#493: Leaders in Customer Loyalty: Brand Stories | Wings and Rings: Loyalty is Everything

Families searching for a relaxed, local restaurant to enjoy good food at a reasonable price, and avid sports fans looking for a place to munch on chicken wings while catching the latest game might find Wings and Rings perfectly meets their needs. Established in 1984 in Cincinnati, Ohio, the 41-year-old sports franchisee concept now has 85 locations, 60 within the U.S. and 25 internationally. Known originally as Buffalo Wings and Rings, the company has updated its look, its name, and its menu, but its dedication and commitment to the local communities it services remains strong. 

In this edition of Leaders in Customer Loyalty: Brand Stories, Loyalty360 spoke with Dan Sweatt, Senior Marketing Manager for Wings and Rings, about how the company’s franchisees are growing their loyalty business by connecting with their customers and community.  

Chapters

• 0:00 Local Roots Set The Stage
• 0:39 Competing Through Community Integration
• 1:06 Customizing The Brand To Cincinnati
• 1:06 Note: Duplicate Avoided
• 1:06 Removed

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:02

It's Thursday, so welcome back to our Leaders in Customer Loyalty series. This is the Brand Stories Edition. It's great to have you with us every Thursday. A local wings restaurant is attempting to disrupt the Cincinnati restaurant market by challenging the larger competitors through a deep integration within our community. Rather than relying solely on scale or national appeal, the brands focus on its local roots, emphasizing how important it is to understand what resonates with Cincinnati specifically. What's relevant to this city may differ greatly from what matters in other markets. By aligning with local sports teams, tapping into community passion points, and creating and embracing the uniqueness of the Cincinnati market, the restaurant creates a tailored experience that stands out. This approach allows the brand to customize its locations, store footprints, and overall presence to reflect the character of the city, differentiating not only the wings, but also the entire brand experience. In this episode, we'll hear from Dan Sweat. He's a senior marketing manager at Wings and Rings. Dan, how are you today? Thank you very much for taking the time to join us. I'm doing really well, Mark. Thanks for having me. Great to have you. First off, for those who may not be familiar, and there are probably going to be a few people, can you tell us a little bit more about Wings and Rings? Guys, what you guys do, how you do it? It'd be good to know.

SPEAKER_00: 1:29

Yeah. So Wings and Rings is a sports bar uh franchise concept. Uh was started uh 41 years ago uh in Cincinnati, Ohio. Um has grown exponentially uh over the years. Uh focus on providing what we like to think of as like sort of a suite level experience. You know, some of our competitors really, you know, focus on sort of the fun party environment of sports, and we think you have fun at Wings and Rings too, but we think we serve a higher quality food product, provide a cleaner, more family-friendly environment for a lot of our guests. Um, we've grown, like I said, over the years past uh you know the friendly confines of Cincinnati. Um we have uh restaurants and all throughout the tri-state area of Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky. We also have a big hub of restaurants in southern Texas. Um we also have restaurants in California, Nebraska, Florida, the Dakotas. Um so we're sort of peppered all over the country with 85 uh total locations, about 60 of which are in the U.S. and about 25 internationally.

SPEAKER_01: 2:30

Okay, excellent. Uh actually worked at Wings and Rings uh when I was in grad school. I think I just uh it looked good. It's on the other side of Cincinnati, but uh great experience in a small little boutique place, but it was it was it was good. It was uh uh great to work with. Then I actually worked at Pw3s uh uh in grad school as well when I kind of moved over with my wife. So I think I've uh he had a couple of different Wings and Rings things, bartending. It was fun.

SPEAKER_00: 2:56

Oh, fantastic. You've had the full wings experience.

SPEAKER_01: 3:00

So Cincinnati's kind of unique, right? Uh in regard to the chili, the gold star chili, the skyline chili. There's some uniques, the the the you know, kind of the hometown teams, hometown favorites, I think it's what they call it. You know, what's led to the great success uh of you know Wings and Rings?

