Manage Complexity, Maintain Quality: Hospitality Tech with Jeff Miller

Looking forward, Patrick, Shelli, and Jeff discuss AI-driven innovations, the transition from static to dynamic digital environments, and the physical and technological trends that are reshaping the industry.

Jeff highlights the importance of scalable innovation, and goes deep on his commitment to balancing technological advancements, while maintaining essential human connections.

• (00:27) Meet Jeff Miller
• (01:21) Jeff's Role at Coates Group
• (03:51) From Construction Engineering to Tech Consulting
• (11:28) Innovations in the QSR Space
• (15:28) Global Growth and Customer Connection
• (15:41) Evolution of Menu Boards
• (16:17) Optimizing Customer Experience
• (17:54) Challenges in Restaurant Technology
• (19:29) Traditional vs. New QSRs
• (25:42) Future of Customer Interactions

About Our Guest

Jeff Miller is the Chief Product Officer at Coates Group, and former Vice President of Retail Technology at Foxtrot. He has more than a decade of expertise in the retail and restaurant technology space, specializing in creating modern in-store experiences that seamlessly integrate with digital technology to enhance customer experiences. Prior to his leadership roles, Jeff earned his Bachelor of Science in Engineering from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

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Full Show Transcript 

Patrick: Hello, fellow innovators. This is Patrick Emmons.

Shelli: And this is Shelli Nelson.

Patrick: Welcome to the Innovation and the Digital Enterprise podcast, where we interview successful visionaries and leaders and give you insight into how they drive and support innovation within their organizations.

Shelli: Today, we're delighted to introduce Jeff Miller, Chief Product Officer at Coates Group and former Vice President of Retail Technology at Foxtrot. Jeff brings over a decade of expertise in the retail and restaurant technology space, specializing in creating modern in-store experiences that seamlessly integrate with digital commerce trends.

With a passion for leveraging insights and technology to enhance customer and employee experiences, Jeff believes in the power of engaged employees to drive brand loyalty and advocacy. Prior to his leadership roles, Jeff earned his Bachelor of Science in Engineering from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

Join us as we explore Jeff's journey through the evolving landscape of retail technology from his innovative roles at Foxtrot to his current position at Coates Group, where he continues to shape impactful connections between leading brands and their customers.
Welcome to the show, Jeff.

Jeff: Shelli, thank you. Awesome to be here.

Patrick: All right, Jeff, if you don't mind, share a little bit with our listeners about your role at Coates Group, and maybe even what is Coates Group for those who don't know.

Jeff: Totally. Isn't that quite a household name? So, Jeff Miller. Shelli mentioned Chief Product Officer. I have to admit, I probably got the coolest job at Coates. I get to work with amazing customers, we've got a cool product offering, and we've got an awesome partner set that allows us to go after business each and every day.

I've been in the business around restaurant retail for the past 15 years here. And when I first started, I'd come from a different industry. I'm like, "I'm going to be here for like 15 minutes." QSR, right? It's like, "What's so special here?" And I don't know what it was, whether it was the civil engineering education in me or just my love from Legos, but just the physical space and the customer experience and the employee experience, it's like there's nothing greater than being able to put things in people's hands and really make that connection for them.

I've been on this journey around how do you take happy employees and really drive happy customer experiences throughout this? And it's been a journey that I've been enjoying but, one, I never thought I would start on back in my college days, back at the University of Illinois. I think the thing that always struck me, from just a curiosity perspective, is something that just grow, like where are the areas that are growing? How do you begin to take new tech and apply it to interesting problems to solve?

I thought my career would be around concrete and steels, and it's about Is and Os and bringing it to life in physical spaces. I'm trying to figure out how it plugs into the omnichannel journey, right? So yeah, it's pretty exciting.

You mentioned Coates, right? We're not a household name, but if you've been through a drive-through, if you've been to a restaurant, QSR specifically, you've probably experienced our products. We are the leader in digital signage network for leading QSR brands. We have award-winning smart-enabled hardware. We have a flexible content delivery system, all powered by a growing analytics engine to really begin to understand and make the connection between customers, the employees and what's going on in that moment in time. All underpinned by an end-end services organization from content through installation, deployment, and support.

