came out in the sort of the ramp up discussions ahead of this conversation. We're talking about management, right. And management middle management. Right. The people that stick between the line level employees and the owners in a business. But often they are the glue. I was just talking to a client today.
They know the business better than any owner could, better than any guest could. They're the piece that holds it together. And yet we talk a lot about line level turnover, replacing cooks and dishwashers and servers and all of that. But often the burnout is real in the managers because we put so much upon them, so much weight on them. So talk to me Lane, kick us off here because I think union is built with this in mind. I think I know kickfin is built with this in mind. So talk to me about the integration and how you think about it that specifically this burnout with the managers in this, this middle management team.
[00:06:19] Speaker C: Well, you have to think about your managers are the ones that are really holding everything together. From the deliverable of an upset customer. Right. The staff called out sick. Who's going to actually serve that drink behind the bar today? Does the manager need to step in and do that? Right.
Who's closing all the walk checks at the end of the night to make sure everyone gets a tip added to it and that nothing's left open. Right. And so ultimately that to me is like if your manager's unhappy or if they don't have the right tools to be successful, how are you expecting them to do their job? And that's where the burnout's going to come in. So most specifically union we've really designed to think about who's using our product and how do we make it as easy for them. I highlight the close all walk checks because it's one of our favorite features that we have with the point of sale. But ultimately at the end of the night, let's imagine you have 50 tabs still open. People didn't close their check. Instead of manually going through it, we have one button in union and that's built because we had Managers say I spend two hours at the end of the night doing this. Yeah, awful, right? And so, yeah, giving them the right tools that are built specifically for their business to the problems and the sort of the workflows that they're going to face gives them that you get me operate, you get me owner, you feel me? Thank you for making that feature happen and picking the right partner.
[00:07:39] Speaker A: Yeah. Especially for like busy bars or nightclubs and things like that. It's like such a no brainer. We just got back from Greece and like all of those like poolside bars or like cliffside bars, it's like, I know, I know. 20% of you are just forgetting to pay the bill when you walk, when you walk out of here. The last time I was in Austin, so Brian used to be in Austin. The last time I was in Austin, I went out to like LBJ and we were at some marina and whatever and I forgot to close my tab. I can honestly say it's the first time ever I forgot to close my tab. And that thing was auto closed 25 minutes. Like we weren't even back to the house yet and it auto closed. I was like, good for you, girl. Good for you.
They knew exactly what happened. Brian, anything you would add to what Lane was saying here? When you talk about managers burnout, those, those people who are responsible for overseeing.
[00:08:28] Speaker B: Well, you think about a GM right there. If somebody doesn't show up, the GM's filling in, they're managing more things than you can imagine. They've got to be an expert at being a host. They got to be an expert at being a waiter, waitress, server. They've got to be a bartender.
They've got to be also a therapist through their employees. And at the end of the day they've got to actually take care of closing out to your point. Right. And so this is particularly burdensome because when you're dealing with tips at the end of the night, last thing, people want to get paid, super important. That's why they're in the business. Right. And a lot of managers end up staying far past when other employees leave just to handle these tasks.
This is particularly burdensome in the nightlife space. This is where like Lane & Co. Really operates. So you have a lot of different poses that are kind of generalist points of sale that operate in the restaurant environment. A lot of these restaurants close at 11 and the managers are likely home by midnight or one o' clock with a challenge in the nightlife and bar space. When we're talking high volume is they're closing at 2:230 and now these people, they're not getting home until 4 or 5 in the morning.
So when we can look at a purpose built like venue operating system like union in partnership with a Kickfin, you've got a lot of features and benefits that'll get that manager home earlier.
And I love like the vertical special specialty that union's going after because at the end of the day when we talk about burnout, it's because, you know, I'm working every day, I'm putting 10, 12 hours a day, I'm not getting my sleep, it's taking a toll on my body. Well, what if we actually put together technology and solutions across a large stack that nicely integrate with one another to provide that manager peace of mind.
