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How Curry Up Now, Pei Wei and Kizuki meet the unbranded search challenge

Three fast casual Asian-centered foodservice brands took to the stage at the Fast Casual Executive Summit in Seattle to talk about the profitable digital landscape that most diners occupy today during those hunger-panged moments before deciding where to eat -- the unbranded search.

Photo: iStock.

November 12, 2018 by S.A. Whitehead — Food Editor, Net World Media Group

Editor's Note: An earlier version of this article ran on Fast Casual, a sister publication of Food Truck Operator.

Three fast casual Asian-centered foodservice brands took the stage at the recent Fast Casual Executive Summit in Seattle to talk about the  digital landscape that most diners occupy today during those hunger-panged moments before deciding where to eat — the unbranded search. 

Whether the diner-to-be is hitting the internet to find the best Indian establishment or just the nearest chain with a great burger, this method of selection is "where it's at" when it comes to winning and losing customers in today's digital environment. 

Represented on the panel, moderated by Yext Head of Industry's Lee Zucker, were:

• Curry Up Now co-founder/CEO Akash Kapoor.
• Kizuki Senior Digital Marketing Manager Janet Brooks.
• Pei Wei CMO Brandon Solano.

The discussion included many thoughts about how smaller brands can still be players in this complex game of unbranded search when competing against larger corporate brands that can, and do, employ substantial IT departments to handle the technological challenges unbranded search presents on a daily basis.  

But this trio said their brands are definitely in the ring competing hard, and here we share some of the discussion beginning with Zucker's query into what each brand has put their dollars behind this year and what they plan to put bucks into in 2019. 

At Pei Wei, Solano said the brand's first priority since splitting from its partnership with fine dining brand, P.F. Chang's, has been to  establish an e-commerce presence that has the brand standing on its own two feet. "For us, getting e-commerce up and running has been critical and we launched a new e-commerce platform in 62 days," Solano said. 

Meanwhile, Kizuki partnered with Yext, which Brooks said has given the brand much quicker responsiveness and even the gift of time, since Yext controls many of the tasks once fulfilled in-house. 

"We partnered with them to allow them to control the information online about us ... and that gives us live-time control for our restaurants," she said. "For example, we had a power outage (at a location) and we were able to go on right away and relay what was happening. ... Then in 2019, we'll be investing in CRM and loyalty more."

In meeting the challenges of unbranded search with delivery customers, Kizuki realized great benefits when the brand aggregated its technology. 

"So we just went through and got everything all set up with an aggregator," Brooks said. "Now they're all working from one tablet for live-time orders as they come through. .... I think in 2019 we'll be looking at our website to redefine that and delivery will be a huge part of that."

But the name of the game in unbranded search is making your brand not only appear, but appear relevant to that so-called "hungry searcher." Along that vein, Zucker asked the brands how customers ultimately find out about their brands. At Curry Up Now, Kapoor said he does a practice he "learned from my dad — catch-and-grab." 

He explained that the brand "catches" customers by doing a lot of online conversation and blurbs about school related and community activities. He said as the brand expands to new areas, they're also starting to expand this practice to those communities. 

But at Pei Wei, Solano said he still thinks that capturing a presence online begins with the customer experience onsite since that generates good reviews that appear online as part of unbranded searches. 

That brought the conversation around to each brand's practices as they relate to their franchisees. Zucker wanted to know how much or how little control each chain afforded their franchisees via social media and other online channels. The answer to that question, like what these brands do in day-to-day practice, was basically, "It depends."

"I don't think there's a right or wrong here," Kapoor said. "We launched an in-restaurant review thing called 'Tattle' a couple of months ago and it gives the immediate response from a guest, and we opened that up to some of the managers (in the event they received) a bad review and it got very personal very quickly." 

At Pei Wei, Solano said one particularly dicey experience jolted him into instituting the chain's current practice of keeping the lion's share of control in corporate hands. It occurred after a franchisee made a political endorsement on social media, which prompted laughs and a few gasps from business owners in the audience who could certainly relate.  

"So I really don't like them having access to our social media channels," Solano said. "We do let them respond to reviews, but in general ... the power of social media really magnifies it when you have a misstep. ... so you can run into a lot of trouble."

Photo: iStock

About S.A. Whitehead

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Pizza Marketplace and QSRweb editor Shelly Whitehead is a former newspaper and TV reporter with an affinity for telling stories about the people and innovative thinking behind great brands.