How to influence and drive digital ordering growth for your food business clients

In our most recent webinar where we discussed the future of direct digital ordering, the importance of taking back control from aggregators and the opportunities for businesses with food business & hospitality clients, helping them see growth and success by partnering with Flipdish

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Transcript:


Susan Comyn (3.61):

Hi everyone and welcome to this webinar today. My name is Susan. I am the Partner Marketing Manager for Flipdish. And for context of those who don't know about Flipdish, Flipdish is an online ordering system that provides the tools and technology such as white-labelled apps and websites, kiosks and table ordering for food businesses of all types and sizes. We also provide the support and data needed for food businesses to really see growth, and importantly and crucially for us and our point of difference between others is we have designated teams of success and support that can really help you grow your business your own way.

Susan Comyn (00:51):

I'm joined by the brilliant Peter Backman and Simon Ward today. Unfortunately we had another guest, Darren Green, but he is having some technical issues so we're going to plug on without him. But if he's able to join, he will loop back in. I'm going to give a brief overview of Peter and Simon, and importantly, I suppose the premise of today is we're here because the food industry is changing and online ordering is changing. It is a consequence of being accelerated by COVID, but the disruption model was actually coming anyway. And what we offer is a solution for support businesses like yourselves, the attendees today, i.e., marketing agencies, FMCG companies. We can provide you with a solution that you can offer your customers and your clients and help them grow. So our partnership model is really built to support your business and support your customers growth.

Susan Comyn (01:58):

Peter is a industry, a restaurant industry consultant and expert, and he has over 30 years experience, and he has written a book, Restaurants Also Sell Food, as well as being the founder of Arena and being a fellow of the Institute of Hospitality in the UK. Lovely to meet you Peter.

Peter Backman (02:20):

My pleasure. I'm delighted you've asked me. Thank you.

Susan Comyn (02:23):

And Simon is our Head of Partnerships at Flipdish. Simon has many years experience, including more than 11 years experience in CarTrawler where he focused on customer success, content, supply with data driven models all put in place. He has been with Flipdish for over a year and he heads up the function by growing our relationship with our existing partners but also finding new partners. So hello Simon.

Simon Ward (02:51):

How are you doing

Simon Ward (02:54):

Thank you for having me.

Susan Comyn (02:55):

We unfortunately lost Darren, but Darren is one of our partners, one of our exclusive partners with Flipdish. There he is there. I'm not sure if the sound is working. Darren, how are you? No, unfortunately we're still having problems, but that's okay.

Susan Comyn (03:11):

What I will do is unfortunately in Darren's absence, I will give the case study and his background on that unfortunately because Darren is having these issues. But what will kick off-

Darren Green (03:26):

Can you hear me now?

Susan Comyn (03:28):

Yes, I can. Yes, super. There we go. Such is technology and life. Brilliant. Okay.

Darren Green (03:36):

Okay, I'm with you. Sorry.

Susan Comyn (03:36):

That's all right.

Susan Comyn (03:42):

Okay. Well, super. Well, we'll kick off. I'll actually give a bit of context about you now Darren. Darren is Smarter WiFi-

Susan Comyn (03:49):

Smarter WiFi offer social WiFi solutions. What that means is when somebody comes in for the dining experience, Smarter WiFi will collect their customer data through the WiFi and then restaurants can then use that data to accurately and more targeted advertising to their customers. There is obviously the real alignment between what we offer as we offer customer data as does Smarter WiFi. Smarter WiFi saw the opportunity as there was no dine-in to partner with Flipdish and really grow their customers and offer a solution for their current customer base. Darren is their sales director and has been with the company for many years and he will talk more on his experience with Flipdish throughout this.

Susan Comyn (04:35):

So we'll kick off and my first question is to Peter. Peter, obviously as we discussed, the digital ordering industry has been changing, was changed significantly because of COVID, and I suppose how did that look in your mind and more importantly what's the future look like?

Peter Backman (04:54):

Yeah. Okay. Yes, you're absolutely right. You've got to have a quick look at the past before you can see what the future's like. And really COVID pushed things forward very, very much. The word acceleration has been used all over the place. But undoubtedly during COVID the last year or so there's been rapid growth in delivery and until couple of weeks ago delivery was accounted for a large chunk of the business done by restaurants and by quick service outlets and so on. But during that period, profits were still difficult to come by, even though delivery was only providing, was the only source of income.

