CASE STUDY: Salad House Taps into Guest Feedback to Improve Operations and Guest Satisfaction
CASE STUDY: Salad House Taps into Guest Feedback to Improve Operations and Guest Satisfaction
Salad House improves guest experience, supports franchisees, and increases reviews volume using real-time feedback tech.
Salad House, a fast-casual restaurant concept known for its fresh, customizable salads, sandwiches, and wraps, wanted a better way to communicate with every guest on every order and support its franchisees with smart operations solutions. Operational excellence and guest satisfaction are core to the brand’s identity, but despite fulfilling thousands of orders a day, Salad House was getting minimal feedback, gathering only about five Google reviews daily across all locations, if that. The team needed a solution that captured guest sentiment at scale and made it easy to act on the data in real time.
THE CHALLENGE
In a highly competitive segment, Salad House knew being "customer obsessed" meant hearing directly from guests, and doing something about it. But without meaningful, real-time feedback, it was hard to know what was going right (or wrong) across its 20 stores, the majority of which are franchise locations.
Moreover, when a franchise partner experienced declining sales, there was no clear path to quickly diagnose the issue unless someone from the brand visited the store to investigate and support improvement.
THE RESULTS
Since engaging Ovation in August 2024, Salad House has seen measurable improvements in both guest satisfaction and business performance:
2,500+ customers who initially left a less than “loved” response were saved. These are guests who left a less than great review, were responded to by the brand and returned to order again from Salad House.
160 average surveys per location per month
.2 increase in Google star rating across locations
28% more public reviews
Same Store Sales grow 9.7% year-over-year (brand average)
Real-time franchisee coaching using store-level data
95% Customer Retention Rate
The Solution
Salad House rolled out Ovation, a customer feedback platform that integrates directly with ordering channels like Olo, Thanx and Grubhub.
One of the most impactful results was that Salad House could observe guest reviews without needing to travel to a restaurant to investigate in-person.
“We’d hear a store was struggling, and instead of driving hours to check on it, we started pulling up Ovation,” said Jarrod Bravo, Director of Operations/Partner at Salad House. “More often than not, the issue was clear—negative reviews with no response, questions or complaints that were going unaddressed.”
More specifically, roughly 30 minutes after a guest places an order, they receive a mobile-friendly text inviting them to take a two-question survey in exchange for a chance to win a gift card.
The first question: How was your experience? (Guests answer using 5 emoji-style icons.)
If positive, guests are prompted to leave a public review. Links are customizable to direct users to review sites, merch promos, or gift card pages.
If not “Loved,” they’re asked "Thanks! How can we improve?" or "Oh no! Could you tell us about it?"—an open-ended prompt that gets right to the point. Feedback is routed directly to the Salad House team in real-time, with AI-generated response suggestions that can be used at the operator’s discretion, resolution templates, and the option to issue offers instantly.
Ovation’s AI categorization and heatmapping also allow the corporate team to analyze themes, trends, and store-level performance, without needing to be on-site.
“Ovation gives an on demand, real-time way to communicate with guests and also assess the health of a store as it relates to guest satisfaction. That gives us the power to quickly understand what is happening, make a plan and get into action. This tool is essential in delivering our promise to both our guests and our franchissees,” shared CMO David “Rev” Ciancio.