Patrick: That's awesome. So, dig a little bit back in your history.

Jeff: Take me back.

Patrick: Yeah. When you got out of school, because I know your background, but that jump, tell us a little bit more how that happened.

Jeff: I'd love to. So, construction and engineering was my start. Honestly, my first project in Chicago was on the Chicago E911 building just west here on Madison Street. It's my first opportunity to see the connection be like technology and physical structure. It's funny, construction projects, right? Multi-year projects. By the time I got there, and they were implementing the technology, the number one public safety software company was number four on the list, right?

So, it was like this continual, just drumbeat. It was my first offering and experience too around just like you know what happens when there's not a lot of sales in an office is you got to go find another gig. And my boss at the time, ironically, was a computer science major. He's like, "You know what, Jeff?" He's like, "You got to think about it." He's like, "You want to go travel the world? Do all these cool projects? That's awesome," he goes, "but tech's going to be where it's at, maybe take a chance."

So me, lots of my friends and peers and people today, I went to consulting path, found myself out at Accenture. It was still Andersen Consulting at the time, so I still remember all of the internal branding. It was like, "We've got our own sound, and we've got this cool bit." But it's such a great tech camp to go through and really cut your teeth on and really get a ton of experience around just the possibilities from it.

And you're young, got a lot of friends in the city and the dot-com boom was exploding at the time and it's like Schubas was a favorite place for my friends and I living up on the north side. And it's like, "You know what, we got some friends in financial services idea, let's go see if we can grab some money around a startup I think we've got a good idea around." And that's kind of where I got the bug where I was just like, "Hey, the opportunities are amazing here with technology. If you've just got the right problem to go solve here, let's go take those opportunities."

So, long story short, six months, a lot of evenings at Schubas, not a lot of good music, a lot of wrangling, but we got funding, started our own company, and five of us dropped into a white Cadillac and descended on Silicon Valley for our first set of meetings, and we felt on top of the world through it. It was like my first life lesson, around 80% of something is better than a hundred percent of nothing. It's like you get a fixed amount of funding, but it was like we were trying so hard to be perfection.

At the time, I was really focused around the sophisticated financial investor. So, if you think back to that time, it's like individual investing was started to come out, right? Everybody was starting to really own their own portfolio and premium content's going to be such a big deal. It was pure, just bringing content personalization, but you try and get it perfect and you miss the window.

And we started our exit strategy about the same time. Everybody started pulling back on it. And mid to late 20s, I'm like, "This is something I want to do, but I need a little bit more experience." So, I made the flip and found my way over in the telecom industry really as they were starting to digitize that area. So, it was really around consolidation of portals around the world as you began to think about, "Hey, maybe it's not such a great idea to send all these paper binders for how you manage networks around the company in order to train companies around the world."

So, first global experience, I still remember sitting in an office in Copenhagen trying to convince the person that the global solution was much better than their local solution. And he was yelling at me smoking a cigarette, wearing socks and Birkenstocks in his office telling me like, "This is not going to work here." And it was one of those times where it's like you kept fighting, you're just like, "You know what? Sometimes it's just good to listen and understand."

And I think as a good life lesson as you go through, it's just like you got good ideas, but really understanding the local context is really important and really to help shape and understand how you actually drive change through the organization. So, throughout this time, I was on the sales and marketing side, and I made the shift over to IT at that time. We were just talking about strategies like, "How do you talk the language of the business in tech through that?"

And I loved just that challenge. It's like, how do you take these pain points and be able to match and marry a story about what's possible through there? And that's how I found my way to McDonald's from a tech strategy perspective through there. And that's the same time digital is exploding throughout. It's just like it hit banking, it hit all these areas, and you're just starting to wonder as like, what does digital experience mean in a fast-food QSR-type environment on it? Just the complexity is amazing. I think, I can't remember the exact project name I got put on, but it was like what does the first digital ordering experience need to look like?