Peter Backman (05:46):

We're now into a reopening path. We've already started in the UK with al fresco dining and that's going to roll out in May with in-store dining and then in June with all social distancing rules removed. At least that's the plan. Let's hope it takes place. And all of that means that the ground rules are about to change or they're changing already but are about to go into higher mode.

Peter Backman (06:19):

Hospitality within the restaurant is going to increase. So serving diners at their table will become much more normal and we'll revert to where we were a couple of years ago. Delivery will become less important as a proportion of the whole, and some operators are seeing about how they can flex that so that they maintain the delivery balance but also do the restaurant piece. But all along profitability remains an issue for a variety of reasons which no doubt we can go into.

Peter Backman (07:02):

So the focus for restaurants really is going to be how can I increase my profitability as we move forward. In my core business it's a well-trodden path, keep a good control on costs, increase sales. That's all well known. As far as delivery is concerned, it's a bit more difficult but the clues are going to be to increase revenue and at the same time reduce costs or at least costs per order. So that is my hopefully not too large take on what the future is going to look like.

Susan Comyn (07:45):

Brilliant. And I suppose same question really to Darren. You being on the ground of that, how does it look like from your perspective?

Darren Green (07:54):

Yeah, absolutely. I think we're a guest WiFi provider to our customers, and our customers even at the start of the lockdown were sort of coming to us looking for solutions that we could help them with. I'll probably take you on the journey. If I take you on the journey now of our partner engagement.

Darren Green (08:13):

We started looking into the marketplace for online ordering systems, our existing clients. We have a lot of clients out there, pubs, restaurants, takeaways, clubs. And we were looking to see how we could assist these businesses through the lockdown period, to continually be able to trade and even thrive through the lockdown period. So we went out to look for an online ordering partner who we could partner with to take a service offering to our clients.

Darren Green (08:46):

And we conducted quite a degree of due diligence in looking for a selected partner and we were looking at the quality of their product and the strength of their service, ease of installation, and we came across Flipdish, and we began engaging with Simon and his team, and conducted our due diligence and decided that Flipdish, the company that we wanted to work with, that we wanted to present and provide to our clients.

Darren Green (09:11):

Clients were saying to us that obviously business had dropped right down, and the other side of it as well was that some of them were working with traditional aggregators and their fees were, the fees very high with some of the traditional aggregators. They probably weren't getting the service that they felt they deserved. If they wanted to move up the rankings within those aggregators, they were having to pay additional fees. It felt like they were being hit by all sides. Obviously traditional business was reducing and yet their fees always seemed to be increasing.

Darren Green (09:43):

And to compound that even further, through this period, the reason our clients were talking to us is because we collect data for our clients. They wanted to be able to market through this period and to tell their clients that they were still open for business and they could purchase products through their business directly from them. And yet within the traditional aggregator space, the clients that had been ordering through them through the traditional aggregators, they didn't have access to that data. They couldn't contact them directly.

Darren Green (10:12):

But with our assistance and from our data and with a product like Flipdish where they actually retained their data for the future, they would be able to market not only through this period of time but through an ongoing period of time into the future. We were trying to give this to our clients at the time and look for solutions and Flipdish fitted that role for us perfectly.

Susan Comyn (10:35):

Yeah absolutely. I mean, we'll touch on more on sort of your experience of working with Flipdish more, but one thing that we've seen come up Peter and I might get your commentary on this, is that restaurants are sort of operationally thinking that, "Oh, can we still do online ordering when dining comes back into the fore?" And absolutely we're of the mind frame that yes, you can if you have a technology to support that. What is your thinking on this from that perspective and how business can do both but significantly grow at the same time from a management and operational perspective?

Peter Backman (11:18):

Yes, fine. Yeah. I mean, it is a challenge, moving from a position where it was all about delivery and organizing yourselves for that to moving back to what you used to do, it is a challenge. And I think there are all sorts of different solutions, one of which is to downplay delivery. But to my mind delivery is here, and if you don't have a delivery strategy which maybe not to do delivery, but if you don't have a delivery strategy, then you're going to fall by the wayside.

