You Have All This Taproom Data, Now What?
First off, thank you for reading. Simply being here shows your dedication to crafting world-class taproom experiences, for both guests and everyone on your team.
We live in a time where no longer can you rely on your guests to return for just the beer. Guests want an experience made up of delicious beer, a memorable atmosphere, and engaging staff. Failure to provide any of the three may result in them choosing the brewery down the street for future visits. Through data, you have the power to better understand guests’ expectations, maximize the workplace for your staff, and help create brewery experiences that equally make beer drinkers crave more of your brand and increase your employees’ satisfaction.
If you’re not taking advantage of this data, then you are impacting your profitability.
Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results. This is akin to having all this feedback on your customers’ experiences but doing nothing to make their next visit better. You keep pushing the rock up the hill, only to be damned each time when it rolls right back down. You want higher tabs. Higher tips. Guest returning sooner. However, if you don’t use the data and put the work in, then nothing will change.
Here's how to use it.
1. Understand it – Before even diving deep into the data, know what you’re getting into. Are you familiar with the terminology that the company presenting the data is using? Whether the data is through Secret Hopper, your POS partner, or another platform, do you know what you’re looking at? Do you know how to access the data points you’re interested in? Take the time to speak with the company to understand what is available, how it is generated, and what it means. These conversations may also open your eyes to data sets that you didn’t even know existed. (I’m always up for a call. Let’s talk taproom experience!)
2. Review it – There are some Secret Hopper breweries that receive our reports month after month and show minimal to no improvements. I’m glad they want to have this data, but we want them to use it. Whether we’re talking about your most recent Secret Hopper monthly report or taking the time to look at trends from your POS data, the first step is dedicating time to review it. Begin by blocking off a 30-minute window. Quickly reading our reports will give you immediate insight into which team members are engaging at a high level, and who may not be performing at the level you wish. Being able to understand the data in front of you and consume it during a short period of time is important. You’re busy, and we want to make things easy for you and the million hats you wear.
3. Share it – You’ve taken the time to understand and review the data yourself, but the odds are, you aren’t the one interacting with the bulk of guests. Your staff need to be privy to feedback. With the bulk of the data and feedback you have being objective, these are concrete numbers and facts you can present to your team about the quality of your taproom’s experience. From the Secret Hopper side of things, did the staff member offer recommendations? Introduce themselves? Encourage beer to go? Thank you upon leaving? These are things that either happened, or they didn’t. It is vital that you create a safe setting to share the findings. Decide whether reviewing the data in a team meeting is most appropriate or if it is better shared one-on-one. Either way, if you want your team to grow from the past, they need to be aware so you can together create goals for the future. In most situations, the data should be first presented as a “this is the current quality of experience” vs “you’re doing a terrible job.” I much prefer using data to improve/motivate as opposed to using data to discipline. If the data isn’t shared with your team, you can’t expect change.
4. Analyze it - Johnny consistently receives 17% tips, Janae averages 25%. Someone is engaging at a higher level than the other. Take a guess who. Use this as an opportunity to show Johnny that there exists room to interact at a more meaningful level. Taking the time to offer greater recommendations, check back a tad more, ask questions, and truly invest in each guest will result in Johnny’s guests having a more positive experience, and Johnny also seeing the benefits. Reward Janae for building meaningful relationships, challenge her to continue doing a great job, and even review the data on her service to discover missed opportunities and ways to be even more awesome. Even your best rockstars can learn from feedback.
5. Train from it – It could be easy to jump from analyzing it to using it, but then you would be leaving out an important step. It is necessary to train your team on the new habits you wish to see. A team member may see the areas of opportunity, but as a manager/owner, it is your responsibility to provide them the tools to see the desired results. By building relationships with your staff, you should know the best methods to educate, and motivate. One approach may be team meetings dedicated to certain skills. If your team is not doing a strong job of offering recommendations, invite your head brewer to lead a tasting and walk through the flavor profiles and how to describe them to guests. Part of these training should be demonstrating to your staff the expected benefit from certain behaviors. Let’s talk about a first-time visitor to your taproom. Did you know that when a guest is encouraged to begin with a flight that their tabs are 25% higher? Did you know that when taproom staff begin a visit with a “hello” or similar welcoming gesture that they receive an average tip of 24.2% vs 21.5% on visits not beginning in this manner? Following this same “hello” stat, these same team members see tabs 6.5% higher. Stress to your team how these little actions can make a big difference. It is important that they understand the benefit from the behavior. And it is equally as important that you teach them how to put it into practice.
6. Apply it – This is when you and your team get in the game, demonstrate the new behaviors, and work toward greater success. The more naturally these interactions are, the deeper the relationships you will form with your guests. Don’t just serve your guests beer, offer them an experience. Wow them and make it your goal to turn every guest into a regular. It takes time to form new habits, but the desire to be better will result in greater taproom success.
7. Repeat
Professional development isn’t a one-time thing. We should all be continually working to learn and improve from our past behaviors. Single trainings focused on a certain skill are great, but giving your staff access to regular educational opportunities, whether held within your brewery or through industry organizations, will demonstrate your investment in them and make them more valuable team members. Harness the data at hand and you have the power to see results at all levels of your brewery.