SPEAKER_00: 3:16

Well, I mean, you mentioned, you know, a lot of the local sort of specialties of Cincinnati. And Cincinnati really is a town that is very communal, very neighborhoody. Um they are people here really like to support um you know the the businesses and restaurants around where they grew up. I mean, I'm sure you're familiar with it, but it's not where you're from in Cincinnati, it's what high school do you go to. In fact, you asked me that question right before we started, and that's how people in Cincinnati greet each other because we all know, you know, the the neighborhoods and the towns, that's just an easier demarcation, right? So local locality is such a huge part here. The fact that we started here, we're authentically a Cincinnati brand that we celebrate Cincinnati. We work with the local sports teams, we work with so many of the local high schools. Um, yeah, I don't think any restaurant brand can really be successful without forming a connection with the local community around them. And that's been a huge part of our success. Um, and luckily we're rooted in a place where that really, really matters. Cincinnati, I think more than most other cities really respond to locally run businesses and businesses that get what the city's up to.

SPEAKER_01: 4:19

Yeah, that's what I was gonna kind of hint at it. It is very uh locally focused, right? And some of your competitive entities that were in here in Cincinnati kind of made a strong presence are kind of retrenching a little bit. And uh, you know, obviously you guys have a great product, but I think kind of having that home turf advantage in Cincinnati can be a pretty good thing.

SPEAKER_00: 4:36

Yeah, for sure. I mean, we know, we know what's happening in the city. We know not just you know what local events are going on, but where, you know, we we know what sort of you know, what the government's up to. We know where the road construction is, we know those little sort of helpful things that help us make strategic decisions, help us help our uh help us make adjustments for our franchisees, give them the tools they need to respond faster than I think our competitors do, whose headquarters are, you know, other places, you know. We we get the city that helps. Well, that's great.

SPEAKER_01: 5:08

Um, can you tell us a little bit more about your role at Wings and Rings? Uh, what you do, how you do on a daily basis, and uh maybe was there a job before that uh got you into this uh customer loyalty arena?

SPEAKER_00: 5:20

Yeah, so I'm our senior marketing manager. I oversee local store marketing um over throughout the country. Um, and uh, you know, I've been uh working in marketing for most of my professional life, but have been in areas outside of restaurants um for a good chunk of that. Um, but I've always been a huge foodie, always loved restaurant culture, has always been sort of a dream of mine to work in restaurants. Um a few years ago, I was living in Arizona and worked with a company called France Smart for uh a year and sort of got a crash course in franchising. Um at that company, it's a franchise incubator. So I worked with a lot of growing, really young franchise concepts. Um on the B2B side, I was marketing two potential franchisees, um, these concepts. But what uh uh in terms of loyalty, what really uh helped me was I was helping all of those companies grow to make themselves appealing to potential franchisees. And that includes having a robust loyalty program, um, all those things that make you attractive to a customer are also what make you attractive to a potential franchisee. Um so I was talking and working with these young business owners and helping them grow those programs. Um, and then just instead of you know marketing them to customers, marketing them to potential investors. Um, I started with Wings Rings two years and change ago, September of 2023. I moved back to Cincinnati and and took the job here. Um and uh uh you know, really thrive working with our franchisees and helping them connect to those communities. Like I said, I think that that's an essential part of the restaurant business. Um, and a lot of that has to do with helping them grow their loyalty programs. Um, you know, as I'm sure you know, uh loyalty members spend more and come more frequently, and that is a precious commodity. So the more we can grow uh that our loyalty program, and we think we have a great one, uh, the better it is for franchisees. So just giving them all the tools that they can that they can have in their tool bag to use um and showing them why it's important is a big part of my job.

SPEAKER_01: 7:23

That's often and and you know, we have uh a brand community, we meet quite often with the brands once a week, sometimes twice a week. We have different brand-led sessions and you know, understanding what the franchisees know about the customer loyalty program is very important. We did a say to customer loyalty report this year. Uh we do it every year, and kind of operationalizing the customer loyalty program and getting alignment uh within the organization is very important this year because of some of the you know economic headwinds. And it sounds like you guys are doing that well because the franchisees can either be an advocate or they can be a detractor, depending on you know how much they know and are engaged with the program, correct?