Peter Backman (12:05):

But within that there are options. So moving some of the delivery business to another site can be one solution. Moving or splitting the back of house operation into a delivery and an in-house or a front of house, an offer is another solution. And that's used quite a lot in the states where the floor plan of restaurants is usually much larger than it is in the UK and they have the capability of doing that sort of thing.

Peter Backman (12:45):

And then, as you said, I think technology has got a great role to play because it allows people to understand what is happening and where and at what time and organize themselves accordingly both in the longer term but also on a day-to-day basis planning for delivery, what may be coming up this afternoon or this evening, and getting things organized accordingly with the right people, having the right amount of food prepared and so on. So there's a lot of ways of solving this particular problem.

Susan Comyn (13:27):

Absolutely. And I suppose from our mind it's an opportunity and for businesses should be the opportunity to really accelerate growth and reopen so successfully and maintain the excellent ability to have online ordering growth during COVID, and then when we come back to the dining, maintain that, if not accelerate it. So I suppose Simon then, my question to you is, where do partners fit in with that? Because obviously these are support businesses. They're the marketing agencies, management consultancies, signage companies, really anybody who provides a support function. So where do they fit into this ecosystem of growth?

Simon Ward (14:12):

Yeah. Well, I think it's a or an additional tool for partners in terms of partners have an existing relationship whether they be FMCG or digital marketers or tech. And it can be perceived that you could roll into online ordering quite easily, but it's actually a lot more difficult than you would think. And you need to have an expert in online ordering to kind of facilitate that need by restaurants. So we can be an additional tool to these partners.

Simon Ward (14:50):

So the desire from them would be to keep their clients happy in terms of helping them or being seen as a white knight in some cases where they will go and introduce us to a restaurant and say, "Look, we've partnered with Flipdish. We have negotiated a better deal for you via Flipdish and we can give you online ordering." This has been the pattern during COVID where we would work with companies like Coca-Cola, Cisco Foods, Metro as a pan-European wholesaler, as well as Lightspeed POS system, global POS system.

Simon Ward (15:29):

And they would introduce Flipdish to restaurants and say, "Look, we don't have an online ordering solution. To exist in this environment you need to have that ability to go and deliver or collect or talk to your consumer, and this is the best option for you right now," and it's a real vote of confidence when somebody like Coca-Cola takes you on board and says, "Look, we're going to recommend you to our clients because we believe in your product and we can see it's very, very strong."

Simon Ward (16:00):

So partners, like there is a mutual benefit or it's mutually beneficial in this case where the partner can be a huge help to their clients and deliver growth for them. But also there are times when we can go and help a partner in terms of either a commercial relationship or also give them consumer behavior and data and show them what trends are like and so on.

Susan Comyn (16:27):

Absolutely. Brilliant. And I suppose this is a question that maybe some of the businesses would ask during this, is why is this for me of sorts where what difference can I make? And this probably comes back to the question of understanding the marketplace in terms of say the aggregators eating into customers commission rates at an alarming rate of 30% for every single order. They don't offer the support or customer data they can offer. So is that from your mind one of the key reasons why people would, it would create this partnership?

Simon Ward (17:11):

Yeah. So this, it can be, you can simplify things down to that. It's just cost. It's just commissions. Or you can look at it in a much broader and factual way which is what does the data tell you. Yes, it's more expensive to run an aggregator. The promise that they will go and deliver growth by marketing you and sponsoring [inaudible 00:17:34] and whatnot and this is going to be great for your business is not true, because what happens is that if you look for just either look for your restaurant, yes, you will see there and on a kind of semi bespoke website, but underneath it you'll have five or six different links to just this overall content. So they will just deliver customers that you already have.

Simon Ward (18:00):

Then there's, if you talk to a company who would analyze the efficiency from a finance side of a perform of a restaurant, they will say that you will not get the return in terms of ... You might be perceived that you're getting these orders and you're making money, but down to shrinkage and you're not actually getting your money back from every single order, or it could be a case that you just have not got the capability to understand is this profitable for me in terms of when you do all the calculations and commissions and so on. They will always tell you that it's not profitable to run or to grow your aggregator business, and you have absolutely no access to customer data.

