GoodFirms Interviews SynergySuite’s CEO Greg Staley

Interview with Greg Staley & GoodFirms

Greg Staley, CEO of SynergySuite, shares in his interview with GoodFirms how they developed this best-in-class restaurant management software to fulfill the comprehensive operational needs of multi-unit restaurant businesses with its extensive features, versatile utility, and flexible subscription-based pricing.

With headquarters in Lehi (Utah), US, and offices around the world, SynergySuite, is an all-in-one, cloud-based, mobile-first restaurant management software designed to meet the end-to-end back-of-house operational needs of multi-unit restaurant businesses on a unified platform. SynergySuite platform primarily caters to multi-unit franchise owners, restaurants, fast-casual, table service, fast food, and large brands.

The completely user-friendly SynergySuite platform includes eight major modules: inventory, purchasing, operations, reporting, time & attendance, food safety, HR, and cash management. The software offers reduced redundancy and better visibility with reporting that integrates the tech stack with significant time and cost savings on food and labor. It thus enables business owners to run restaurant operations better, with ease, and with enhanced profits in multiple locations. The platform seamlessly integrates with essential existing systems for the customers, including point of sale (POS), accounting, payroll, and broad-line distributors.

The company offers a flexible, subscription-based pricing model for SynergySuite with multiple plans or packages that customers can choose from based on their feature requirements and budget.

GoodFirms interviewed and discussed the detailed offerings of SynergySuite software directly with Greg Staley, chief executive officer of SynergySuite, to learn more about the software. As the CEO, Greg focuses on bringing the right people and technology together to enable multi-unit restaurant chains to drive bottom-line profitability and operational excellence.

Versatile Restaurant Management Software

Initiating the interview, Greg describes SynergySuite as a comprehensive “back of house” operational platform for multi-unit restaurant chains across the globe. This fully mobile and SaaS-based technology allows restaurant operators to dramatically increase bottom-line profitability by better managing food and labor costs, driving operational excellence, and giving leadership critical data they need at their fingertips to optimize their operations. It includes helping with inventory & purchasing, labor & scheduling, robust reporting, operational checklists, food safety, cash management, and employee onboarding.

When inquired about what motivated the company to develop SynergySuite, Greg reveals that SynergySuite was born from a restaurant software consultancy business. The company’s co-founders, the Keanes, originally started a company called Sykon to meet the needs of restaurant businesses. This experience laid the foundation for SynergySuite.

Greg highlights that from conversations with dozens of restaurant brands and their own experience working in bars and restaurants before starting Sykon, the Keanes had a strong understanding of pain points not only in the industry but specifically in restaurant technology.

Distinctive Features and Offerings

Further in the interview, discussing key offerings of SynergySuite, Greg elucidates that the company discovered that restaurants have incredibly thin margins. As brands begin to grow to 5, 10, or more locations, they gain efficiencies in purchasing but lose visibility and control. It becomes impossible (or extremely time-consuming) at scale to handle processes like inventory, scheduling, and manual reporting. Thus, they look for restaurant operations technology to make these things more efficient. Moreover, most restaurant businesses try to build a restaurant management solution with a combination of 3 to 6 software solutions. Greg specifies that while these different solutions individually perform well, these typically do not integrate well with each other; thus, holistic reporting is not possible, and overall performance is compromised.

Greg explains that the distinctive quality of SynergySuite is that the software does all of that under one roof. Moreover, the platform is developed as a single, modularized solution, so everything communicates together. The clients thus get visibility into operations and streamline every part of their back-of-house business functions to save money in the big areas where restaurants lose money, including food and labor.

Further, Greg articulates that SynergySuite stands out from the competitors as a cloud-based, all-in-one solution in a market crowded with one-off solutions. Many products are made either for only inventory, only food safety, or only labor scheduling, etc. However, this platform was built from the ground up, not through integration, but as a modularized system, so clients can use as many or as few modules as they would like without the need for integrations.

Greg also emphasizes that SynergySuite is mobile-first. In an industry where employees are on the go and many work in multiple locations, being easy to use on a phone or tablet is a must-have.

Customer Satisfaction and Retention

Talking about customer satisfaction, Greg clarifies that they measure customer satisfaction by two key metrics, first, through usage & adoption of the SaaS platform. The company measures the daily interactions within their system by user and location to get a real insight into overall adoption. Another way the company assesses customer satisfaction is by the results that their restaurant customers see in the reduction of food and labor costs. This key benefit of SynergySuite provides a significant return on investment and allows the customers to stay viable and competitive in a challenging market, Greg claims.

Greg further explains that as a subscription-based software platform, customer retention is critical to their business. SaaS companies typically measure this with “Churn” metrics, the percentage of customers lost within a given year. He reveals that in 2020 and 2021, the company’s churn rates were between 1-2% for SynergySuite, which is remarkably better than the industry average of 5-10% customer churn. Greg attributes this very high customer retention rate to multiple factors, including the critical nature of their platform and tangible value proposition.

Dedicated Customer Support

Greg discloses that the company provides each client with a dedicated customer service representative to help with questions, implementations, upgrades, and feedback to ensure that the clients succeed. Additionally, their product team is easily accessible for feature requests, customization, and answering product-related questions. They also offer diligent live support and a dedicated customer service team for SynergySuite to ensure that the customers get the most out of the product.

Moreover, the company offers a comprehensive knowledge base to help customers, including a live training database in which customers can utilize customer webinars, blog articles, videos, and FAQs.

SynergySuite – The Best Restaurant Management Software

“Innovation is the key to our current and future success. Over the next 10 years, we will look for complementary technologies to build or buy, keeping our focus on “back of house” operations,”

says Greg.

SynergySuite is currently being used in nearly 4,000 restaurants across the US and Europe and is emerging as a top choice and market leader for businesses looking for an all-in-one restaurant management software. GoodFirms’ researchers have acknowledged SynergySuite as one of the best restaurant management software for its ever-lasting innovation, multi-unit restaurant management capabilities, versatile features, diligent customer support, and multiple need-based pricing plans.

To know more about the offerings of the SynergySuite restaurant management system, one can also go through the detailed interview published at GoodFirms.

About GoodFirms

GoodFirms is a Washington DC-based research and review platform for software and services. GoodFirms empowers companies to choose the best software from its curated list of industry-leading software in various categories to enhance profits and grow beyond imagination. It performs extensive research and analysis to evaluate and rank the listed software on critical parameters like features, uniqueness, ratings, and verified user reviews. This diligently curated ranking highlights the top performers for every software category and boosts the buying credibility of the software.

About the Author

Lisa Brian is presently working as a Content Writer with GoodFirms, a Washington-based B2B research company well-known for its research methodology and listings of 60k+ software and services. Lisa’s current role revolves around gathering information and crafting it in a meaningful form that businesses can leverage. She helps companies communicate their vision and mission through digital platforms. Lisa believes in developing a symbiotic business relationship where companies mutually support each other and grow together.

Leveraging Technology to Manage Restaurant Labor Costs Whitepaper cover image
Whitepaper

Leverage Technology to Manage Restaurant Labor Costs

Between increased costs, labor shortages, and socio-economic complexities - staying on top of labor costs is more important than ever for franchise owners.

Download the Whitepaper

Subscribe to Our Newsletter

Get freshly prepared content served to your inbox on a regular basis.

See what's on our menu

Schedule a demo of our restaurant management system today to discover which features and modules will work best for your business.