SPEAKER_00: 7:57

One 100%. Um it's it's imperative uh that they are as familiar with that as possible. And one of the things you know we've done a lot over the last year um is not just work with our franchisees, but work with our FBC team that work directly with our franchisees on the operation side to make sure that they're also as up to date on our loyalty program as possible. Since they're the ones that are sort of in the stores, you know, more frequently, sort of on the front lines of operations work. If they can also help sing that marketing song while they're there visiting, it's it's an you know, it's an extra set of hands and eyes and ears uh in the restaurant to help our franchisees along. Excellent.

SPEAKER_01: 8:35

So when you look at your role in charge of local marketing, uh big market like Cincinnati, you know, what kind of keeps you up at night? What's the biggest challenge you face or you see uh in your role?

SPEAKER_00: 8:46

Well, I mean, uh I know the thing the restaurant industry in general is always looking for traffic, right? Driving helping my franchisees drive traffic um is is really the name of the game. Um from you know, it's a the entire marketing team is always focused on that. You know, my role, like I said, it's focused on local store marketing. So it's how can I make it as easy as possible for our franchisees to uh connect to the community, to speak to the community. Um, and uh, you know, a lot of times what that is is um uh can helping our franchisees understand that there's not a single magic bullet that you can shoot that's going to take care of everything. Um, it's a lot of little wins. Marketing, especially local star marketing, is small wins compounded over time, right? And that's hard, especially for you know, most franchisees, I think consider themselves business people first, definitely not marketers first. They run, we we have a lot of franchisees that run excellent operations, phenomenal customer service. They're the you know, all the wings are cut to spec. You could eat off the floor, but they don't ever get out in the community. And they rely on people coming in and having a good experience and word of mouth marketing, which is important. You want obviously the operations need to be solid, but they don't know how to do those things. Um, and that's my job is to educate them and provide them with as many sort of out-of-the-box, really easy-to-use tools um to get them connected to the community. So that's what really keeps me up at night is how can I make things as simple for our franchisees as possible to get them out of their comfort zone and into the into the community around them.

SPEAKER_01: 10:25

That's interesting. I think that the the organizations that do well that kind of help the franchisee do what they want to do, right? And do what they're good at, because not everyone is is a good marketer. I think marketing is is more way more difficult than people think that is. Everyone wants to be a marketer, everyone wants to be strategic. Uh, so many people are not, but that's a whole different discussion. But helping us do what they love and do what they do well, I think is is paramount to success. I actually had an interview last week with uh another brand uh restaurant brand in the South called Nukes. They're small uh location, hundreds of locations. And he talked about one of the things that you know he mentioned, I think it's very interesting. Where does hospitality begin? And I think that's an interesting question for you because you know, where does it begin? But also when you look at some things you're doing to help that franchisee do what he can do best, you really help, you know, uh you know, depending on where they're engaging with that brand, you really help them shine, correct?

SPEAKER_00: 11:20

Yeah, for sure. And I think that that's a great point. You know, hospitality doesn't begin when somebody steps up to the host stand, right? It's it's how you talk to them, how you engage with them to get them into the community. From a local store marketing standpoint, we are constantly encouraging our franchisees to meet people out in the world. So those local parades, um, festivals, carnivals, um, you know, you're from Cincinnati, those church festivals in the summer are everywhere, right? Like get out and meet the people there. And that's where hospitality starts. It can also start on social media, right? How you're communicating um uh in your community on social media pages. Um uh, you know, whatever outward communications come from the restaurant, that is a version of hospitality. Um, and so a lot there is a lot of training and a lot of sort of coaching up that goes along with our franchisees, um, and you know, convincing them why it's so important to um, you know, to have a great tone, to have a great conversational style is um, you know, sometimes a big step to take, you know, because they a lot of our franchisees want to be, you know, in the office, you know, maybe overseeing the kitchen, looking over those things, making sure numbers are right. But like it, our best franchisees are the ones that are very comfortable getting out and talking to the guests in and outside the four walls. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_01: 12:38