Simon Ward (18:47):

I mean it's pretty black and white in that area that taking control of your own brand and promoting your own brand will deliver more growth and better efficiencies and also better understanding of what your client wants than using a third-party aggregator. You're basically only growing their brand.

Susan Comyn (19:05):

And Peter, I mean to that end, I mean from the industry perspective, what are your feelings on the industry in that respect in terms of the aggregators and the changing model and how customers really themselves need to get away from it, but actually as a partner the opportunity there is massively to provide that solution and that sort of coming in and helping their customers grow so much more intently.

Peter Backman (19:34):

Yes. Well, I think the industry which restaurants and quick service outlets has a love-hate relationship with the aggregators. The love bit is to do with increased revenue, and the hate bit is, as Simon has said, it's the commission rate, it's the lack of transparency over customers, and there are a whole host of other smaller things like the instructions on the amount of time you have to prepare the food and deliver it to the rider, having to fill in application forms which ask for awkward but not awkward but maybe information are maybe felt to be intrusive, a lot of little things in the background as well.

Peter Backman (20:32):

So it's a love-hate relationship and it works very well for big anchor brands that they always appear at the top of the listings, they do well out of it. It's much more difficult for smaller, the scrappier brands. And I don't say that in a pejorative way, but the brands that scrap for the market which is the majority of businesses in the restaurant sector.

Peter Backman (21:05):

So it's balancing those two that is a challenge for the majority of restaurants. And if there is a solution that comes along and says we can provide you with a solution that is not going to take out so much of your commission, that is going to provide you with transparency, then it strikes me that that is a good position to be. And I'm saying that. You're not paying me. I'm saying it, and I've been saying it for a long time.

Susan Comyn (21:39):

Now, very, very worth noting that this is an impartial industry expert, and you deal in the facts and the data, and that is your MO. So it is great to hear that the genuine benefits of it. Now, to bring it then to Darren and the real life example of you seeing this on the ground of supporting your customers and providing this solution, maybe talk us through that experience for you as someone who's actually on the ground as a partner doing it and some of the success you've seen.

Darren Green (22:20):

Sure. Yeah, absolutely. When we were out there and we were originally talking to our clients, and when I say originally talking, we were taking this proposition to them. More recently clients or prospects have actually been coming to us really asking for opinions and guidance on this.

Darren Green (22:37):

I think what we're feeling and what we're hearing is clients want to regain control. We don't tell them that they have to switch off their existing incumbent aggregators. What we say is there is a different way. And these people want to be able to push their own brand out there. They want to be able to market to their own customers, and they want to be able to offer things discount and loyalty to their existing customers. They don't want to be beholden to somebody else.

Darren Green (23:05):

So we don't necessarily go for the big bang approach where you need to switch everything off and transfer everything over to Flipdish. What we ask them is to test the water. What we ask them is take an online ordering system. We will set it up with Flipdish. It will be fully brand into yourself. You'll be able to then market to your customers. And as more people begin to order directly from you, because I think you have to remember the buying public, me as an individual buying for my family, I would much prefer to buy a takeaway directly from a restaurant or a takeaway venue rather than going through an aggregator. Just my personal choice. I like supporting the local businesses, and I think there's been a massive trend, a trend and change out there of people wanting to support these types of businesses.

Darren Green (23:48):

We talk to our clients. We ask them to take a step forward, set up their own online ordering system. And what we found is over the months that we've been engaged, more and more business come through their online ordering platform to the point where they don't need to have, they're not relying on the aggregators anymore. And then at their own pleasure in their own time, when they're comfortable with it, they can switch off the traditional aggregators and push all of their business through the online ordering system. It saves them a fortune, an absolute fortune.

Susan Comyn (24:17):

I mean you have a brilliant example of a customer that you've brought on through table ordering. And maybe talk through that because that in itself is a great success story.

