Phil Wright
I'm delighted to say we've got Paul Pleydell from Pleydell Smithyman, Helen Lloyd from Stratford Garden Centre, Johnny Critchley-Salmonson from Scotsdales and Justin Williams from Fron Goch Garden Centre. I'm just going to ask each of you to introduce yourselves, and we'll probably come back this way. So we'll start with you, Justin.
Justin Williams
I'm from Fron Goch Garden Centre in Caernarfon, North Wales. We've recently put a lot of technology into our restaurant, and I think that's probably the most relevant thing to talk about today, with this argument over technology and innovation versus being a people business.
We've refitted our restaurant over the last three or four years, moving away from a servery-based system to a cook-to-order system. One of the main reasons was that we decided our servery didn't really meet the same standards of offering to customers as the rest of the business. We also felt, coming off the back of Covid, that the environment wasn't good enough for our team. They weren't enjoying their work. You had these huge surges of customers and we wanted to make it more sustainable and more enjoyable for them, which also helps with recruitment.
The main crux of the refit was moving to cook-to-order, extending the kitchen and putting in kitchen screens instead of kitchen printers. Then, with the ordering system, we went from three tills with people on them, or 'human tills' as I like to call them, down to one, and introduced QR-code ordering at the table, which plenty of us have seen now. We've also implemented three ordering kiosks on the wall. All of this is through the same Corby+Fellas system.
So we have an ordering area where people can go if they're not ordering via the app at the table. They can go to the main till, or our team can use those kiosks as assisted tills as well, so they don't have to be self-service. That's where we've done most of our innovation in the restaurant.
Phil Wright
Johnny?
Johnny Critchley-Salmonson
Hi, I'm Johnny, from Scotsdales Garden Centre. We've got three garden centres in Cambridgeshire. We've recently opened a new restaurant as part of a redevelopment; we're just over a year in. Similar to Justin, we've really changed the way we let customers come in, how they order and how we deliver our service. We've moved away from tray self-service and introduced QR codes and ordering points.
It's been a huge change for our customers, and we've had to adapt over the last year to make sure we don't alienate anyone.
Helen Lloyd
I'm Helen Lloyd from Stratford Garden Centre, and more recently, about 18 months ago, we bought Warwick Garden Centre. So we're operating two centres, one south of Stratford and one north of Stratford.
We've always had a hybrid system in our restaurant. You order at the till and all the drinks and food are brought to you, rather than being self-service. During Covid we introduced a QR-code ordering system, which I think many people did. We've now introduced that at Warwick as well. Like Justin, we've got kitchen screens at Warwick, but interestingly we haven't at Stratford, and we've got a little bit of work to do with the staff there, who are a bit against screens. That might be part of our discussion today.
We've definitely seen a better spend from people ordering on the app. Like these guys say, I think it is the way forward. We've not quite gone to kiosks yet, although we have looked at that. We do still have customers who want to order at the till. And sometimes we've got regulars coming in for whom we are possibly their only contact in a day, so I still think that personal interaction is important as well.
Phil Wright
Right, excellent. Paul, it's slightly different for you. Tell us a little about some of the projects you've been involved in.
Paul Pleydell
Thank you. Good afternoon. I'm Paul Pleydell from Pleydell Smithyman. We're design and business consultants specialising in the garden centre and farm shop sector, and other rural developments.
Rather flippantly, at a dinner a year or so back, somebody said, 'Introduce yourself and say what you do.' I just said, 'We help people to make money.' At the bottom line, that is what we do. Traditionally, those of you who know us as a business will know we're very much involved in physical change, growth, development and improvement of garden centres and farm shops.
But over recent years, people have been coming to us saying, 'We're seeing a big dent in our net trading profit. How can you help us restore £140,000, £270,000, all sorts of numbers, back into our net trading profit just to stand still?' There are a lot of pressures coming from changes in legislation and all the other forces you're aware of that are impacting businesses. Those are the tough decisions we're being forced to make.
So we're quite often faced with that balancing act, which I think we'll all touch on: is this about being a people business and about customer experience, or is it about the bottom line and money? How do we gently balance those things?
We're trying to be proactive in the advice we give people on technologies coming through, but we're also sometimes reactive to what our clients want to do. We listen. So we're design consultants, we're business consultants and, judging by three conversations I've had today, we're also therapists! Nice to be here, anyway. Thanks, Phil.
Phil Wright
Right. Today's session is Hi-Tech vs Hi-Touch, and we're in a people business. We want people to come into the business. Justin, let's start with you. By implementing technology, isn't there some sort of disconnect between that technology and the people you're wanting to serve?
