Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
Key Takeaways
- Define the guest experience, then build technology around that vision.
- Data alone can’t determine what makes a great restaurant; you have to combine analytics with authenticity.
- Businesses that own the customer relationship can create more meaningful experiences.
Before a customer places an order, the restaurant already knows it’s their 100th visit. A free cookie is waiting for them.
“That’s digital hospitality,” Deborah Matteliano, Global Head of Restaurants at Amazon Web Services (AWS), says. “It’s using technology to make somebody feel seen, understood and special.”
For Matteliano, that moment has nothing to do with the cookie. It’s about making a guest feel recognized before they ever take a bite.
After helping restaurants navigate the rapid growth of online ordering at Uber Eats, Matteliano joined AWS. Amazon’s cloud computing business was originally built to help Amazon deliver on the promises it made to customers. Today, it provides the technology and infrastructure that power companies around the world, including many restaurant brands.
“Amazon has always been obsessed with the customer,” Matteliano says. “It’s about delivering on the promise you make every single time.”
Hospitality, she says, now extends far beyond the four walls of a restaurant.
“The first level is delivering great food and great service,” Matteliano explains. “The next is creating memorable moments. The third is using technology to make those moments personal at scale.”
When a restaurant recognizes a milestone visit, remembers a guest’s favorite order or anticipates what they need before they ask, technology fades into the background. The guest doesn’t remember the software that made it possible. They remember how the experience made them feel.
“The magic is making people feel recognized,” Matteliano says. “Technology simply gives us the opportunity to do that in ways we couldn’t before.”
The soul layer
For Matteliano, the first question isn’t what technology a restaurant should adopt. It’s what kind of hospitality it wants to deliver.
“I would encourage restaurant owners to work backward from what is their perfect moment of hospitality that they’re chasing,” Matteliano says. “How do you want customers to feel? Then design the technology around that.”
That philosophy grew out of her years at Uber Eats, where she helped restaurants experiment with virtual brands. Her team analyzed customer demand to identify cuisines that restaurants could launch from their existing kitchens.
“We used AI to surface what are the three types of cuisines we think this restaurant could offer,” she says.
The recommendations made business sense. They didn’t always make hospitality sense.
“This is an example of where super smart people don’t always get it fully right because you miss the soul layer.”
An Italian restaurant might have an opportunity to sell sushi, but that doesn’t mean it should.
“The data’s real,” Matteliano says. “But are they passionate about that? Is that part of their mission for hospitality? Are they going to execute at quality and scale?”
The operators who succeeded weren’t chasing trends. They found concepts that fit who they already were. Matteliano points to Miami Wings, a virtual brand that helped one restaurant owner grow sales dramatically.
“He would call us and say, ‘I’m putting my kids through college. I’m paying off equipment debt,’” she says. “Wings were a lot easier to execute than maybe sushi.”
Today, Matteliano applies that same philosophy at AWS, helping restaurant brands use technology to strengthen relationships with their guests.
“If you own the customer data, you own the relationship, and then you own the hospitality,” she says. “This is the time to get really smart and tight on your first-party data.”
For Matteliano, technology should never define a restaurant. It should help operators deliver the hospitality they’re already passionate about.
The technology may power the experience, but guests remember the hospitality.
About Restaurant Influencers
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Restaurant Influencers is proud to have PepsiCo as a sponsor of this episode. Partnering with PepsiCo Foodservice helps restaurant operators drive sustainable growth through smarter digital experiences, AI-backed menu optimization, and tools designed to create more profitable online orders. Check out PepsiCo Foodservice