[00:10:08] Speaker A: So for those listening here, and I think you probably know what Kickfin is and if you don't and it's feasible, it's reasonable, you might not. Brian, give the quick little pitch like who would use Kickfin, when do they use it, why would they use it? Again, I've heard this a million times. I talk about this a million times. But for those who don't know, yeah, absolutely.
[00:10:28] Speaker B: So Kickfin, what we do is we do digital distribution of tips. We don't force employees to use third party issued pay card that's predatory in fees. We put the money directly in the employee's bank account.
Do it one of two ways. We either can actually have the manager log in and just simply type in the amounts they owe the employee. And funny enough, a lot of people do that or if they want to take it to the next level like mutual clients like KPG Hospitality in Austin that uses the union Kickfin integration, we actually directly integrate with union. We run all the tip share calculations, we remit all the payouts to the employees.
And so what that does, going back to what you were just talking about, about the GM, right? What is that doing? It's taking 45 minutes and we're zipping that down to about two minutes, giving them a lot of that time back. Right? And so that's the benefit of the union and Kickfin integration. And the nice thing that that union's done is like power of choice. They've got a ton of different integrations out there. And so now the manager can start looking at hey, how can I optimize my, my closeout through all these different partners and take what is then two hours and hopefully down to maybe 30 minutes or 20 minutes through all their integrations and other partners? But that's Just a little bit about how we integrate with, with union and how that optimizes the experience for both the employees and the GMs.
[00:11:44] Speaker A: And so for those who are listening here, really quickly. Right. So plenty of people collect tips on behalf of the staff and distribute it in paychecks. Certainly one way to do it. I know the majority of restaurants out there are still tallying up the tips and then paying out cash at the end of the night. Right. And so this is one pain point that that Kickfin was really built to fix so that we don't have to keep making bank runs. We don't have the bartender up there like doing cash outs. We don't have the managers checking out all of that and making their, you know, their cash drop at the end more cumbersome. Because it's more math. Right. And now you're talking about, especially with the like a tip share or to pool really is what you're talking about. Is that all that's logged in there? Everybody knows what it is and then it automatically you hit go and it just sends everything where it needs to go. The, the system is doing all the math for you. Right. Did I get any of that wrong there? No.
[00:12:37] Speaker C: That was great.
[00:12:38] Speaker A: Talk to me again. So you're sort of in this high volume. Like that's the niche where I think union targets. Talk to me. Because there are plenty of high volume places. So whether there's bar owners, nightclub owners listening or just super high volume. I talked, listen. I shared. We went deep here. I shared my story. This marina that had probably 350 covers out there, you know, coming on this one day. We were there in April, people coming off the water, and I'm sure I was one of 20 checks that were left open.
Talk to me. Especially when we're talking about restaurants that do high volume, what are some of the mistakes that you feel like they make? I mean, you talked a second ago. And so I don't want to put words in your mouth, but this sort of, you know, there are POS solutions out there that are quote unquote, an all in one or a little bit more generic. But it seems like you guys are specifically positioned to deal with the, the pinch points in the bottlenecks of high volume. So talk to me a little bit about how you think about that and how union then thinks about it.