Darren Green (24:28):

Of course. We work with a large pub called the Beaumont Arms up in the northern parts of the country. And Beaumont Arms first of all came to us. They wanted to do online ordering for Sunday lunches and weekend trade really for some of the food offerings that they do. And it was a huge success. We put an online ordering system in place. They were able to allocate slots for their Sunday lunches. They were able to arrange their own deliveries as well for those slots. So again, not relying on an aggregator. And their sales Sunday lunches and food on Saturdays as well went sky high. They were really, really impressed with the offering that we gave them. And this is a large venue. It's not a small pub. This is 100, 150 seats outside, 200 seats inside.

Darren Green (25:15):

So we began talking to them about table ordering as well, which is another string to the Flipdish bow. And they were looking ready for the reopen after lockdown to be able to allow their customers to come back in, outside first of all for outside dining, set up their tables and be able to deliver the order from their tables through QR codes.

Darren Green (25:36):

So we set up a system with Flipdish for the Beaumont Arms. And that went live a few weeks ago when the pub's reopened for outside dining. Their takings were huge. So huge, in fact, that they had to go out instantly within days and recruit extra staff. Typically, and traditionally, excuse me, they would be taking between £8,000 and £10,000 a day from the outside tables. With the online ordering system that we put in, within the first week they were up to £17,500 a day on average. It was massive. People would order more through the tables when they're sitting down at the tables and can order more frequently. The biggest challenge for the venues is keeping up with the pace of the orders coming through, which is a lovely position to be in if you're a pub owner.

Darren Green (26:21):

But it's a huge success. What they've actually now said they're going to actually extend their outside area. They're actually going to put in like a marquee, huge great big marquee, and I think they're actually talking now about putting two in to increase their outside dining space by about another 200 seats. And then obviously they've got the indoor dining that's going to come online very shortly. And the upshot of that is as well they are also now recommending us into a lot more other establishments that they're aware of, that they've got friendly relationships with, and are promoting both Smarter WiFi and Flipdish into those venues. And we've started speaking them recently about a lot more table ordering systems. The world is buzzing for table ordering at the moment because of the times that we're in, but it's a nice complement to the online ordering system as well.

Susan Comyn (27:07):

And in fairness I suppose, this is the model that business gets business. Sorry Simon, go ahead there.

Simon Ward (27:12):

Yeah, I was just going to say that the kind of ... We get a lot of consumer data from this and we know that it increases basket size. So we know that having a device to order from will deliver higher returns per order. And also, there's a lot of misconceptions around online ordering itself in that it's geographical. But what we found is that it's not. A restaurant in the middle of nowhere will have just as good a performance in online ordering as in the middle of a city, and that usage of iOS and Android apps as well, people would think it's all via web. But probably the one good thing for that aggregators have done for us is that they have increased the amount of usage of apps for ordering food.

Simon Ward (28:02):

So when we give a restaurant a white label app, you can get as much say ... On average is about 70% of the revenue online will come through that app. And the tools that we have, I know we've touched on loyalty. The ability to send a push notification to all of your client base offering a discount for a slow Wednesday through our portal, and it'll be sent out straight away to where 70% of their online revenue comes from is an amazing tool to have and that's what you get with Flipdish.

Simon Ward (28:36):

We've seen as much as 90% of business coming through apps when restaurants actively promote pushing discounts through their apps and getting customers to download them. And what that means is that if we're in or the restaurant's in the customer's pocket and people tend to just use two to three restaurants when ordering online, that you have that customer for a long time, and have the ability to go and communicate with them. And it keeps them away from online searches. So it's an amazing tool for a restaurant to have. Within a week of contacting us, they could have ... be online and doing delivery and collection and so on.

Simon Ward (29:19):

And I think that's what Darren has been really impressed with, the fact that we can get people up and running very quickly and we can have a lot of his client base sharing his technology and our technology, working together, and really helping them through this difficult time.

Susan Comyn (29:37):

And to bring it back to Peter, to you, to a question on I suppose the industry itself. Like we're obviously talking about table ordering being so significant. You are of the belief that this technology is here to stay and that it will continue to grow in this manner. It's not just a consequence of situations that actually these technologies like table ordering are the future.

Peter Backman (30:05):

That definitely seems to be the case. I can remember having conversations 18 months ago about technology and how it gets in the way of restaurants being friendly, welcoming, personal places. Technology sits in the way. That was the shape of the discussion. And to a degree that is still true. But what we, I think, what has happened has been that the recognition that there are occasions in the eating occasion when technology doesn't get in the way. It doesn't really get in the way when you're ordering your food. You may want to speak to the waiter. Is the bream better than the sea bass type of discussion.