And it was something easy through or something like that. And I just remember sitting in there with the operations guy looking at me and going, "What's so hard about easy through there, Jeff?" But I think through my time, and just as I got more and more into product and innovation, I think what's really interesting is just getting out into the restaurants and really understanding the dynamics there because you pitch a good idea, you think it works really well, you're sitting in your own bubble. And you're just like, "Why isn't this stuff moving faster?"

And you go into a restaurant work there and you hear all the buzzers beeping, you hear the customers, you see all the cars coming through at you. And it's just like it's a very high-intense operation to try and introduce change through. And it's just eye-opening to me around the value of just that experience and bringing in all of these different voices, their technology, operations, marketing, through that. And it stuck with me as I go through. I'm an '80s kid and I love Breakfast Club. You're familiar with it?

Patrick: Of course.

Shelli: Of course.

Jeff: I feel like innovation a lot of times is just the Breakfast Club. It's a bunch of misfits coming together. And at the end of it, you get a really beautiful song and a journey. Everybody's got their arm pumped up there at the top for it, but it's all of those opinions to actually push this through. And I think that's what's really interesting about innovation in the restaurant. Space is just how complex it is, but when you get it right, it's just like it actually slows down, and it's actually really amazing to see.

And so, that's what I've been stuck, and I've had the luxury of working at really big companies, but then seeing it at really small level too over my past two roles before making the shift back to Coates on the supplier side. Just such an interesting position where we're at right now in this area right around customer interaction, digital has been just growing.

And then, you overlay it with AI now. It's like all of these human interactions times continue to shrink over time as things get faster and faster and more complex. But it's still that human connection a little bit that at the core still drives in a loyalty. And what I remember when I drive away from a restaurant and how do we look at the experiences that we design into our equipment and our software in order to really make the most of those experiences?

Shelli: That's awesome.

Patrick: Yeah. So given that, what do you think, with the current environment, what are you seeing from an innovation? Obviously, one of the patterns I see in your background in many is there was that transformation of post.com busts, IT technology, engineering, that schism kind of started there for most corporations, right?

Jeff: Yeah.

Patrick: And then, how to separate those two philosophies, methodologies, and then how to address some of the other challenges that we're faced with? I guess when you look at what are some of the biggest innovations that you've seen over the last decade or so in the QSR space or just even most impactful.

Sometimes, it's not even the things that make the biggest waves, but I think the thing that leads to the like, "Yeah, that did change the game quite a bit," because I do think even just the amount, like I was on the road this week, I ate at McDonald's twice. Should I have? Should I not have? I did, but it's such an interesting... I went to two different locations and just the way that they operate and the way that they're augmenting the experience with a mobile application and those types of things are, or even Starbucks with the whole pre-order, right?

Jeff: Yes.

Patrick: The coffee, that one might change my daily life. I wouldn't want to say my life, but every day sitting on the train pre-ordering my coffee...just sit in line was game-changing.

Jeff: Totally, Patrick. Mobile ordering and loyalty have been huge. I mean, who doesn't love earning stars at Starbucks, right? But I think digital signage, especially digital menu boards, deserves just as much attention. Okay, so hear me out here.

At Coates, we've helped lead the shift from static to dynamic displays. With digital boards, restaurants can instantly update menus, prices, and promotions across all locations, no hassle. Plus, analytics shows what's working in real time, so they can make changes on the fly. The result, smoother operations, happier customers, and more sales.

And when you integrate that with mobile ordering and loyalty, you've got a seamless omnichannel experience. You know what's even more impressive is with this digital foundation now, it opens up all these new experiences we haven't even thought about and ones that are just beginning to emerge, like AI-driven ordering experiences.