[00:13:37] Speaker C: Yeah, I'll step you back and say union, we're a point of sale. But Brian used my terms and it makes me happy. We're actually a venue operating system. So we came to Market to say how, what are the, what are the issues with technology and sort of, sort of delivering the end result service that is happening at a bar and restaurant? What are those bottlenecks and how can we build the right technology and the right partner stack to support them? And so that's what Union's trying to do. So it's a venue operating system. Ult ultimately, let's take all of your data and figure out how do we use your data to make you a revenue engine, make you have your busiest night ever. And so when you look at bars and restaurants, where do they have bottlenecks? I want to service more drinks faster, I need to service more customers faster. I need to get the customers out of their seats so I can get another customer in faster. Those are sort of all the things that Union is trying to leverage our technology to do. And so one of the big things that we believe focus is every hospitality is different. You look at just hospitality point of sale in general. How do we service a coffee shop, how do we service a bakery, how do I service a restaurant, the neighborhood restaurant, how do I service the chain restaurant, how do I service the Michelin star fine dining restaurant? Right. And Union said they all need different things. Let's focus on that busy bar operator, right? What do they need? And so that's where we sit squarely in. And we believe each of those bars have also different needs when it comes to do they need a tipping solution, do they need a payroll solution? And so instead of locking yourself into one, like I have this partner, here's what they offer. How do we make sure you have the power of choice so that you're really able to choose the best partners for you? So union integrates with, I feel like it adds every day. I think we're in 25 integrated partners, right, that enable our operators to really pick and choose who they should be working with that's going to be best for their business. And by all means, if you don't want to work with someone, don't be required to pay that extra money. Right? We all know every dollar matters when it comes to hospitality, right? Because the margins. Right. And so it matters. And so being really thoughtful about who do you need to partner with and who are going to be the best. So our team is really set up to help navigate what do you need? Oh, you do need a tipping solution. Let's go talk to Kickfin and see what they can do for you to be able to support this. And so Union truly is, we're just built with the ability to, what are your bottlenecks, what are your pain points? And how do we, how do we solve that for high volume hospitality chip?
[00:15:55] Speaker B: I would love to, I would love to piggyback on what Lane said because I was at TRA a few years ago and we were, I was on talking about how to build a restaurant tech stack and I mean, Lane pretty much nailed it. And here's why. A lot of restaurant operators have this mindset of one single platform. Buy everything from this positive and it obviously it sounds perfect. It's like, hey, one vendor, everything integrates, it's good to go. Here's the problem. Problem is you are going to be beholden to renewal increases and there's nothing you can do about it. But here's the amount of time it took to set up your restaurant tech stack takes a lot of work, right? So to unplug that, you're like beholden to these ratings and you're never going to actually leave. Now taking the approach that I talked about a few years ago and what Lane just said and taking more of a modular approach in that you're like, okay, I have my venue operating system. That is the heartbeat of my business.
Now let's go ahead and look at the marketplace and look at the integration partners and choose the integration that works best for me. And if one of those partners hits me with a big renewal increase, well, guess what, I have other options. I'm not locked in. And so having that flexibility to build a modular tech stack, it is not as difficult or not. It's probably just as easy as buying from the single vendor. But you are. When you're looking at a business that's doing 5% to 20% margins if you're lucky, like when you start looking at credit card processing increases or software pricing increases, but you can't move because you're with this one vendor, you're at a serious disadvantage. And so I just wanted to like piggyback on what Lane said because like when you're a restaurant operating or building your tech stack, you have your heartbeat and you can kind of like use that as the hub and then pick those, those spokes. It's a better long term setup for you as the operator.
[00:17:48] Speaker A: So the thread I wanted to pull at and Lane, you mentioned something which is get understanding what the problems you have. This is how I coach all my clients. It's problems and solutions, systems and goals, right? Understanding where we are, where we want to go, and then putting a plan into place to get ourselves from point A to point B so not solving problems that don't exist. Right. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
We talk about tech stack and tech stack is just earlier on the conversation we talked about tools. When we talk about tools, it used to be other things. Now it's software, right? So that there are tools out there, there's software out there that will help us do what we need to do more efficiently, which means saving dollars more effectively, which means increasing dollars. Right? And so I always like to boil it down to that. I said, listen, when people use like big corporate like startup terms, let's just break it down.
When they say efficiency, that means less doing more with less. When they say effectiveness, that means how do we get better at doing the thing we know we need to do? Because that helps us get in more. So it's sort of about deciphering some of this thing and making sure that we're making sure we're talking about it properly talking about it the right way when we're talking about tech stack. Because it is now inevitable. You need multiple pieces of software, multiple pieces of equipment to be able to do what we do as well as we possibly can.