You know, there is pretty significant choice in the restaurant industry, casual, fast casual, uh, the wings and rings and sports bar style food offerings are are you know, they're pretty commonplace. But as mentioned, you guys are doing a great job in this time. You're positioning it a little differently. But you know, people are inherently loyal. I know I probably like five, six brands. My wife hates it. Uh I try to go out to uh places that uh you know that I don't want to go all the time to give her variety, especially when you travel. But choice and conversion is very important, right? So how how do you get someone to choose you? And then, you know, why would they choose wings and rings? And then and how do you get them to convert?

SPEAKER_00: 13:15

Yeah, I mean, you know, telling the brand story, you know, what our what you know what we consider our unique features are is really important. Um, we are in a, you know, I think that there's you can view competition as a negative, yeah, or you can view competition as a positive, right? I view competition as a positive because it gives us something to compare ourselves to, right? What differentiates us and what your differentiators are the story you have to tell. Wings and rings, all of our all of our uh boneless chicken wings are cut from high quality chicken tenders. Uh they're handbreaded, fried to order, nothing sits in baskets, nothing sits in a in a holding tray. You know, uh, same goes for our sandwiches, our tenders. Everything's made to order. So you're getting the freshest possible product. And that is an experience that you're not going to have at the vast majority of our competitors, right? And telling that story is important. Um, we think we have a pretty great loyalty program and an aggressive loyalty program. Um uh you get a free starter at sign up uh with our loyalty program. Uh there's uh you get$10 in rewards for every hundred you spend, um, which is pretty competitive compared to the bulk of our our competitors. You know, it I think, you know, uh, you know, Chipotle, uh, I think you have to spend about$165 to get a free burrito, which, you know, I'm not I'm a Chipotle guy, I'm not complaining, but we have a little we can get you to rewards faster that feel faster. And we drop incentives all the time, just for just for the heck of it, just to keep our people engaged, right? And that's important too, to have those things that come in for no reason other than you're a member of the loyalty program. Um and I think that sets us apart uh significantly. Um, we're big believers in what we call my place service. So as soon as somebody walks in the door, treating them like you know they're at your home or are a guest in your suite, you know, taking care of them as you would uh if they were sitting at your kitchen table. Um, and so we think that experience is a little different to sort of the fun organized chaos of some of our other competitors, right? We we serve our food on really nice, uh, really nice China. Um uh it's a it's a really nice, comfortable, cleaner experience, I think, than you experience a lot of our competitors. It's still a great place, great, great way to take in a game.

SPEAKER_01: 15:40

So well, I think that's interesting too. It kind of gets back to that hospitality question, right? So you are looking to treat uh customers a little differently uh when it comes in, finer China. So it's all part of that experience, which can bolster that, you know, that that uh hospitality, but also can if they're first timers, it can lead to that conversion, correct?

SPEAKER_00: 16:01

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. And it's important, like to use that to your point earlier, that our franchisees and our service staffs in those restaurants are are fully aware of the of the perks of our loyalty program, of of the new food that's out, the flavor combinations, some of the seasoning, some of the things that go into those, so they can tell that story at the at the table level. Um, it's also important for us from a marketing standpoint. Um, uh, how are we telling that story at the table? So, you know, we're not always trusting uh or fully putting the pressure on the servers to do that for us. What's in our bev menu? What's in our napkin holders? What's a table, what story are we telling on table tents? Um, those things all matter to the especially for those initial first-time guests. What are the things we want them to walk away knowing? And what we communicate at the table level is essential.

SPEAKER_01: 16:53

Excellent. So can you tell us a little bit more about the program? Uh, how long it's been in existence, uh, you know, how had the changes you made to it? What do you like about the program?