So, the future's really exciting and it's interesting to me to me, regardless of whether it's Culver's or Chick-fil-A or any of the big ones, I feel like they're focused on the operations and the hospitality piece in there. And the food quality is like, they're bringing that to the table, so you and I, as consumers, feel like a really great experience. And it's like are they doing the right thing by not leaning too far into digital like knowing where the line crosses between too much efficiency and a really great operation that's going to be this balance of like, "Hey, if I've got a choice and I'm on the road, it's like exit one's here, but if I wait another exit, I can go grab this one," I might just do it.

I remember those road trips from growing up. I knew where I was going to stop with the family.

Patrick: Right.

Shelli: Yeah.

Patrick: Or maybe you can't help but-

Jeff: And make sure you'll have a great experience there just for a quick refresh for it. That, to me, is what's so interesting about this space too, Patrick. It's just kind of navigating. This is not like the shiny objects that I'm going to like, "My answer is digital. My answer is AI. It is woven into the experience. We're balancing marketing, we're balancing operations, we're balancing technology there." And somehow making it a little bit easier for the employees there at the restaurant to make a pretty good connection with the customers.

Patrick: Interesting.

Shelli: One of the questions we brought up earlier with the cost pressures in the restaurant industry, how has Coates adjusted to that?

Jeff: It's crazy. What did I see recently? It's like value to $388 billion industry, so it's growing. Growth is a key... Any of them brands you go luck about, all they talk about is growth. The cost, obviously, we know about are increasing, but the complexity is also increasing throughout that area.

And from our perspective, we're a menu board company. Just a little bit about Coates, right? We're a 60-year-old company. We started as a small lettering company, just kind of mom and pop, and we've grown to global provider for all of these brands. And at each step of the way, the thing that we've begin to notice is really just continuing to make sure we figure out the connection between the brand and the customer.

And when you think about just the evolution of menu boards as an example, from static to digital to dynamic, it is figuring out how to communicate to that specific user that feels a little bit more tailored to me. Whether it's something different that you know that I'm going to like in the morning versus something when I'm coming back in the afternoon, it's beginning to take and maximize where the cost of spending.

And then, I think when we look at our footprint across the fleets that we look at, I mentioned before, we're at this intersection point between the restaurant and the customer, between marketing and the customer, between operations, how do we begin to give more visibility through there? Because if there's a lot of pressure, go faster, sell more to this customer, make them smile and drive CSATs, right?

But it's like, how do you get those dials just about right to have a really good experience. And the things that we're doing just in some products, so just being able to add a menu board give visibility to the order taker so they can actually make a connection there. So, that you begin to get this connection, you begin to understand it because you said at a menu board, it's complex. You get there, it's a menu, you've got a voice talking with you, and you're on the other end, and you're the order taker, and all you see is just a little ding. And something starts going, and it's a very tense environment.

And so, what we're just trying to do is really just smooth that operation but give more visibility on how to improve it. How do I eke out another car? How do I know when it's right to go do an upsell through this opportunity? Because during peak, it's like, "I just want to get things and people through." But as things begin to slow down, are there opportunities for us to really maximize that? And I think the theme is our evolution has been from static to digital to dynamic, and you really begin to see this value of how data is really begin to empower this.

And it's not just the insights, but it's actually trying to create the line of insights between the restaurant and the corporate functions that are driving it. Each one of them has got their own agenda, but how do I help maximize digital ROI there for all of the digital marketing investments? How do we make sure we're giving insights in the moment, the restaurants, to really optimize speed of service and efficiencies there?

And then, how do we make sure that all of these players, I think the other thing that's interesting is because there's such a desire to turn the restaurants and put tech into the restaurants, how do you manage through that complexity, right? Because it's like, "I've got a solution for this, I've got a solution for this, I've got a solution for this." All of them have AI, but they're all potentially talking a different language. And who's the translator? Usually, the restaurant manager, the shift lead who's trying to make sense out of all of these signals.

It reminds me, I don't know, eight, 10 years ago, IoT was huge, right? Everything's going to send off a buzzer or a ding.

Patrick: Right.

Jeff: It was so excited. It was like, "Hey, we've got an alert that's going to tell you when the freezer door is open, so you can save all on food costs." And then, you actually go do it. You put it in the restaurant, and you go sit in the restaurant for 20 minutes, and it's going ding, ding, and then there's a flash, something else is going off, fires are banging. So, all of a sudden, it just became noise.