Layne, talk to me about how people should be evaluating or re evaluating what they're currently using and how they should go about sort of putting the right pieces in place.
[00:19:18] Speaker C: Great question. I think you said it to me. It starts with, what is the experience you're trying to drive in your operation? What are you doing? Right? Okay. And now breaking down, sort of like, okay, in order to deliver that experience, what do I need? I need someone who understands how do I collect payments and how do I get a point of sale, right. Ultimately who does that. Great for what I'm trying to deliver, right? And then it's okay, what else do I need? So you need a labor management, you need a tipping solution and who's doing that, right? For how I want to deliver that experience, right?
Is how I truly think about it. And at the end of the day, what am I willing, what do I really need to have and willing to invest in and what don't I need to have, right? We only have so much money to put towards technology. What's a nice to have and what's need to have, right? And really the other piece that we at union always talk about is what do you need tomorrow?
As hospitality operators, we always forget that the future is happening.
[00:20:19] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:20:19] Speaker C: You're in the four walls of your operation. Great. I could service the string, but what is that going to look like in several Years. And technology continues to evolve us faster and faster and faster. Right. I can remember the days when I was at Seamless Grubhub and operators would say, I don't need online food ordering.
The phone rings by itself. I don't need an online food ordering. Well, those operators got left behind because they weren't thinking about where they needed to go. Right? And so ultimately that's. As you think about your tech stack, start thinking about not only what do you need to deliver today, but where's your guests going? What are they going to expect?
Union, we look at a lot of what is the Gen Z customer need, right? They want speed, they want efficiency, they don't want to open tabs, to be honest, because guess what? They're not bringing their credit cards to bars anymore. They're just carrying their phone.
I get scared about the day that we pay with our eyes or our thumbs, who knows?
[00:21:17] Speaker A: But.
[00:21:19] Speaker C: They want that. They demand that. They're demanding discounts and personalization. They want Chip the bartender to know their name when they come in because they're loyal. Right? So how do you make sure you're collecting all that information about your car customer and being able to use it down the road? What technology and, and hardware are you putting in place to enable those efficient experiences? Right. And so as you think about your tech stack, that's to me, it's like, think about what do you need now? How do you deliver that? Who in the market delivered is going to enable you to deliver that? But then also, where are you going? What. What do you expect, Right? Just last week we had one of our. We always like to say, sort of we help operators have their busiest day every day. So you're getting busier and busier and busier because you can service more customers, you're coming back more frequently.
One of the top bars in the world in the United States, Fergs just had their busiest day ever. Yet again, it happens weekend after weekend with us. But he was ultimately like, now I need more bartenders. You got our volume up so much that I need more bartenders. And it's because they're looking at what does my customer need tomorrow and how do we get there, Right? So ultimately, yeah, you have to think today and tomorrow and you have to really always remember what do you need to deliver to that customer to have them continue to come back.
[00:22:36] Speaker A: It's so much of why I created the show or why I felt like the show needed because I'm always talking about the future, I'm always talking about trends I'm always talking about, I talk to my clients about this but like we don't have to look very far. You just look at where certain industries are going. Certain, I mean, you know, entire industries. I gave a whole talk at bar and restaurant expo a couple years ago, four years ago and it was all about like technology and how it's upended all these different industries. I was like look at tv, look at movies, look at books, look at music, look at travel. Look at like we used to go to travel agents. Like what? Like look at how you book hotels now. Look at how loyalty has moved. Look at E commerce. Like malls are dead.
So it's only a matter of time before it comes for us. I actually, I actually do not believe we have even scratched the surface for how technology will upend and evolve the hospitality industry. Like I think it will be profoundly different in five years and four years ago I said, I gave a, I gave a 10 year mark and I even said, I said wait till you see.