SPEAKER_00: 17:04

Yeah, the loyalty program's been uh in place for years now, um, well before I've gotten uh I arrived at Wings and Rings. Um for us, uh it's important to be selectively aggressive. We want to be uh I I I mentioned uh uh you know, freestarter at the sign up, um at$10 off the hundred, you get the free free dessert on your birthday. We drop rewards, we do um incentive style games in the app uh that can get you bonus points. Um it's uh very, very, very important for us um to provide um uh uh real value for for our loyalty members. Um and so that's been a huge focus for us is making sure that that value is always uh at the at the top of the industry um when you compare us to other programs. Um our loyalty uh customers typically spend roughly seven to eight percent more uh than our than our non-loyalty customers. Um and they're usually visiting one to two times more per year at minimum. So that yeah, it's a it's a getting people into the loyalty program is massive. Um our um uh uh the other side of my marketing department, our national team, uh, Lindsay and Jamie on my team have been done a phenomenal job and really focusing on the national side um of driving those results through our digital communication. Um uh and then on the local store side, we're constantly trying to incentivize our stores to do loyalty drives, um, contests within regions, contests within certain certain markets, um, who's raising their loyalty signups year over year and giving prizes, doing those things because um we want them to see the results. If we do these things kinds of things and motivate them to have a you know a huge year for loyalty signups, and then we can show them the next year how much their sales are up from loyalty customers, um, what those those visits increase, that spend increase, then it then it does the work for us through data, where it's not just us preaching to the choir. We're able to show them in hard dollars how much they've benefited. Um, so that's been a massive focus for us this year.

SPEAKER_01: 19:19

That's awesome. Uh, we actually uh have a new person on our team uh used to uh run a uh kind of a uh interstate trucking company. He's a die hard wing guy, and I again I I I don't think I ever may have had wings a little bit, I'm not I don't know if I have. Just kind of okay uh but he talked about authenticity and he was kind of rating them and he's familiar with you guys, he loved them. So uh he lives in Indy. But uh, you know, what does authenticity mean to you and your brand? Is it the wings and how they're prepared? You mentioned that everything's fresh. You know, what what does authenticity mean?

SPEAKER_00: 19:51

Yeah, that's a that's a big piece of it. Food quality and um and especially also portion size are are a big deal for us. Um we don't want anybody to leave wings and rings feeling like they got gypped. Uh, especially in today's day and age, value is essential. And I think a lot of people think of value strictly as, you know, strategic discounting and where are we, you know, where are we able to give away a dollar here to drive and that's all important, right? You have to have those kinds of strategies. But um, being authentic for us is sort of uh is um thinking about what got us to love wings in the first place. And it's a it's a big wing cooked fresh. Um, and that also helps people walk away feeling like they got their money's worth. That's another piece of value, is making sure that like people think that their their dollar was well spent, they got a good product. So um, if we're being authentic to ourselves, we're making sure wings stay big. Um, we're making sure we're using a high quality product, um, that we are breading everything to order uh and serving it with a smiling face. That's that's that's what Wings and Rings is.

SPEAKER_01: 21:00

Okay, we we talked about this a little bit earlier, but you know, customer loyalty is very important. The loyalty program is a big piece of that. The hospitality is very important, everything that you're doing to you know uh impact their choice and get them to convert great jobs. But when you look at customer loyalty, how do you and Wings and Ring define customer loyalty? And uh, you know, what does it mean to you?

