Freddy’s VP of Guest Experience Tim Woodburn on Why Connection Still Matters

Stopping by the booth next for our National Restaurant Association Conversations series was Tim Woodburn, VP of guest experience at Freddy’s Frozen Custard & Steakburgers. We discussed the same three topics on innovation, skeptical innovation, and the crystal ball.

Also, here’s a step back in time to see some of the going-ons at the burger brand, which, to Woodburn’s point, was evolving through an experience-centric lens

And continue the conversation with restaurant leaders, like Freddy’s CEO Chris Dull, at our QSR Evolution Conference in Atlanta. Registration is open here.

This is not just the restaurant industry, but AI is finally coming to a place where it can be helpful in crunching data and figuring out where the opportunities are. One of the biggest things that’s been helpful to us was we joined forces with Tattle a couple of years ago to bring in guest feedback.

So, I’m in guest experience. I love more feedback because it’s an opportunity to figure out what can we do to better serve the guests and what’s working for us?

Tattle is innovating. It’s pretty cool. They’ve been great partners for us.

I mentioned AI before. It’s got so much potential. It’s improved so much over the past several years. The last six months it seems like it’s grown so fast. There’s a lot of skepticism around it, but I think we’re finding some opportunities in there as it gets stronger and better for us to be able to use it safely and to ultimately improve our operations through understanding the data.

Most of the instances where we interact with it, we’re essentially helping it understand our brand and feeding it our standards. So, using it through the lens and filter of Freddy’s.

I think the industry as a whole is starting to understand the importance of human connection. We can get more efficient. But people still crave interacting with other people. You can have the best guest experience with that interaction, because you build a connection, you build relationships. I’ve been with Freddy’s for quite a while (coming up on 17 years).

So much of that, when I was a manager in the restaurant or even a team member, was about building a connection with the guest. They help us learn. They tell us what we’re doing right. That makes us feel great. The stuff that we learn that we need to get better at. We take it to heart. We talk to the team. We improve.

I think that shows connection is still important.