We're going to change so much in the 18 months after the pandemic and 10 years from now we're going to be unrecognizable. If you think you have a lot of technology now, you ain't seen nothing yet. Because I know all the tools that hotels and airlines are using, E commerce is using that we have not even brought ourself, brought ourselves to do. Brian, when you think about tech stack, talk to me about the kickfin integration and how you end up talking to operators and how you guys think about that and how that layers in for the need to have nice to have. As, as Lane said.
[00:24:07] Speaker B: Yeah, you know, when you think about it, most hospitality and restaurant outlets are, they're doing probably about 90, 95% in credit card sales, 5, 10% in cash sales.
But we all think what do we tip? We're tip in 15, 18, 20, 22%. So we're actually tipping more than inbound cash from sales. So what happens is these restaurants or these bars have to get cash delivered or their GMs are running to the bank to fill up a safe and that becomes a security issue when you're doing the distribution at the end of the night a security or theft issue when you have multiple people with the passcode to the safe and there's also miscounting cash, there's a lot, a lot of issues.
So when you think about like before.
[00:24:49] Speaker A: Kickback real quick, Brian, so at the end of a 14 hour shift on like a roughly a 70 hour week, you're Saying that when people are counting multiple fives and tens and ones that some people might make a mistake. I just want to make sure, I'm just not to put too fine a point on it, but you're saying this kind of thing happens.
[00:25:07] Speaker B: You know what, it's a shocker, Chip. It's a shocker. It happens.
[00:25:11] Speaker A: Okay, continue. Now we know that people can't count money straight at 2 in the morning. Go on.
[00:25:16] Speaker B: I mean I can't even count money straight like right now. So at 2 in the morning you don't want me being a GM. But no, in a nutshell, like you think about like before kick Fan, it's like they were filling their safe up with cash, going to the back room, using a spreadsheet, calculating the tip share, building the envelopes, passing the envelopes off. What if the envelopes were short? And I gotta reconcile the safe. Now we're talking about, I mean remember back in the day when you had like balanced checkbook? Yeah, I mean that we're talking, I'm the dating myself. That's like back in the day. They're doing that today. Now we're like, we don't do that. It's all like automated. So that's really what Kickfin does is we plug in the unions VOs, we calculate the tip share. So eliminate the spreadsheet. They don't have to bring excess cash on hand anymore. They don't have to run to the bank, they don't have to get cash delivered and the money is paid out instantly, instantly to the employees. So think about this from the employees experience, especially at high volume nightlife, nightclubs and bars that union services, when they're going, going home at 2:30 and 3 in the morning, it's dark, it's dangerous.
So if we're able to actually pay the employees, put the money directly into their bank account in real time, not a third party pay card in their own bank account. When they leave to go home that night, they don't have hundreds of dollars of cash in their pocket. They don't have to go the next day to make that deposit. And so it's a great, it's great from an employee experience perspective as it is from saving managers time.
And so it's been remarkably successful. I think our average is, I think when we pull our user base, they say before Kickfin it took us between 45 minutes into an hour just to do this whole task.
Now it's about 30 seconds to two minutes tops because it's fully automated.
And so it's a super powerful connection.
Employees love it. GMs love it. And so we're really happy about the impact that we've been able to deliver to Union's customer base thus far in the partnership.
[00:27:14] Speaker A: I love it. I love it. Lane, what have I not thought to ask? When we're talking about this tech stack and we're talking about how to find efficiencies and greater effectiveness in all this right now, 20, 25, second half of the year, what should we be talking about now? What should we be looking at now?
[00:27:33] Speaker C: I think we need to look at the guest, the Gen Z customer, who is very different than the three of us on this call right now.
And how are they behaving? What have they grown up with and what do they need? Right? You think about the employees at these bars, they don't want to go home with cash in their pocket. They want it put into their bank account so they have it. Right. Standard bartender's tips are the majority of their income. And so to know when to have that. And that's what Kickfin enables us to offer to our customers. Right?
