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Hooters: Creating a Culture of Empowered Employees and Elevating the Customer Experience

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Hooters, founded in Clearwater, FL, in 1983, is now one of the largest employers of women in the service industry. With 198 corporate stores and approximately 370 stores in total, including domestic and international franchisees, and a footprint encompassing 42 U.S. states and 29 countries, the brand is celebrating 40 years of delivering memorable guest experiences. 

The I AM initiative recognizes the women who have “worn the orange shorts” — the Hooters Girls — and empowers employees through educational initiatives and tuition reimbursement. The brand boasts a 70% female demographic within the organization and supports employees as they develop the competencies and skills to build successful careers. 

Mark Johnson, CEO of Loyalty360, spoke with Cheryl Kish, Chief People Officer at Hooters, about collecting valuable employee feedback to drive successful training programs, the I AM initiative, and the brand’s HootClub Rewards program.

Read the full interview on Loyalty360 here: https://loyalty360.org/content-gallery/in-depth-exclusives/hooters-creating-a-culture-of-empowered-employees-and-elevating-the-customer-experience

Mark Johnson:

Good afternoon, good morning. This is Mark Johnson from Loyalty 360. Hope everyone's happy, safe and well. Want to welcome you to another edition of our Leaders in Customer Loyalty series. In this series we speak with brand leaders about what they are seeing and hearing on the front lines of the customer channel and brand loyalty. Today we have the pleasure of speaking with Cheryl Kish. She's the Chief People Officer at Hooters of America. How are you today?

Cheryl Kish:

I'm doing awesome, Mark. Thanks for having me on.

Mark Johnson:

Absolutely. Thank you very much for taking the time. First off, can you tell us a little bit more about yourself and your role with Hooters?

Cheryl Kish:

Yeah, so I am a Hooters veteran. I go back to the early days with the brand, back actually to the late 80s, started out in operations, actually wore the orange shorts as a Hooters girl for a short time. I was an operations manager, training general manager and then eventually came to corporate in the early 90s, focused on all things, training and development, and then was promoted, took on HR and I was the first female vice president ever promoted within the brand and that was in the mid 90s and I oversaw all of human resources, training and development, talent management, that sort of thing. I've been the company's spokesperson on and off and you know I have done a lot of consulting in the years that followed with the brand the Hooters Casino Hotel and many other projects and then landed back here in late 2019. And I'm the first chief people officer for the brand.

Mark Johnson:

That's great. It's always good to have a chief people officer, and I know you are in the process of celebrating the brand's 40th anniversary. You're focusing on almost a half million women who have donned the orange shorts over the past 40 years. You know, as you know, the Hooters largest internal demographic being female. In what way has the female perspective shaped your strategy, especially with regard to the customer experience and cultivating customer loyalty?

Cheryl Kish:

Yes, we are one of the largest employers of women in the service industry. You know we have 198 corporate stores. Right now, approximately 370 stores total, including domestic and international franchisee. And so, as a female based brand with 70% female demographic within the brand, the first thing we think about is the experiences that we're creating, Mark for the internal customer, the Hooters girl, and, of course, our heart of house, our kitchen, our managers but 70% of the folks are female and so what experiences are we creating for her that's going to drive her belief system right to show up in a way that's going to drive the external customer's belief system that Hooters is the place to go right to create loyalty. So you create internal loyalty and then that's going to pass on and create external loyalty. So we've been celebrating and elevating and empowering and really focusing on the Hooters girl and who she is and how she shows up and what she experiences.

Mark Johnson:

Okay, the I am initiative at Hooters is focusing on empowering the current Hooters employees through educational initiatives and tuition reimbursement, also trying to nurture, while nurturing, employees to identify the companies and skills they have that may be needed, that are needed to go to the next level. You know, in what ways does employee satisfaction play into your overall customer satisfaction and loyalty strategy?

Cheryl Kish:

Yeah. So we're founded in our serve values, and that starts with our internal customer right, our team members and so show you care, elevate the spirit, value feedback, respect everyone, those sort of things. And so we, one of them, value feedback. We are constantly asking our team members are Hooters, girls what it is that they need, what is it that they want from us? And then they tell us what that is, and so that then results in programs that impact the external guest. Whether that's, you know, a new MIT training program or that's a new heart of house kitchen training program, we receive feedback. Hey, let's do a menu contest, let's engage the cooks. We did that. We ended up offering LTOs. One of those ends up being on the permanent menu. So you know, I'm a, I'm a believer they go hand in hand. The internal drives the external.

Mark Johnson:

Excellent, and can you provide an example of a new initiative or change made because of employee engagement or employee feedback that has ultimately enhanced the customer experience?

Cheryl Kish:

Yeah, so I'm going to go. I mentioned the MIT training program. So feedback from the field when we asked in 2021 was hey, we really need to focus on the new manager coming in. We included those team members. We included operations, as we do with everything we do. We engage them in steering committees. They help to create and drive the programs. We now have a net promoter score in that program, an internal net promoter score of you know well, over 82, 83%, which is world class. We've also driven the turnover of that population down.

