Restaurant leaders visit competitors as secret shoppers to spot weaknesses: undertrained staff, employees who just take orders, poor product knowledge. These gaps become opportunities to build a better strategy and guest experience.
Like, play your best game, but always know what the competition is up to. So, we analyzed their business. I even sent my own leaders that worked for me into different restaurants and said, go out to dinner at this place and report back. And they would almost be like secret shoppers for somebody else's business. And then, they would bring back what they saw that was working and what wasn't working. And most of it was based on a very obvious lack of training and just order takers on the floor, people that weren't knowledgeable about the products of the restaurant, people that weren't bringing the experience to life, people that weren't using their unique personalities to be brand ambassadors for that business. We saw all of it. But it really was foundational to keep an eye on the competition.