Peter Backman (30:59):

But often, and for many types of outlet, ordering is a fraught process. You've got to catch the waiter or waitress' attention, you've got to ... You just spend a bit of time chatting and then it's not convenient and so on. So technology can help. It can also help in other ways as well in not having to wait for your payment to order something additional while you're eating, all those things it helps. And also of course during COVID, there's been the whole issue around hygiene, wiping surfaces and so on. And although the current scientific evidence is that that is much, much less important than it was seen at the beginning, it's still got a lot of resonance amongst the customers.

Peter Backman (32:04):

So overall I think technology within the restaurant space is here to stay not for everything and not on all occasions but in its place.

Susan Comyn (32:18):

Absolutely. And I think that this is where it's complementary, and that's why we always say like it's the partner in success, that it's to really help you grow and why we crucially have success teams and manage marketing and loyalty and retention, and Simon touched on to help businesses do that most effectively.

Susan Comyn (32:41):

So there's been a couple of questions that have come in before. And also, feel free if anyone is here, and they'd like to ask any questions, we'd welcome them. But Simon, one question that was asked previously was, how does this fit in to my business model? Obviously there's different businesses of different necessities and desires. And how can we work as a business to ensure that we can maximize the value of it, and for both ourselves and our customer base?

Simon Ward (33:12):

We tend to tailor the partnership model to whatever ... well, for each individual business from for either industry or just the capabilities of that. So we can have a very light touch referral process. For example, if there's an expression of interest in online ordering from one of their clients, then referring it on to us and we would have quite a comprehensive way of tracking referrals and sharing information on them.

Simon Ward (33:44):

The biggest or the most important part of that type of referral process is that it's a warm referral and that we would ask that it's a one-to-one basis. So one of our sales team would be in contact with the referral and the partner at the same ... or the client and the partner at the same time. So it's handed over and then dramatically improves the chances of it actually closing.

Simon Ward (34:08):

We have reseller programs as well. For example, you would have a business that might be a bit more hands-on with their clients and want to be responsible for all contracts, so they would contract directly with the restaurant, with the Flipdish contract and own that relationship and want to ... You tend to see this more in digital marketers or tech. And they want to kind of keep Flipdish as a tool, as part of their tool kit, and they'd be responsible for getting that contract over the line. And that's where they'll draw the line at that point. We'll still do all the activation.

Simon Ward (34:47):

And then the third one would be a total solution partner who would ... which we have a few of these, and they would really want to see this as part of their own infrastructure almost. So they will do the web building, they'll do the menu embedding or building also, and they'll do an element of customer success.

Simon Ward (35:07):

So we would have a customer success team. So every restaurant would have a customer success manager. And they would help restaurants navigate online to different degrees. Some restaurants have no experience in online ordering. Some hotels have say for example room service where you would phone the receptionist and they might want to move to a room service solution that we would have, and therefore our customer success manager would help them navigate that and use the experience that we'd have say with the Novotel Hotel Group to kind of say, "Oh, this is what works best," and then maybe expand the business out to looking after their table service in the restaurant, downstairs or whatever.

Simon Ward (35:47):

So the partner that is total solution would have that responsibility of growing with the restaurant and also looking after elements of our tech. There's three kind of buckets, very light referral, then a reseller that is basically responsible for getting the contract over the line, and then thirdly, you would have a total solution. Somebody who usually comes from the digital marketing or tech background can see that our solution is very simple to implement, and it really complements what they currently offer to restaurants. And then they keep it, they keep that customer really engaged in all of their products, and then it therefore increases the lifetime and the relationship that they would have with that client.

Susan Comyn (36:39):

Brilliant. And I suppose the one final question that's come in to you Darren is what are the advantages, the main advantages you've seen, but also what's your plan going forward with this, what's your future hold with Flipdish in your mind?