SPEAKER_00: 21:22

Yeah, I mean we are from you know, the Cincinnati area is extremely loyal um and is extremely communal. And um to us, loyalty is getting those community members back. Uh, if we have people doing our marketing for us, we're that that's a that's a that's the ultimate sign of loyalty to me. If I'm uh on social media and I um, you know, if I see one of our stores posting about an event that took place, you know, whether it's a music bingo or a fundraiser or something, and I see, you know, a dozen people have shared it, people are commenting, people are interacting, that that to me is the ultimate sign of loyalty when you have people that are doing the work uh of going out and finding your brand and helping you tell your story. Um, and those are our most successful stores. Um, and that's a that's sort of a story I'm always preaching to our franchisees who are struggling to get the ball rolling with local store marketing, and is that loyalty is everything. If you have a if you have somebody that's willing to, you know, like you said, you've got five, six brands you shuffle through, right? If you can become somebody's old reliable, get some get into the rotation for somebody, it's everything. They're gonna they're gonna spend a thousand dollars, maybe a thousand dollars a year at your store with their families. That's that's enormous, right? And so I show people these these are highly engaged stores who have people that aren't just spending their money but are going out and pushing the brand. They're preaching to other people why they should spend their money at those stores. And those friend recommendations, those neighbor recommendations, those mean more than any targeted ad, any email, uh, any any any uh postcard in a mailbox could ever mean in terms of marketing. So um that's the ultimate sign of loyalty uh for us, and uh and consequently, our stores that are doing the best job have those have those customers.

SPEAKER_01: 23:13

That's awesome. Uh heard a little bit about Pop-Up Tuesday. Uh, you know, great promotion program you guys are running. Uh I understand it's driven and driving some really powerful results, both in sales and and guest management. Can you tell us a little bit more about the promotion, kind of and you know what the the vision was and you know, maybe even what insights you uh gathered from the promotion?

SPEAKER_00: 23:35

Yeah, so uh uh every Tuesday um at our stores we do 40% off our uh traditional and bonus wings. Um we've been doing that for for a few months now, and it's been it's been very successful for us. A couple of months ago, um on uh uh uh National Wing Day, uh, which happened to fall on a Tuesday this year, um, we thought a fun kicker as uh as uh since that's you know sort of our Super Bowl in the fall is is National Wing Day. Uh a fun way to sort of juice that up would be to give 40% off all varieties of our wings. For those of you who don't know, at Wings and Rings, we do we do traditional and boneless. We also do smoked wings, we also do southern fried wings, uh sort of more fried chicken inspired wing. Yeah, and then we have cauliflower wings as well for our vegetarian and vegan friends. So we have five varieties of wings that we sell at the restaurant. We decide to do 40% off the entire run of those wings. Um uh reason being, um A, it's just a fun promotion. It gives people a chance to uh to try new things. That's the big thing is for those who walk into a restaurant and know what to expect with traditional boneless wings, but have been curious about smoked wings or curious about southern fried wings. It might be the kick in the pants to try those things for the first time since you're risking less money to give them a shot. You can throw on a five-piece smoked wing with your usual five or ten-piece boneless wing and feel like I'm you know, us everyone at the table is gonna try one for the first time. And if you love them, then we've that's that's a huge win for us. We've earned a potential loyal customer who's trying one of our higher market item or higher ticket priced items and potentially converting somebody from our more uh lower price traditional wings to a higher price smoked wing or a higher price southern fried wing. Massive opportunity for us to build, turt, take those loyal customers and convert them from mid-ticket items to larger ticket items. Um, it's also just gives us a great promotional touchstone. We're able to diversify and tell that story. Um, so we did the first one in on National Wing Day at the end of August. It was a huge, huge success. Uh, or I think July, excuse me. Um, we decided to do it again the Tuesday after Labor Day because it was a such a massive success to see if we could carry if it if it was just a wing day thing or if we're able to extend that success. Um, another massive day for us. Um, and so we've done that. Uh we just did that for the third Tuesday. Um, we're doing it one once a month now, um, just a couple of weeks ago, and we were once again up 30% year over year across the system. Um the wing the wing day was massive for the wing day was an 80% year over year day. Really okay. Uh for us. It was Matt, we had over over 15 stores in our system. We're up over 100% year over year. Okay. Um in sales, uh, pure pure net sales. Um so it it has been something that has not only driven actual sales and actual dollars for us, but anecdotally, we hear all the time now from our franchisees who are going around and touching tables that people are trying those higher priced items for the first time. They're trying new menu items and loving them. And they're seeing people come in on football days, on football Sundays, Thursdays, nights saying, you know, I was here for Tuesday and I tried the smoked wings and now I'm a believer. Tried the Southern Fried Wings and now I'm a believer. So um it served a variety of uh of uses for us, and it's been hugely successful.