Justin Williams
I think we often think of it like that, and we're fearful of technology. Maybe we need to recognise that when we're thinking like that, we're just fearful of change. In fact, our main job is to be responsible for change, isn't it, if we want our businesses to be successful in another five or ten years' time?
Our main purpose is change, because people are changing the way they're living. Are they willing to tolerate queues? Are they willing to tolerate waiting? Do you see a supermarket with a queue now? Ten years ago you could have huge queues, but people simply won't tolerate that now. Not even in a McDonald's will they tolerate a queue.
It's changing for customers, and it's changing for our team members as well. Do people want to work in the same way they used to? Covid forced them to rethink how they're living their lives and what their priorities are. Many more people want lifestyle jobs. They certainly want a job they can do consistently and enjoy themselves.
Technology is one of the tools. We have the same business principles. We're still creating a place that's about people and visiting, and we're still focusing on the same experience, values and products that match our customer base. It's just one of the tools to make sure we retain our profitability, as Paul says.
People aren't saying, 'I want to come in and speak to the same amazing people on the till. I love Doris on the till. I love all four Dorises you've got standing on the tills, just waiting for the next person. They're high-quality employees, I have a great chat with them, and I want to pay the same price for that meal as I paid five years ago.' They're not saying that's what they want. We can't give them that, can we? We have to move on to make sure we give them a product and experience they're willing to pay for. That still means we're a people business.
Paul Pleydell
Can I just cut in on that, if I may, Justin? Helen up at Frosts Garden Centre has recently introduced two robots into their restaurant. Some of you might have seen them. I think they're called Albert and Petunia.
When staff go up to the customers, we talk about this human interaction and how important it is, and that it might be the only person somebody has spoken to that day or that week. But customers at Frosts are saying to the staff, 'No, no, no, we want Albert. We don't need you.' So they're actually asking for the robots, not the staff. Just an interesting twist.
Phil Wright
That's interesting. I think as long as whatever we do makes things better for the customer, they'll be happy with it. If we put technology in place and it isn't as good as before, if it isn't better, then we're in trouble. Johnny, let's bring you in. Tell us a little bit about how you approached that.
Johnny Critchley-Salmonson
I think the important thing, when you bring in that change, is having the right balance and the right communication. We launched the QR code and we were massively excited about it as a team: 'This is going to be great. It's going to be more efficient. Everyone's going to love it. The older people will get used to it.' But we sort of led with it.
When we opened the restaurant, we'd welcome people and say, 'Come in, find a table and you can order by your phone.' That put fear into people initially. So we had to change it. We had to welcome them in and say, 'Come in, find a table. You can place an order here or you can place an order yourself on the phone.' It gives them that option. The change wasn't just imposed on them straight away. They still had the option to order as they normally would, but if they preferred to order themselves, they could do that on the phone.
It's very stereotypical to think all older people won't use it. Certainly not. There are people who like to order in person and don't trust it, but a lot of our wiser customers also like using the technology.
Phil Wright
So you've offered a hybrid approach to that?
Johnny Critchley-Salmonson
Correct, yes.
Phil Wright
And Helen, what about you?
Helen Lloyd
I was just going to say the same. We thought it would be the older customer who'd be a bit fearful of the technology, and I don't think that's actually been the case.
We also find, and I'm probably going to be stereotypical here, that two ladies might come in for lunch. They don't want one of them sitting at the table while the other goes up and orders. They want to be sitting together, talking to each other as much as they can. So ordering through the app for somebody like that is perfect. And, as I said before, we've found that the average spend has gone up.
People might have a drink and lunch, and then there's the thought of having to go back up to order a cup of tea. But actually, they can just order that cup of tea or coffee at the table. We're seeing, I think, about 20% more average spend from customers ordering through the app.
Phil Wright
Do you think that affects the way your customers feel about the garden centre and their experience there? You're all involved in creating an experience for your customers, so does that have a direct impact?
Helen Lloyd
I mean, we're giving them a choice, aren't we? We're giving them that choice.
Justin Williams
If you're continuing to do things better, we know we're a people business. Do we have supervisors and managers on the shop floor and on the restaurant floor? Of course we do. Are they looking out for people who might be a little lost, who aren't sure what to do or who need extra help? Of course they are.