And I think the trick in the area that we're starting to explore is how do you begin to work with the partner ecosystem there? Which is something that's important for us is how do we begin to tie the experience within the partner ecosystem in order to actually collectively help make it easier for the brands in order to maximize their investment but also maximize the opportunity with their customers right now? This is the area that we're beginning to explore here and see how we grow our current footprint and look for opportunities going forward.

Patrick: That's awesome. If you don't mind, again, speak to some of the differences that you've witnessed between more of the traditional QSRs and maybe some of the newer ones. There was a big boom of high-value burger places like 10 years ago and some, from my perspective, don't seem to have made it through. Some have, right?

Jeff: Yeah.

Patrick: But what are some of the newer things you're seeing? Is it taste-changing? What does that look like?

Jeff: You guys know the author Jim Collins?

Patrick: Mm-hmm. Good to Great.

Shelli: Mm-hmm.

Jeff: Yeah, Good to Great. The other book he wrote was Built to Last.

Patrick: That's right.

Jeff: So, to me, it's a good analogy between these companies, like the ones who are just starting off in this space where we're almost a digital native coming through and really understanding and using data to really help understand taste profiles and things that are really going to match and begin to fit your niche versus the ones that have been around 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 years. And you have this influx of digital, how does it really impact the restaurant, the operations, and how do you continue to stay relevant, especially across such a wide span of age groups that you're trying to serve there?

And I think just having the experience working at some of the bigger companies and the smaller companies, digitally native, you're going out, you're attacking, you've got all this data. There's opportunity to really go create new there. The challenge, and I think the things that the bigger companies do realize, they know the operations of their business, they understand how innovation and digital need to be trialed but begin to actually be shrink-wrapped into their environment in order to continue to grow at scale.

And I think that is a bit about the difference between these ones that are growing and some of these larger ones. Just understanding innovation at scale there and how it needs to be integrated into an ecosystem. You can begin to scale digitally, but if you don't have the operations in place to actually support that, things go sideways really fast, whether it's costs, whether it's experience. And I don't know, my perspective why you see a fair amount of churn here, and it's a few companies that are navigating to really grow there unless they're growing by acquisition or merger.

Patrick: I know Ghost Kitchens was a thing, right?

Jeff: Yeah.

Patrick: Did I get that right? I was on a vacation, and my son was telling me how Mr. Beef was going to be selling hamburgers in our neighborhood. I'm like, "First of all, who's Mr. Beast?" And then, second-

Jeff: I thought you said Mr. Beef.

Shelli: I thought so too.

Patrick: That was not beef.

Jeff: I think that you're thinking beef too.

Patrick: I think we all know where my head's at right now. I think if you squeeze me, you might get some Italian juice out of me.

Jeff: Oh, no.

Patrick: Yeah. Oh, Italian beef always have. All right, so with MrBeast and the Ghost Kitchens, do you see that being a thing? Was that a fad? Because to the point like we talked about before, it's like all of that's fun and cool, but the quality still got to be good, right?

Jeff: It's still got to be good. And I think it's just different cost pressures too. I think you're beginning to see pullbacks from that, and it's just beginning to evolve. To me, it's like innovation, right? It's like these really good ideas, but it's just like the approach, maybe not the right one, but you begin to see it shifting because delivery hasn't gone away. You're just seeing different size restaurant footprints just go in these different areas and that's where this growth is. It's like share of stomach, right?

You look at the map, and it's like, "Where do I have share of stomach and how do I cover it? And does it need to be the big flagship or is it the little smaller pieces?" And I think it's just a continual evolution in the space but hats off to being able to go try it and see it. But I think just with any innovation, it's like what are the parts that are working? How do I put those Legos back together, and I'm going to come out with a different solution.