SPEAKER_01: 27:12

Okay. When you look at employee engagement, employee loyalty, obviously that's very important from the the bartenders to the the service staff to the the cooks, very important. Uh, you know, are employees trained or uh or engaged with differently today to get them to understand maybe the customer loyalty program, or you know, some of the things you talked about, surprise and delight, or just more from a service level to truly bolster the brand and and uh and that hospitality approach?

SPEAKER_00: 27:41

Yeah, we offer a variety of of training tools uh throughout the system. Uh most of uh everything's available online through our online internet system. Um, but we emphasize wholly with our franchisees how important it is for that for uh for hands-on training and surprise and delight is absolutely a big part of what we try to preach. You know, we have this system I mentioned earlier, my place service, where we try to teach everybody to take care of your tables as you would, you know, a visitor at your home. Um, I think you know, most restaurants probably have a version of it, but we want to allow as much freedom within the, you know, within the what makes sense for our brand, but to to really take care of tables, to give them a chance to, if we if we have an LTO going to drop to you know, drop samples of the new sauces uh at tables and and do those things that are really special and unique. Those are the things that stand out. And those are the things that especially help build loyalty, you know, for new customers, existing customers, those little surprise and delight touches are everything. And we we we preach it across uh our system all the time.

SPEAKER_01: 28:44

And there's a big push right now for value. Um, in in it can be in food product, it can be in making sure that uh the organization has value in the program. But this uh many consumers are value focused right now. They want the their brand to do a little bit more for them, right? Uh discounted offering, can we use points for different things? So, you know, how do you look at value? And and maybe uh when you look at customers and promotions that are more value-driven versus you know, those who could be uh more driven by the experience and connections, not just just gonna say how do you balance the two of those?

SPEAKER_00: 29:19

Yeah, it's super, super important. I don't think there's any like you know magic answer that that's a I think every system is different, every restaurant brand is is is different with how they're gonna match that that balance or how fine strike that balance. For for us, um, we obviously want to offer um uh uh as many um financially affordable options as possible for our franchise because val, I mean, let's face it, value when you say the word, price is the first thing that comes to mind for a lot of people. Um it's at least the conscious thing uh that you're choosing. Um so those things like the pop-up Tuesdays, you mentioned the 40% off wings, we we um kids. Eat free on Mondays at all of our restaurants. That's something that's we've been doing for years, even before sort of the value takeover over the last you know two years or so. We have a phenomenal lunch program. We have a menu full of, depending on where you are in the country,$9.99 or$10.99 lunch combos every weekday from 11 to 2, which is a price point that's that's fast food has a tough time competing with anymore. Um and so that's uh and that and it's not just you know a couple things, it's it's it's 11 to 12 different lunch menu item or lunch combos that includes uh uh entree and aside. Um so we've got daily value in place that we just have to constantly work on educating our our our customers on. Um and then um you know that uh once we get people into the restaurant, I always can't emphasize enough how to our to our restaurant teams how important it is to get people into the loyalty program. You know, we still, you know, I think roughly 15% of our diners are uh every day are loyalty members. So there's still a ton of room uh to get people into that loyalty program um and and turn them into bigger spenders and more frequent visitors. So um utilizing value price-wise to get people in, and then uh showing them the value of the experience and then getting them into the loyalty program for continued value that's on your mind in your inbox, in on your phone, all those things. That makes sense. That's how we think about it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 31:36

And partnerships, uh, I know you guys have a couple. Partnerships that are are pretty uh important right now for brands. It's it's uh usually a top four or top five in our uh our yearly survey on trends. But when you look at uh partnerships, I know you have one with iHeartRadio and Bengals postgame show, not a Bengals fan, always Broncos, Go Bo Nicks, but that's a whole different discussion. Um your partnership with iHeartRay, iHeartRadio and the Bengals postgame show. You know, uh what's that partnership mean to you and and how are you looking at partnerships more generally?