Do we have brilliant table clearers who have a little chat: 'How are you? Are you OK? Do you need some tomato sauce?' And then go and help them? Yes. They're doing things technology can't do, and they're doing them better. They're problem-solving, providing the personal touch, welcoming people: 'Oh, hello, Mrs Jones, how are you?' They're doing all the valuable stuff.
They're not saying, 'Would you like that in a large or a small? Would you like extra milk?' and asking the same things thousands of times a day. Nobody wants to do that.
Johnny Critchley-Salmonson
Food has been growing and growing in our sector for so many years, and as it gets more and more popular, restaurants have had to expand. It's not feasible now to try to serve 400 or 500 people all at once, standing at a till. You have to adapt so you can still serve your customers, the kitchen can cope, your staff can cope and you can still deliver that excellent quality of food and service.
Paul Pleydell
There's an interesting point here, taking Justin's point, but going back a stage. I was concerned when Helen was talking about older customers just now; she glanced at me three times! I think she might have been looking at Phil.
Anyway, when Covid came along, a lot of our clients, a lot of garden centres and restaurant catering businesses, were forced into table service. What was fascinating was the lift in average transaction value. Things went up quite considerably. With QR-code ordering, they went up again. Some people we were working with saw their average spend go from about £9 to £13.50, then up to about £18. Suddenly, that technology and change that Justin says we're all a bit fearful of seemed quite attractive, because it was bringing in a lot more money.
You can all theorise about that. I never order well in a restaurant. I'm always chatting to people and then somebody says, 'What do you want?' and I go, 'I'll have one of those.' If I had time, I'd have one of those and probably one of those with it, and a bit of this with that as well.
I take Helen's point really strongly in a positive way. When we go out with friends or family now, it's no longer cheap. In fact, it's quite expensive. When did starters become £12 and £14? But they are!
Phil Wright
You're sounding old!
Paul Pleydell
I am old, anyway! When I'm spending a lot of money, I want it to be a really positive experience. If Helen and I go for lunch, I want to sit with Helen. I want to chat to her, enjoy her company and talk about the business and everything else. I don't want to be standing in a queue for five minutes. That's not what it's about. We need to face the customers.
You and I had a really good chat here last year in one of your podcast sessions. You asked me what I wanted to see in the garden centre industry in five years' time, and I said, 'More people smiling.' I mean all of you, all the guys here and all the customers.
We measure sales per square metre very deeply and in great detail. We know what good looks like as performance, and we can hold centres against that. At a GCA conference many years ago, somebody talked about 'smiles per metre squared'. I think that concept of delight and joy, and making sure that anything we do to automate or bring in technology doesn't erode that, is important. That's all I would say.
Phil Wright
Excellent. Have you all seen average transaction values going up as well?
Johnny Critchley-Salmonson
Yes, certainly. I think people are more confident about ordering what they want. I like a Caesar salad, but I also like a side of chips with it. I feel much more confident ordering that on my phone than I would going up to the counter and having my chip croutons, with somebody judging me!
People ordering puddings and desserts has gone up. And if they just fancy another Coke or another soft drink, they don't have to go up and order it. They can do it on their phone, use Apple Pay and within three or four minutes it's delivered to their table. So there's that convenience and those additional orders after the original one.
Justin Williams
There's a lot of research on this, and it's just like Johnny is saying. There's a removal of that guilt factor. If you want to come in at 9.30 and order two gateaux at 9.30, you can do that. You don't have to face somebody to do it. There's a lot of data from companies that have already put this in.
There's also a removal of that pressure when you're at the front of a queue and there are a whole lot of people behind you and you're trying to make decisions. At the table, you've got much more time to make additions. We see a lot more additions coming through.
We have one human till left, and that has an average spend of £16.20, but the app has an average spend of £20.30. That's much higher. And, as Johnny says, people have instant access.
I remember before we changed over from the servery, on one of those busy autumn days, a customer came up to me and said, 'I've just queued 30 minutes to get our meal, and I've realised I've forgotten my daughter's drink. Do I have to go back to the end of the queue?' And I said, 'I'm really sorry, but at the moment, yes. We're hoping to change it.'
To have a model where you're serving food in eight to ten minutes and at any time you can reorder, with free access to order whenever you want, is nothing but an improvement and an enhancement for the customer, isn't it?
Paul Pleydell
Can I ask a question? I'm sitting this side, so I feel this side should ask questions! In that situation, all these people are in your restaurant ordering their food. We had a client where this happened. They went to an ordering system like that and, rather than the coffee machine and the queue controlling the ability to deliver, all the orders arrived at the same time. I'm interested in how you've managed to handle that in your setups.
