How Green Street Restaurant Delivers Consistently Excellent Guest Experiences with PerformanceScope

Green Street Restaurant in Pasadena, Calif., is a local institution. A neighborhood staple since its launch 43 year ago, Green Street is known for its zucchini bread and wide menu consisting of breakfast, lunch and dinner. It’s expansive patio gives guests an elevated California outdoor dining experience.

As a multi-generational, family-operated business, guest expectations run high due to its long-term, leadership status in the community. Takeout and catering have been added to its operational portfolio, making Green Street a formidable competitor within the Pasadena dining landscape.

Because Green Street strives to maintain and build on its stellar community reputation, they look to industry veteran PerformanceScope to measure and track their guest experience. Since 2003, PerformanceScope has been helping restaurant operators measure and manage guest experience.

PerformanceScope was recommended to Green Street by an operational restaurant consultant. Green Street relies on the automated process PerformanceScope provides through its guest satisfaction surveys. The survey invitations are printed on every 4th check and are a great way to capture real and accurate feedback, said Green Street co-owner Bob Harrison.

Harrison provides operator insights below as he discusses the pros and cons of today’s operational environment and how PerformanceScope has helped Green Street better engage with guests.

How long have you worked with PerformanceScope?

I think it’s been maybe three or four years. When we learned about them we were impressed. As an operator, we are always looking for guest feedback and PerformanceScope is such a great and automatic way to capture it. We have a good response rate because it’s automated and takes guests only a short time to do, and there is a lot of information that we can pull out of there.

Some operators don't track guest satisfaction, why do you?

Well, for us, we always felt that our business has grown through word of mouth. So, our mission is simply to guarantee another visit because we know having that repeat customer is important. We want to make sure we’re paying attention and what PerformanceScope helps us do is reinforce the things we’re doing well. And when looking at the monthly results and seeing the trends, it also shows us where we need to do better.

How does PerformanceScope work?

PerformanceScope provided us with an excellent survey right away, but we had the ability to talk about the questions beforehand and adjusted a few of them before we launched. On every fourth check that’s printed at the restaurant there is a link to the survey and if they fill it out, the next time they come into the restaurant we give them a loaf of our zucchini bread. We are well known for that nationwide and ship our zucchini bread all over the country. So, it’s a big part of our brand and a great incentive. Once guests complete the survey, the survey results are immediately e-mailed to all of our partners plus our five managers automatically. They look at it and then we have a system in place to follow-up with the guest one-on-one if something needs to be addressed. This allows us to smooth things over, if need be. Hopefully, the guest says something right when they’re at the restaurant, but if not,

it’s an opportunity for us to have a conversation with them later. Honestly, we have built up such a loyal clientele that if someone has a poor experience, while they’re upset about it, they are more worried that it indicates something is happening with us. They become concerned that they may lose their neighborhood restaurant.

What role does PerformanceScope play in your business results?

If we’re performing better and using the information to make us better, we’re improving business results.

How do your guests like it?

Guests don’t mind doing this because it’s a short survey and optional. And, the incentive seems to be a good one.

Are there any challenges to tracking guest satisfaction?

It’s pretty simple overall. The only challenge is sometimes I thought it would be easier to raise some of the satisfaction numbers. But, when going through the longer evaluation with PerformanceScope founder Mark Netsch, he was more realistic about things. He would tell us what should be a concern and what we should let go of, and what the numbers actually mean. We know we’re going to screw up, but when we do, we want to know about it and make adjustments.

How do you calculate the ROI on your guest satisfaction measurement program?

We’re looking at it for adjustments. We’d rather read feedback through PerformanceScope than on a Yelp review. I also make sure that every four weeks I print out a report card on every category we track and measure. We then pick the top three areas that scored low for that period and concentrate on improving those areas. For us, it’s about keeping those things top of mind that need improvement.

Any advice you would give another operator?

I think the best advice is to look at this as a tool to compare how you’re doing with your guests and other brands nationwide. One nice option is we can use PerformanceScope as a way to compare ourselves to all of the other restaurant companies using the service at the national level. That’s a great benchmark for us. Then, you take a step back and look at your training methods and review best practices.

You’re only as good with your guests as the last visit. This makes you realize that everyday is a new experience. This gives us an opportunity to correct something and it also gives us the ability to constantly improve.