But we need to think about where it's all going and making sure. I'm a big believer that how are you collecting your data today so that you can use it tomorrow? And that's what Union is enabling our operators to collect the data in the right way, not only the data of the customer. We have a cool or cool, like a very robust customer database that is identified by the phone number. Because guess what? In this day and age, we all have multiple credit cards. You can't tie to a credit card. We also have multiple emails. Guess what's unique?
Most unique identifier for us these days is our phone number. So we use that to collect the customer. So now when you come into that venue and let's say you order a vodka soda every time you come in, that can be held at your insight record, right? For the server to know, do you like your vodka soda? And guess what? Don't give her a lime, give her a lemon, because that's what she really likes so that you can give that great experience.
So regardless, I think every operator out there needs to be thinking about how am I collecting the right data to be able to use that in my operation to drive the business forward. And what are. What is this customer? What do they need? Right? Oh wait, they're all doing tap to pay. Can your cost. Can your point of sale handle Tap to Pay? Oh, wait, if they're doing tap to pay now, what are they going to be doing tomorrow.
They actually don't really want to open a tab with you. Let them open a tab with you easily themselves on their own phone. And that's what Union really like. We're about next gen experiences.
So one of our big things, we call it guest led ordering. But anyone can go into a bar that's operated by Union and open a tab by tapping an NFC or scanning a QR code that opens the tab on their own phone. When you do that, you're now signaling to the bar. I'm here. VIP Lane, who likes our vodka sodas with a lemon and not a lime. Right. Is ultimately here. And then I can order my drink if I want. And during that experience I can also use the data to understand what does the bar have availability on their like in the back bar, what is the products they have available?
Is Union partnered with any better alcohol brands right now that are offering sort of programs with us, then I can ultimately see a reward and get a discount or an offer incentive to try a specific product. I get a discount, the operator gets full price for that drink. Right. And ultimately that gets me excited. We all know when you get a discount, you spend, spend more money. Guess what? Gen Z's really like discounts. They like personalized recommendations. That's what they're looking for. Their whole life has been and Amazon carts and doordash carts that ultimately say you should be trying this right now and if you liked this, you should like this. Right? They're used to that experience. And so ultimately Union enables all of that and allows it to happen so that you're able to fuel it in the most efficient way to your business.
[00:30:40] Speaker A: I love it. It reminds me there's a professor at Wharton, his name is Peter Feder and he talks a lot about, he wrote a book called Customer Centricity and he talks about this and he wrote this, I don't know, 15 years ago, 12 years ago, something like that. And it's just, just becoming so true the further and further we go along. Brian, what were you gonna say?
[00:30:57] Speaker B: Oh, above. Yeah, it was interesting. I don't fit Lane. I don't fit into the Gen Z, as you can clearly see by the gray in my beard, depending on how great your HD camera is.
But my first experience with Union was actually as a Bolden Acres in Austin. And I sat down and I'm like, all right, I'll give this a shot. I'm like, you know, used to go into the bar and opening up the tab and doing that whole, you know, the traditional approaches. I'm give this a shot. Let me tell you from a customer experience perspective. It was so easy. The drinks came out so quickly.
I ended up spending more money with Bolden Acres than I usually. I might have had a few extra drinks that I would, than I normally would have spent because it was just so simple, it was so seamless, it was quick, it was easy.
And so just kind of speaking about it from like a customer experience standpoint, it's a lot of people are pressed with I got to do a lot more you were talking about at the beginning, chip efficiency, to do a lot more with the same or less resources.
So if you can provide technology that provides that operational efficiency but doesn't take away, but enhances the customer experience and puts more revenue top line, that's a great piece of tech. And so, you know, it was just a great experience that I had the first time it was a few years back.
And so you can definitely see, you know, people are very adverse initially to like QR codes and yeah, QR code, the QR code. But if you actually delivered a full end to end customer experience outside of just like scanning a QR code just to show a menu, but like engaging, building loyalty, providing those discounts, increasing spend, now that's a, that's a game winning piece of technology.