Johnny Critchley-Salmonson
Yes, that happens. Certainly from October half-term through to Christmas is our busiest period for footfall in the café. You can get 200 coffees in ten minutes, all ordered on the phone. I think there are algorithms that can be put in place to communicate waiting times, but the most important thing is communication with customers.
When the orders come in, let them know there's a 20-minute wait, even if it's only ten. If there's a half-hour wait, let them know it's 40 minutes. If they're happy to order, they'll order. It's about understanding those pinch points. Sometimes you just have to turn the app off as well. That's happened to us before. If we're overwhelmed with orders, we have to turn the QR-code ordering off. By that point the restaurant will already be so busy that you might have to stop placing people at tables as well. But it's understanding those pinch points before they happen and communicating.
Helen Lloyd
We were fearful of that, because you're completely right: you can control the speed with a till. We've always done that. You order at the till and then you go and sit down. On a good day, your drinks are pretty much following you to the table, but we do have days, on a busy weekend, when that's different.
I think if you manage people's expectations, that's fine. I don't think we've ever had to switch ours off. The orders come through in the right order. If you order at the till, your order comes out and then the app order comes out. We were worried that people ordering at the till would think those ordering on QR codes were getting theirs more quickly, but they're all in the same system. I think as long as you explain that, it's fine.
Justin Williams
When you move to something new, it's a bit like opening a new restaurant or coffee shop. You build the back of house to cope with the volumes once you understand what you're dealing with. Sometimes you turn on a new feature or ordering system and then you have to build up the resilience, the right number of people and the right systems to cope with it.
We have two ways of operating. We have a welcome sign at the restaurant that says, 'Please take a seat.' There are menus on the tables with instructions on how to order. While we're coping, people can come in and seat themselves. If we get close to capacity, we're running out of tables, there's a labour shortage or a breakdown affecting output, we have another sign that says, 'Please wait here,' and we host.
We only have to host at the busiest times, but it means we can pretty much always maintain eight-to-ten-minute service. That doesn't change. Sometimes you might have to queue to come in, but once you're in, you can reorder as many times as you want and it should stay within those parameters.
So we control it to make the service consistent, whichever day it is. It's the same for team members, too. Nobody wants that nightmare scenario of getting absolutely slammed, because that's what we had in the days of the servery.
And an interesting point on the kitchen screens, which Helen mentioned: one of your centres has put them in and the other is a little reluctant. Normally you've got kitchen printers. I don't know if you've ever stood next to a kitchen printer for hours, but it's the most stressful thing. We decided to get rid of them and move to screens partly for resilience, because if your kitchen printer goes down you're in deep trouble.
With kitchen screens, you have one for every point. You might have one at the expediting pass, one at the chef's pass, one for sandwiches, one for hot desserts and then screens for drinks. You can direct the orders and split them to the right places, and at the expediting point they can see all those components.
If you're in a kitchen with a printer, I can tell you now that you don't want more than 15 tickets up. Each one might have four meals on it. If you see 25 tickets on the floor, everyone's mind in that kitchen explodes. It's an awful experience because of the pressure.
With kitchen screens, you're not looking at that pile of tickets. We could have 30 orders on, and nobody knows it. They're just plodding on, focused on the job in hand, not getting wound up, anxious or worried. Our actual volume increased, and we didn't expect that. We'd put the screens in because we thought it would be a better environment and a better way to work. It was an interesting thing to discover.
Helen Lloyd
The other good thing about the kitchen screens is that, say you're doing a jacket potato with prawns and you run out of prawns, you can mark them as sold out. On the app they don't appear as an option. You can control that side of it as well, which saves somebody having to go out to customers and say, 'I'm really sorry, we've run out of prawns.' It takes that issue away completely.
Phil Wright
Other than occasionally being overwhelmed by orders coming in, when you're putting all that faith in technology, sometimes gremlins creep into the system. Johnny, I know you've got experience of this. What happens when it all goes wrong?
Johnny Critchley-Salmonson
We've had it once, and it was bad. We had 350 food orders. They were all on the screens and the internet went down. I don't really know what happened, but we lost sight of all the orders. We had to close the doors, run around with pieces of paper, apologise and take all the orders again.
It's happened once and it hasn't happened again, but it's a terrible time. I tried to find a cupboard to hide in, because every customer and every staff member was coming to find me! There is that reliance on technology, so you need to make sure you're as equipped as you can be to handle those situations quickly. In those circumstances you just have to go back to the old-school pen and paper. But you need to speak to the service providers, find out why it happened and hope it never happens again. It hasn't for us.