Darren Green (36:57):

Yeah. So our plan going forward as a business is Flipdish has already taken a position within our business of importance. We very much see it as the future to assist not just the existing customers but obviously prospects and people that are out there that are looking for online ordering systems and table ordering systems, probably pushing more towards table ordering now as things begin to open back up. And in partnership with Flipdish. Flipdish will help us with our marketing strategy to take it to a far wider audience and to increase sales and to build into us as a bigger element into our business. So we've got high hopes for this product to really help drive our business forward, and in doing so, assisting [inaudible 00:37:46] growth as well.

Susan Comyn (37:48):

And to close that off, I think in a closing statement then to the room is what would you say to a business that's considering taking on a partnership like this? Why would be the question. To yourself first Peter, why do you think a business would see the advantage of this outside of what we've discussed and the evidential reasons?

Peter Backman (38:10):

Well, I don't think the answer is outside of what we discussed. I think we've discussed all important reasons why businesses would be interested in what Flipdish has to offer. If it can address the issue about increasing sales, reducing costs, providing information, then I won't say job done, but those are the key issues that are facing anybody in any business, and particularly in the delivery spectrum.

Susan Comyn (38:47):

Absolutely. 100% agree. Simon, any closing thoughts on that?

Simon Ward (38:54):

There's a real feel-good factor when I talk to the partners that I work with, whether it be the actionable customer data and seeing them being able to position their sales team to grow their own brand based on information we've been able to give them, or it's a case of ... I know working with Darren, it's like seeing these restaurants grow and seeing their results, and it's such a positive experience. I've always worked for companies where if it was in online recruiting, it was a case of getting feedback. We've hired this amazing person. Thanks a lot. Or with CarTrawler it was like taking a small current company and watching them grow into a multinational brand.

Simon Ward (39:36):

And it's the same with Flipdish. You just get that feel good factor where restaurants like we have an NPS score with our restaurants that are between 45 and 50. You don't get that if we're distant, if we're not a part of their success. And that's what we get. We can't be described as a tech company, but we're really a tech and a kind of advisory or restaurant experts or industry experts. So that you can tap into that and you can see how these restaurants really benefit from it because they just don't have the time or the mind space to be really actively understanding what online or marketing is about. And it's a significant part of their business and their futures.

Simon Ward (40:27):

I think that it's just generally what partners would get from working with us is seeing the feedback from the restaurants looking at their growth and they're enjoying the fact that they now have the ability to communicate with their customers better and they also see this new stream of revenue coming in. I think that for me is what partners will get from it, and that would be feedback from be it a large global company or a bespoke tech company that exists in a small region in the UK.

Susan Comyn (41:04):

Anything to add to that Darren from the why perspective?

Darren Green (41:07):

Yeah. I think Peter and Simon covered quite a bit there. I think I'd just like to add that for us it's not just about being a supplier to our customers, it's almost straddling across to being a trusted advisor. When we're selling Flipdish, it's a satisfying sale. And the reason I say it's a satisfying sale is not from a commercial slant. It's a satisfying sale because we are providing a service to our clients that they want and they need. And once it's in place, it really does help their business thrive.

Darren Green (41:44):

We're not pushing something down their throat they probably don't really need or there's something out there that can already do this. That's not us, and what we do is we provide them the platform to be able to increase their revenues for their businesses to thrive and grow. That becomes a satisfying step for us and our customers become sticky to us because obviously we're providing them something that's good. We're not just out there to try and extract a sale for any reason other than to help them. So it's a satisfying three-way partnership between ourselves, Flipdish, and our clients.

Susan Comyn (42:18):

Absolutely. Well, I think there's no better way to end it on that very positive note. We would love to hear from you. We will reach out to everyone, and everyone who attended today will get a recording of this. If you go to flipdish.com/partners, you can learn more about our partnership program. There is a forum there where you can contact us directly to book a call with myself and Simon, or you can get on to me directly, susan.comyn, C-O-M-Y-N, @flipdish.ie, or via LinkedIn and we would be absolutely delighted to have a conversation with you.

Susan Comyn (42:56):

I want to thank you so much to Peter, Darren, and Simon for taking the time today to discuss this very interesting topic and hopefully you gained some insight into not only the industry itself but how Flipdish can help your business grow and importantly help you help your customers. So thank you so much for everything guys and have a lovely day.