[00:32:40] Speaker A: You know, a friend of mine is, my friend of mine is a member of a country club nearby and last year they enabled QR codes all over the property and they rolled out a new app for the members. So there's, I don't know, 500 members of this country club. And they said, you know, famously in country clubs, F and B departments do not make money. It's an amenity. It loses money every single year. That's what they want. They want big drinks, giant portions.
But just by doing this, they increase their revenue by over 28%. And the guy told me, cause he knows them in restaurants, he's like, dude, you'll love this. He's like, they put them everywhere. No matter where you are in property, you just scan the nearest thing and you order a drink. You could do it on the course. And on the course they track you with gps so you could place an order and they'll literally ride out a crate of drinks to you. He's like, now I order, you know, four rounds of drinks during my, you know, four hour round. And he's like, we're just, and we're all doing was so crazy. So. And here's a bunch of boomers, bunch of boomers in Gen X that are like, doing this thing. Lane, what were you gonna add?
[00:33:40] Speaker C: I think as we talk to your audience here and the operators, don't be fearful of change, because I think if we look back at all of us, like, like 10 years ago, where was the hospitality industry and what was going on? Those who embrace the change and like, experimented with it, tried to figure out how, how to leverage it, right? Maybe worked with their partners on how do we make this better. They saw success from it, right? If you're resistant to change and you sit back and you're just like, I'm just gonna wait, I don't believe in that. You're not gonna reap the early benefits of it. Look at AI right now. Oh my God. I tell my team all the time, I was like, I don't know, ask, figure out, figure out how to use it. There's gotta be an AI tool that supports this. We won't learn AI and how we can use it for our businesses unless we try. Right? And so I think hospitality, where it's notorious for not wanting to change, but there's so many operators who have seen so much success because they embrace change. They embrace, oh, wait, I need to do something with loyalty now. How do I do this? Let's figure this out, right? And so, so I would push that. It's your tech stack needs to deliver what you want. But don't be fearful. If they're doing something different.
I would be doing a disservice not to say my CEO Alex Broger's favorite line, and he's like, you think about hospitality. We're putting literally roadblocks in the way for a customer to get an order. Oh, I actually need to bring you your water first and then I'll come over and get your drink order. Okay, now I need to take your drink order order. And now I need to go back and put it into the point of sale. Then I need to make your drink like, oh, you want to leave because you want to go to the next bar. Oh, wait, let me go get you a piece of paper and a pen to sign. Right? Like, we put roadblocks in, yet we all learn digital marketing. One click button, let them order quickly and they're going to order quickly, come back more often and spend more money.
[00:35:30] Speaker A: Right?
[00:35:31] Speaker C: And so that's your. So like, let's not be fearful of doing something different when there's value and ultimately adopting change. And Gen Z just, we all know that they're very different than us and they want things fast, easy, Quick, right. With a discount, personalized. So let's, let's work together to figure out how do we continue to solve and elevate an experience that delivers to them.
[00:35:53] Speaker A: You know, we live outside of New York City and they just put all the digital turnstiles in, right? So you can use your phone tap to pay and all of that. People say, oh, it's so fancy. Why are they spending all this money here? They know exactly why they're putting that in.
They're going to be able to sell all that data to know where people start, where they end, where they go over the course of the day, the night, the week, the month, that can tell them where to do improvements for sure. But they're also going to sell that data to brokers and landlords and say, you know, there's people who live here and work there and then they dine out.
We can watch where they started, where they went to work, where they went to dinner and then where they went home.
And ultimately you sell that to businesses and say, well, if you did something closer, it's like it was genius the way it was presented to me, simply because with a swipe of a Metro card, you can't track it as specifically as you can with a phone with a device. And, you know, all that. You get that personalization. Again, speaking of that Gen Z and what they're used to, what's going to ultimately help us, you know, help New York City, but New York City businesses serve the people, the residents better. It's cool.