But I think that's what's cool about tech and AI right now, it's like how fast you can do it. But being able to do it in a way that scales, I think that's going to be the winners here. And I think that's where Coates has been looking at for a while now but past a little bit since I've been here. It's like we're about at our core creating connections, empowering partners, and really trying to keep this focus on always evolving there.
And for us, the connections piece, as I mentioned earlier, like then a core purpose for us, like connecting marketing with the restaurants, connecting the restaurants with the customer, connecting technology with the restaurants. And we've been moving and sizing our products around that.

But what's interesting as we go into this is there's an opportunity to do a better job connecting the marketing and the operations and the technology together in how we bring and communicate with the restaurants because each voice is different with a different need, but there's some sort of translation that's needed to really understand how to bring that to life. Having worked in the restaurants and talked to folks, it's like very few know the latest marketing promotion that's going on, but there's someone sitting in corporate going, "Why the heck isn't it working right now? What's going on?"

Patrick: Right.

Jeff: And we sit at this spot right now with Coates going, "I'm pretty sure I can know Patrick or I know someone was sitting there at this moment in time looking at this promotion, and they didn't buy that they bought this." And being able to begin to visualize that and to say why and say, "Was it how it was marketed? Maybe it was how we talked about it at the operations level, or maybe it was the fact that, you know what, the screen wasn't even on because it wasn't working."

But being able to pull those all together and say, "This is the type of experience we're able to deliver because we know how to translate those different languages into what's needed in the moment." And then, be able to bring it back out at different moments of time to different audiences because a franchisee wants to know a few different things than the marketing leader does than the operations folks, let alone the executive who's saying, "Yes, it's okay to go spend all this money here."

And I think it's one of those opportunities that we see, not only in the experiences drive-through today, kind of your in-store, but even the future customer journeys in the restaurants, which is just drive-through and pick-up, walk-up, what have you. We're looking at the fact that there's always going to be an interaction between a customer and a restaurant. How do we maintain that connection? And then, how do we bring that insight as close to decisionable times to really just improve the experience because if we can begin to solve things closer to when the pain points identified, those are real dollars and cents that can be captured.
We move from this analysis of quarters and months to weeks to days and shifts and hours for there, and it's a journey. It's not one that's done alone, but I think just being in a position to look at the complexity and having been 60 years in this business, most of that in the restaurant space, we got a really good understanding and appreciation for how hard it is to run the restaurants, but how important that connection is no matter how much tech goes in there.

Patrick: Very cool stuff.

Jeff: Yeah. So, I think that's the part that's exciting. It's been working, right? It's like got a hundred thousand licenses out there just as many screens or in tens of thousands of restaurants. Our deployments grew 130% last year, so.

Patrick: Wow.

Shelli: Wow.

Patrick: Congratulations.

Jeff: We're excited about where it's taking us right now. It's like, "Okay, so how do we continue to take these relationships and trust that we learned and actually begin to bring back the insights that we go through it here?" Because I'll tell you, go back to the IoT thing, there's lots of bells and buzzers and whistles going on still today, but it's like who's going to help bring the magic ball together that says, "Yeah, this is where we recommend you to go."

Patrick: Yeah, the signal through the noise.

Jeff: Yeah, the signal is great.

Patrick: All right. Awesome. Jeff, I really appreciate you taking the time to join us today. Obviously, it is a tremendously interesting hyperactive environment, especially I go for a walk every day, and there's a coffee thing involved in that. And it's just, to your point of the promotions and the direct to consumer.

Jeff: Absolutely.

Patrick: ... how they can adjust to whatever market opportunities that they want to seize on can be hypervocal, which is really, really kind of cool and exciting. So again, thank you for taking the time to be on the show today.

Jeff: Yeah, I appreciate it. It's great opportunity. Good to see you both and spend the last little bit of time together.

Patrick: Awesome. We also want to thank our listeners. We appreciate everyone joining us.

Shelli: And if you'd like to receive new episodes as they're published, you can subscribe by visiting our website at dragonspears.com/podcast or find us on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Patrick: This episode was sponsored by DragonSpears and produced by Dante32.