Cheryl Kish:

Well, you know as well as anyone, if you're retaining and engaging your managers who are inside the four walls, driving the experience inside the four walls, then that's translating to the guest experience. And then the other thing we did which is interesting for this industry is typically, if you start as a new manager in the restaurant industry, you're going to start in the kitchen. We flipped that around. We said nope, you're going to come to work for Hooters, you're going to start in the front of the house, where the magic happens. And so it's all guest centric, guest focused. What is the Hooters girl? You know, experience like what's happening in the front of the house. That comes first with our program.

Mark Johnson:

Excellent During the recent pandemic many organizations focused on take out curbside, pickup, that online, pick up in store, delivering, dine in when available. So Hooters did a great deal to kind of transform to address the behaviors, the interest at the time. So the restaurant's employees and the training was focused on that. Now the customers have returned to dining inside the four walls. How has the employee training maybe shifted back to optimize that in store dining experience?

Cheryl Kish:

Yeah, a couple of ways. So I've mentioned a couple of programs, the I am initiative that acronym stands for image, attitude and memorable, and so we talk about celebrating and empowering the Hooters girl. Well, her image yes, there's a certain image. Her attitude, she chooses, she defines her attitude as long as it's within. You know the Hooters way and the Hooters brand, and then how she makes memory, you know memorable experiences for the guests. She's empowered to do that and so it's really, really unique, and so our training with the Hooters girl is all focused around her individuality. She's bringing herself to the table, it's not scripted, so there's a huge focus on that. We call it the Hooters way, we call it I am, and it all links to really about empowerment and showing up in a way that's memorable for the guests.

Mark Johnson:

Excellent. Now, have there been any challenges in training these employees who might not have as much experience with dining customers? You do this transition. You know how do you overcome some of the challenges on an enterprise scale, especially with the restaurants maybe having less in front of house employees now that they may have had before COVID.

Cheryl Kish:

Yeah, you know, we're a legacy brand 40 years and one of the things we've always said you do not have to have any experience to be a Hooters girl, you just have to bring right that image and that attitude and that engagement. So it's not really a challenge for us, because we've always been an organization that looks for that talent in that way, that unique talent, and then allows her to grow. But one of the things I think is real interesting the career development piece too. So you know all these women coming in and working. We have over 40% women that are actually operating our restaurants. We also leverage technology, and so it was in 2021, we totally changed out our tech platform, our LMS platform. We've digitized all of our training. There's no paper anymore. At a click of a button, If something's changed, whether it's a menu item or a procedure or whatever a video we want to push out, it's all in real time. So it's way more robust, it's way more engaging.

Cheryl Kish:

We are purposely focusing on how the demographic and the learner of today wants to learn and needs to learn. We've put everything in Power BI. We've got dashboards for all of that. We incentivize training. So I'm really, really proud of what we're currently doing there and we're getting ready next to actually bring in a Hooters Girls Steering Committee that's going to help us with I'm going to call Hooters Girls 4.0, right Just to go with the 40th anniversary theme where these Hooters Girls of today are going to help us define the Hooters Girls of tomorrow and what that means when it comes to customer service and creating loyalty and experience in the restaurant.

Mark Johnson:

Okay, excellent. When you look at personalization, it's critical in maintaining customer loyalty. It's a top of mind topic for members of Loyalty 360 and into all the brands that we talk about or talk to, should I say. You know how is Hooters leveraging their customer data to capitalize on personalization in your brands? You know branding and customer loyalty efforts.

Cheryl Kish:

So we're doing a better and better job of that.

Cheryl Kish:

This is fairly new for us.

Cheryl Kish:

I think we shared with you earlier on that we've enhanced the resources that we're bringing in to totally focus on loyalty.

Cheryl Kish:

We know that brands I don't have to tell you this, you're an expert in it need to use data to better engage with their customers and enhance personalization. You know these loyalty programs, our loyalty programs, help to drive customer retention, generate revenue, brand growth, and so we get to collect that critical demographic information name, age, email addresses and then their preferences. That's going to help drive it will want to help us understand our customer base right, and then we're going to be able to segment the audience and create these personalized marketing campaigns. You know whether that's and for experiences that they may not be able to get anywhere else. So whether that's hey, they want to, they love coming in and watching, the UFC events that we have going on, or it's family related events, or we have a promotion going on in the restaurant World Series fans, those sort of things. So that's how we're leveraging that data and, of course, we continue to focus on that and level up in our ability to do that.

Mark Johnson:

Okay, and when you look at personalization and being able to do it at scale, how does that align with the evolving customer expectations that you have?

Cheryl Kish:

Well, I think that guests expect you know we all of us, right we're all loyal customers somewhere of different brands. And you know we expect our rewards program to be personal and tailored to our needs. And that's and the Hooters customers are no different we want them to be rewarded not only for the dollar amount that they spend with us, but the loyalty to our brand. And we, my goodness, we have such loyalty to the Hooters brand and such brand recognition, and so we're. You know it's important, it's personalized so that it can be exclusive to their needs. And then we also want our guests to feel like they're a part of something bigger than themselves. Hooters really is a lifestyle brand. When you think about the NIL or the partnerships that we have, whether that's with NASCAR or golf or whatever it is different colleges, or it's our virtual brands or whatever that is, you know they feel a part of something bigger than themselves and we've got a tailor to that. So we do appeal to a broad base.

