As you likely know, Vert is a full-stack, award-winning, digital marketing agency that partners with Fortune 1000 brands. We use strategic thinking to bring to life their paid media, website development, email CRM, and more. For all of these technologies and services, our approach has made it standard to inject first-party data into every step of the process. In particular, Vert focuses on owned data from our client’s customers and audiences. This equips and enables our teams to make strategic decisions that drive meaningful results in our campaigns.
With many of our clients being in the restaurant and hospitality industry, we are always evaluating top-notch technology partners to help us understand the customers who dine at our clients’ restaurants. Naturally, this led us to connect with Mike Vichich, founder and CEO of Wisely, and his amazing team back in 2019. Wisely has since been acquired by Olo, and Mike continues to lead the Customer Engagement and Front-of-House product team there as the Vice President and General Manager. From there, Vert continued to collaborate with one of the most helpful, strategic, and effective software teams in the business. Enter Jessi DeNaut, Mark Dusing, and Tyler Felous.
Jessi, Mark, and Tyler work on the Customer Engagement & Front-of-House team at Olo. There, Jessi is the Associate Director of Customer Success, Mark is the Associate Product Manager, and Tyler, who was also one of the co-founders of Wisely, now works as the Vice President of Products. With the combination of Olo’s technology and solution, this team is truly best-in-class, and Vert is extremely lucky to collaborate with such a close partner.
When Vert first approached this team in the middle of 2020, our team’s goals with Olo were much different. But over time, Vert and Olo were able to work together to make sure that First Watch guests had an elevated customer experience like never before. The key to this new level of personalization? Collecting, analyzing, and acting on data.
When considering what customer interaction data consists of, Mark said there are a lot of variables to think about. “We collect data from dozens of sources to create a unified view of each guest—and pipe that data to the end platforms that power a restaurant brand’s business decisions and campaigns like those Vert executes for its clients,” said Mark.
This data incorporates various interactions that can help restaurants better understand their customers. By taking information from real customer interactions, the team was able to create personalized outreach strategies. Mark said, “Restaurant brands can engage their guests and optimize their business in ways that [can] maximize [a restaurant’s] Customer Lifetime Value.” In short – it’s about moving past your latest menu, product or Limited Time Offers and shifting your focus to the types of customers and occasions that drive your brand.
By working with Jessi and Mark, Vert was also able to drastically improve First Watch’s customer experience in numerous ways. “Our goals are really about improving the guest experience — whether that’s simply reducing time spent waiting in line, or making the guest feel appreciated as a valued part of the First Watch family,” said Justin, CRM Director at Vert.
By using this client-individualized data, Vert came up with solutions to radically improve First Watch’s customer experience. “In particular, we’ve created an automated workflow to increase frequency based on the guests’ last order. This simple workflow has led to significant increases in orders from guests who receive the campaigns.,” said Justin. Additionally, the real-time customer cohorts and segments unlocked truly personalized and relevant media targeting, CRM, and creative messaging solutions with the unified goal of increasing Customer Lifetime Value.
In the past, this information wasn’t always readily available for restaurants to analyze. “Historically, fragmented technology has made it challenging for restaurants to leverage the information they have about their customers to better serve them,” said Jessi. “We’ve set out to offer restaurants one platform to understand and serve their guests—and a big part of that is helping restaurants personalize every guest interaction with the goal of increasing Customer Lifetime Value, or CLV.” With Olo working to extract deep guest-level insights for hospitality businesses of all types, the possibilities of solutions that Vert can strategize are endless.
Combining Olo’s technology and Vert’s ability to strategize campaign solutions has allowed both teams to work seamlessly to deliver impactful campaigns that have helped First Watch relatively double its footprint over the last three years. “That’s where Vert’s brilliance comes in; their strategy is unparalleled. The technology we build enables Vert to execute on the client’s vision and achieve the desired outcome,” said Mark.
As Vert continues to work with Olo, we’re constantly discovering new ways to improve First Watch’s customer experience and expand the Customer Lifetime Value equation. We couldn’t have done this without the true experts on team Olo, and we can’t wait to keep killin’ the restaurant marketing game with Jessi, Mark, and Tyler for years to come!