Phil Wright
Justin, have you had any issues?
Justin Williams
Touch wood, not a total failure in any way. I think it's like any technology. You wouldn't argue, 'I'm not moving to a dishwasher. What happens if it breaks down?' Johnny doesn't break down; he can stay washing dishes! We're not saying that, are we? We might put two dishwashers in or three dishwashers. We make sure we've got the right ones. There's resilience with any machinery, isn't there?
In fact, kitchen screens are better because you haven't got just one kitchen printer. Each section has a screen. They're all on Wi-Fi, and you can open a laptop if a single piece goes down.
Obviously it is reliant on technology. But once you get to quite a large business, you can't really run it without that. We can't run the front of the business if the power goes down on the main tills. We've given up trying to keep old emergency tills going. If the power's off, we're closed.
Helen Lloyd
I think probably the biggest problem we had with technology and the app was when we opened Warwick, which is actually in north Stratford. It sits somewhere between Warwick and Stratford, but we already had Stratford Garden Centre, hence calling the other one Warwick Garden Centre.
We had an issue where somebody ordering on the app at Warwick had their order going through to Stratford. We did some work with Corby+Fellas on the locations and making sure it was all set up properly. For a couple of days Liz, who's in the audience, was frantically trying to turn the app off. We'd have people going out with a dish to table 20, and table 20 had already got their food. Then you'd realise somebody at Warwick was sitting at table 20 wondering where their food was. But we did sort that out.
We've had power cuts as well. We've got a generator at Stratford, so that all kicks straight back on, but we haven't at Warwick. On the day we had our first EHO inspection, the power went off, and then the GCA inspector turned up as well. So we had a triple whammy! But you just adapt, don't you? That's where your staff come into it, because they just get on with it.
Johnny Critchley-Salmonson
When you make a change, the most important thing is allowing for teething problems and giving your customers and staff some time. It isn't just going to happen overnight: you open a new system, a new operation, and everyone's going to love it. It takes three months. It's about learning what the problems are, making small adjustments to make sure you're running efficiently and that the staff are happy and the process is working for you.
Your customers are loyal. They understand when there's a bit of a crisis, and they're with you.
Justin Williams
Certainly, on what Johnny says about changing systems, you've got to sell it and prepare your team properly. You can't underestimate how much you must include everyone and move them towards that end goal. You have to sell change.
I think there are some quotes that Katie put on the wall in our office. It's not one person who's responsible for change in this business; it's everyone. But we do have to prepare well for it. When you get resistance in the team, it's because you haven't prepared them well enough. And if we can't deal with customer problems, it's because we haven't foreseen them, spotted them or reacted to them, just as Johnny says.
Paul Pleydell
I think that's something we're seeing with a lot of clients at the moment. Things are getting tighter, money's getting tighter and it's getting more difficult to make things work. People have to be sharper. A client of ours came up with a lovely phrase recently, which I've adopted: the idea of a 'frictionless business'.
It's about looking at those pinch points, those areas where things could go wrong, and making sure you've got strategies in place. You've got backup plans or you're trying to eliminate those problems altogether. That's operational, back of house, but it's also very much from the customer's point of view.
What we've done extremely well as an industry, partly forced by Covid, is move away from servery service and queuing up with a plastic tray. As I often say, where else do you hold a plastic tray with your food on it? School, prison, hospital. Are those places where we want to be? We've got to the point where we're celebrating the customer and creating the right environment for them. It's about eliminating those little points where things get tight and there's friction.
The other thing I was thinking about, changing the subject slightly, is that years ago when most garden centre cafés had a servery-based offer, people went up and queued. It was only when their bottom hit the seat and they started eating and drinking that they occupied the table.
Now Helen and I might arrive for lunch and have a chat. 'Shall we order?' 'Oh no, let's carry on chatting about this.' Finally we place the order, and then wait ten or twelve minutes for it to arrive. We're taking up space. So, since pre-Covid, we've found that the allocation of space to restaurant seating is growing. People have also got used to having a bit of room around them when they're eating. That old 'pack them in' approach has gone, and the ratios we're working with are quite different.
That's all about giving customers a frictionless experience: being able to have a private conversation without the table next to you overhearing, not having to wait for your food. I love that concept of making our businesses as frictionless as possible.
Phil Wright
Well, I think that just about wraps things up for us. Justin, Johnny, Helen, Paul, thanks so much for your time. Can we give them a round of applause? Thank you.