Mark Johnson:

Okay, great. Can you provide us a brief overview of your loyalty program? Hoot Club rewards? You know how does the program work, how do members engage with it and what are the benefits for being a member.

Cheryl Kish:

Yeah. So right now, our loyalty program is visit based. We encourage frequency and getting our guests, of course, to make return visit, whether that's a dine in or you know, it's you know first party, meaning they're ordering through our app or online and they're coming and picking it up. We have four tiers that guests work their way up through, and then there's rewards given along the way for every eighth visit. Everything can be tracked in our app or when you log into the account online. Some of the perks might be get a free appetizer or just for signing up, or 10 free wings on your birthday. But what the team is really working hard on right now is to leverage the data, as we talk about earlier, and the key events that our restaurants offer, and then we can send out those exclusive offers and rewards to our loyalty guests.

Mark Johnson:

Excellent when you look at other programs regarding customer loyalty are there some programs out? There that you are loyal to, that you admire from a customer loyalty perspective, and what do you like about their offerings and are there elements from those programs that you would like to leverage for or apply to Hoot Club?

Cheryl Kish:

Well, I mean one that comes to mind is Marriott Bonvoy. As a matter of fact, I'm booking a trip to New York soon and I'm looking at my Marriott Bonvoy and so for me personally, it would be that I think with Marriott, it's that they're driving maybe trips or visits that you wouldn't necessarily make, but you're going to make it now because if I go on these certain nights or whatever, I'm going to get a thousand extra points or whatever it is. Sephora does a great job. You're racking up those dollars at Sephora and, of course, you know we all talk about Starbucks and you know we're not going to, we're not going to do anything without making sure that we're using our app and our loyalty program. But Starbucks, I think about my mom and she's a Kohl's shopper and there's constant information coming in and rewards, whether it's Kohl's or Macy's. So those are a few that come to mind.

Mark Johnson:

Excellent. And when you look at your team, how can Loyalty 360 help you and your team and your customer experience? Customer loyalty efforts.

Cheryl Kish:

Yeah, I mean loyalty is evolving at such a fast pace. I mean I think Loyalty 360 is a great association that can provide valuable resources, networking opportunities, best practices I mean keeping us up to date with industry trends, what's coming next, storytelling, whatever can be shared in those best practices so that we can remain competitive and in the know and on top of things, because it is moving so fast.

Mark Johnson:

Excellent. Well, thank you for that feedback. Sure, very helpful. Now we have our fun lightning round quick fire question segments. We like to have one word or short phrase answers, so we'll go ahead and kick this off. And what's your favorite word?

Cheryl Kish:

Alignment.

Mark Johnson:

Excellent. What is your least favorite word?

Cheryl Kish:

How about a phrase? We've tried that already. That is my least favorite.

Mark Johnson:

Excellent. What excites you?

Cheryl Kish:

Seeing the light in young team members eyes and creating beliefs in them, and empowering you know, our team members, so that they can grow and become whomever they want to be.

Mark Johnson:

Okay, what do you find tiresome Negativity? What is your favorite restaurant other than Hooters?

Cheryl Kish:

Gosh. Atlanta has so much to offer, right, we just became, you know, michelin five star. I'm going to put it out there. This Persian restaurant, rumi, right now, is one that's on my radar.

Mark Johnson:

Okay, what profession, other than the one you're currently in, would you like to attempt?

Cheryl Kish:

If I was a younger woman I'd attempt broadcasting news, anchor, telling, storytelling, that sort of thing.

Mark Johnson:

Okay, and what profession would you avoid?

Cheryl Kish:

Oh goodness, anything that has me siloed, with no team interaction or collaboration.

Mark Johnson:

Okay, who inspired you to be the person that you are today?

Cheryl Kish:

I've had a couple of great executive coaches and mentors in my career who really brought out of me the belief in the value that I can bring, and I'm thankful to them for that.

Mark Johnson:

And what do you typically think about at the end of the day?

Cheryl Kish:

Have I made a difference?

Mark Johnson:

Excellent, and how do you want to be remembered by your friends and family?

Cheryl Kish:

I want to be remembered as encouraging, as somebody who empowered others, in particular in making women's lives better and really again celebrating and elevating and educating and empowering the women that I come in contact with.

Mark Johnson:

Excellent. Well, Cheryl, thank you very much for taking the time to speak up to say it was great to know a little bit more about you and also a good to hear more about the Hoot Club program. Sounds like you have an amazing, robust program and looking forward to hearing more about it in the upcoming years. So thank you very much for taking the time to share that all with us today.

Cheryl Kish:

Yeah, no, thank you for having us.

Mark Johnson:

Thank you everyone for taking the time to listen. Make sure you join us back for another edition of Leaders in Customer Loyalty series soon. Until then, have a wonderful day.