The Back Story
Garrett, a multi-location Buffalo Wild Wings owner, had frustrations keeping up with all the changes to his daily operations. “We were always having to reprint things and laminate like crazy just because policies or operations changed. Think opening duties, closing duties, the way servers did closeouts. It was really hard to make sure that both of my locations had the correct operations and were on the same page.” This created headaches and inefficiencies, leading to Garrett redoing other employees’ work. “Too often we were having to redo work, or show someone how to do something right because paper lists weren’t updated.”
The Possibilities with Digital Checklists
When Garrett saw Jolt’s team accountability solution, he could immediately visualize the potential impact it could have on his business. “I just knew the possibility was there. If we could accomplish all our line checks on an iPad, we could move everything to digital and have names and timestamps of when everything was done.” Jolt lists gave Garrett the flexibility to manage and update all of his checklists digitally.
“I love the ability to create custom checklists for each of my stores, at the store-level. I can’t tell you how much documentation you’ve saved me. If you even saw how many checklists and how many things we create—it’s amazing.”
Switching to Digital Food Safety (DFS)
Not only did Jolt lists accomplish what Garrett was looking for, he found Jolt was able to help in many other aspects of their operations as well. “We only knew the norm before we were introduced to Jolt. Previously, we were using Day Dots for labeling. In one month we used about 15,000 labels. You really opened our eyes to the savings there.” Garrett saves nearly $150 every month on labeling since switching from Day Dots to Jolt. But that’s product savings alone. Garrett estimates even more savings by eliminating time spent filling out labels by hand. “Everyone loves Jolt labeling—our kitchen, our management team, the front of house. You won’t see as many sharpies around the store now. Jolt makes it easy: they just press a button, and they know the shelf life is already on there.”
They’ve also improved food safety and streamlined temperature checks with Jolt’s temperature probes. “The time that it takes to temp something, go and write it down, come back, temp something again, go and write it down and come back—I think that was huge. I would say that they are able to shave off 10 minutes every shift, which obviously adds up over the course of a week.” This benefits Garrett’s bottom line, as he’s getting more accomplished each shift. His managers love it because they can trust the numbers, and don’t have to look over their employees shoulders. “My managers love it for the accuracy. Employees can’t fudge numbers when they use the temperature probes which is great. Just being able to go around and temp something, press the button, and it goes to the next item. They like that a lot.”
Measuring the Success
Garrett reports that Jolt has made it “ten times easier” to manage his checklists and hold employees accountable to the standard of excellence that he expects for his locations. Jolt even helps him comply with corporate standards for QSCs and audits. Garrett received a 100% score on its last corporate EcoSure audit. “If the tools are there—which they are with Jolt—it’s much easier to achieve those higher scores.”