SPEAKER_00: 32:07

Yeah, I think we uh are obviously a sports bar brand, so sports partnerships have to be sort of a formula for part of the formula for our success. Um, we also have a partnership with the Cincinnati Reds, we have a partnership with the University of Cincinnati Bearcats. We have a presence in both of those, uh both of those are in the basketball and football stadium and arena at UC. Where we have uh a dining space and a restaurant space in the in Great American Ballpark in Cincinnati. So those are important, but uh for sure. Um, and a big part of what we do. The iHeartRadio sponsorship is new this year, um, sponsoring the Bengals post-game show. Um uh people still listen to uh Bengals games on the radio is still the the number one way that those games are consumed, um, uh at least in uh on either side of the game. So before pregame and post-game, most people are watching the game on TV, and then they're either traveling to the game or to a friend's house or back afterwards. So the radio is really where you can win those people that are traveling to and from the experience. And sometimes they're traveling to and from our restaurants watching the games, which is great. So um we want to be able to reach them uh pre and post-game. Um, and then uh uh throughout the week we get imaging as well on those radio stations. The big thing for our stores, in addition to that, just general brand awareness, um, with a target demo, sports fans obviously being a huge demographic for us. Um, the post-game show rotates and is hosted live at Wings and Rings locations throughout the greater Cincinnati area. Um, and so those stores that have hosted, um, we're on what are we week seven of the NFL season? Um, so I think we've hosted uh either five or six post-game shows uh so far this year um at our stores. Every store that has hosted a post-game show has been up on day of year-over-year sales and week of year-over-year sales. Um, at least five percent, some stores up as much as 15 to 20 percent. Um and so I'm able to show not only do we have that connection with sports fans, we're building that brand identity, reinforcing that brand identity that I think we've already cultivated over the years, but I can show in real-time data how our stores are benefiting from a sales perspective. And so if if it feels good and the data supports it, it's a win-win uh for us. And it's a it's it's it's been a we've really happy with the partnership so far.

SPEAKER_01: 34:37

That's awesome. Uh, and last question, you know, what can Loyalty 360 do to help you and your team with your customer loyalty efforts?

SPEAKER_00: 34:45

Uh I mean we're always looking for to find new ways to drive loyalty. The biggest thing for us, I think I mentioned earlier, um, 15% of our diners are done, and that's that's a that's a phenomenal number for the industry. That still means 85% of our of our diners aren't loyalty members. So the biggest thing for us is trying to find ways to easily convert those diners that aren't in our loyalty program to loyalty signups. The the finding the right way to communicate the benefits of our loyalty program, finding seamless ways to get them into the loyalty program. Some I mean, my my um my girlfriend is not a loyalty signer-upper, just doesn't like going through that process with with places it takes too much time, right? So, like finding a way to quickly get somebody engaged and uh communicate that value up front, that's that's our biggest challenge and sort of the white whale we're always chasing.

SPEAKER_01: 35:41

Okay, yeah, it's it's interesting. I know we have a lot of case studies on the site about that, but uh and the community talks about that a lot. People, and then you gotta make it easy, right? I think that that challenge too can be a little bit onerous if you're doing it at the point of sale, too. So uh I think the key is getting them to give you a little bit and then and some inside. We mentioned you give them someone sign up, and and you know, because obviously the value of that contact, so you can get more behavioral data, maybe demographical data is just very advantageous for you and your brand for sure. For sure. Perfect. Well, uh Dan, thank you very much for taking time to see us today. It was uh quite interesting to hear more about you and also you know some things that you've been doing in Wings and Rings over the last uh you know a couple of years since we spoke with your team. So thank you for taking the time to join us today. Thanks a lot, Mark. Really appreciate you having me on. Absolutely. And thank you, everyone, for joining us. Make sure you join us every Thursday in our Leaders and Customer Multi series. And until then, have a wonderful day.