[00:37:00] Speaker C: You make the operator on the call go, oh, no, they're taking my data and they're going to use it against me.
[00:37:05] Speaker A: Right?
[00:37:06] Speaker C: And it's going to be used no matter what. Right. And ultimately use it to help your business shine. Right. And that's why I'm a big believer we're not a point of sale or a venue operating system because we want to help your overall venue get better and have the busiest night, night after night after night after night. And we're, we're processor agnostic, so we can work with any processor. I'm not making money on that side of it. And truly, it's like, if I can make your customers stay longer and order more drinks, I'm going to win. Right? And that means you won. Right. And so together, that's what we're trying to do. But it's like, don't be fearful of technology, don't be fearful of change, and really think about, like, how do you, how do you go to where the world's Going and benefit for yourself.
[00:37:45] Speaker A: I think it's been a great conversation. Brian, last words of wisdom before I kick you out of here.
[00:37:49] Speaker B: Yeah, last thing to say, we're talking a lot about technology here, but and on a note, talking about support here. I think support is very important outside of just tech because at the end of the day, if your POS or your VOS goes down at like 2am or you can't pay tips out or, you know, something breaks, you need to have the ability to pick up the phone.
I think support is critical when evaluating technology.
At KickFun, for example, we're, you know, 24, 7, 365. And so we do that by whether it's by text, by phone, by email, by support, case, by chatbot, and a myriad of other ways you can get in touch with kickfin. You can always get in touch with us and we will troubleshoot any challenge that you have and whether it's scheduling, POs, VOs, whether it's your back office accounting, just as you evaluate. Because I know we're talking a lot about technology, let's not forget about how the restaurant or how the venue can be supported when things go right. That's. That's mission critical here. I know we didn't talk about it, but those would be my, kind of my closing thoughts around this whole. How do you build your tech stack?
[00:39:00] Speaker A: Love it. Lane, last words of wisdom from you.
[00:39:02] Speaker C: I can't believe we forgot support. That's. That's a great one. Union's the same. I'm a big believer. You can't deliver great hospitality if you're not getting great hospitality in return from your partner. So it's a big core belief of union and clearly all the partners that we bring in to work with that are experts in their own space. I think my big closing mark is have fun. Hospitality is about delivering great service. And just remember that you want people to leave with a smile on their face and with benefit and value. And at the end of the day, that's all we're trying to do, is how do we deliver great service every time so that people even want to come back and say, that was a great experience.
[00:39:36] Speaker A: Yeah, I love it. Lane, where can people go to learn more about union and all the things you guys do?
[00:39:41] Speaker C: Our website is getunion.com Please visit and check us out. You can Follow us on LinkedIn as well as on Instagram to see all the great things that we're doing.
[00:39:51] Speaker A: Yeah, Brian, same thing. Where can people go to learn more about Kickfin?
[00:39:54] Speaker B: Yeah. Kickfin.com and if you're interested in learning more, you can call us, text us, chat us, email us. The choice is yours.
[00:40:02] Speaker A: Yeah. Love it. Guys, I appreciate you taking the time out of your day to be here and talk through this stuff. I think it's really important conversation as tech stacks not going anywhere. Managers aren't going anywhere. Restaurants, luckily, are not going anywhere. Appreciate you guys. Guys, thank you very much.
[00:40:16] Speaker C: Thanks.
[00:40:16] Speaker B: Thanks, Chip.
[00:40:18] Speaker A: Again, a big thank you to each and every one of you for tuning in every single week, for making this part of your week. I know there's a lot of great shows out there you could listen to. I appreciate you making me making this show part of your week. One quick but important favor, if you get any sort of value from this show, please go to Apple Podcast, leave us a five star rating and review. Don't lie. Simply help let people know what you get out of the show, why you tune in every single week. Really? You're just letting them know why you think they should tune into the show. That more than just about anything else would help. This my small business. Again, appreciate you guys being here and I will see you next time.
Sam, it.
