Digital ordering is now table stakes. But with it comes a new wave of fraud threats—from account takeovers to payment abuse—that put your revenue and brand reputation at risk. The challenge? Stopping fraud without making it challenging for your guests to order, pay and return. The key to stopping evolving threats lies in understanding how fraudsters think—so you can stay one step ahead.
In this webinar hosted by Restaurant Dive, Matthew Clark, EVP & CFO of The Cheesecake Factory, and Armen Najarian, CMO at Sift, unpack what it really takes to strike the right balance between protection and experience. You’ll learn:
- How modern finance leaders are stepping into fraud strategy leadership
- Key tactics to future-proof your fraud tech stack
- How top restaurants are building secure, low friction ordering journeys
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Video Transcript
0:01
Hello and thank you for joining us for this insightful webinar on grow
0:04
fearlessly. How modern CFOs fight fraud and fuel revenue. Historically, fraud,
0:10
especially digital and payment related fraud, has been handled by a mix of
0:13
different functions from IT or cyber security teams for data breaches and
0:18
payment system security to finance or accounting teams for chargebacks and
0:22
financial discrepancies to legal and compliance departments for regulatory or
0:26
policy related fraud. However, as restaurants have expanded the digital
0:30
experience, they’re facing new hurdles. Fraud has a direct and measurable impact
0:35
on revenue, margins, and customer retention. And today, we’re going to
0:39
talk about some of the unique fraud challenges restaurants face, from
0:42
payment fraud to identity trust and account takeover challenges.
0:46
Implementing effective fraud prevention can protect your restaurant’s profits
0:50
and reputation. and restaurants are futurep proofing their operations with
0:54
AIdriven fraud strategies designed to adapt to new threats while maintaining a
0:58
friction-free ordering experience for customers. Today, we’re going to talk
1:02
about why this type of solution is critical and explore how restaurants
1:06
like the Cheesecake Factory are finding success with proactive fraud prevention.
1:12
Before we get started, I have just a few housekeeping items. Please note the
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slides will advance automatically throughout the presentation. To enlarge
1:19
the slides, click the enlarge slides button located in the top right corner
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of your presentation window. If you need technical assistance, click on the help
1:28
widget located on the bottom left corner of your console. We encourage you to
1:32
submit questions at any time throughout the presentation using the Q&A widget at
1:36
the bottom of your console. We will try to answer these during the webcast, but
1:40
if a fuller answer is needed or we run out of time, it will be answered later
1:44
via email. Please know we do capture all questions. Today we are joined by Matt
1:49
Clark, CFO of the Cheesecake Factory, and Armen Nagarian, CMO at Syft, an
1:54
AIdriven fraud prevention solution used by merchants of all kinds, including
1:58
restaurants, for its advanced ability to deliver more accurate fraud decisions
2:02
across the user journey. And while they both have so much insight into this
2:06
topic, I also wanted to mention that Matt and Armen graduated from business
2:10
school together 25 years ago. So they not only have incredible domain
2:14
expertise but also a great history together. So Matt and Armen, welcome.
2:18
It’s a pleasure to have you here. I’d love to take a moment just to have you
2:22
each introduce yourselves and tell us about your background. So Matt, how
2:25
about we start with you?
2:26
>> Sure. It’s a pleasure to be here. Thank you so much for having me. Uh as you
2:30
noted, I went to business school. Give a little plug here for the USC Trojans. Uh
2:35
after that, I I spent a few years at Disney. uh and then a couple of other
2:40
very large Fortune 100 companies really uh in the M&A and corporate development
2:45
side and uh my wife and I moved six times in seven years and we started
2:50
having kids and we were looking to settle down and I got a call from the
2:53
Cheesecake Factory to come on board. Uh that was almost 20 years ago. Uh so we
2:58
jumped at the chance there and uh while here I’ve done international development
3:02
and M&A and worked my way up in the finance department. Uh and eight years
3:06
ago became the CFO. It’s been a it’s been a great ride, a wonderful company
3:10
and happy to be here today to talk about our journey and how Sift has helped us
3:15
really move into the the new landscape of digital sales and protecting those.
3:20
>> Excellent. Thank you. And Armen,
3:24
>> uh well, thank you Megan and uh for for hosting this. Matt, thank you so much
3:27
for joining us. And yes, Matt and I do have a really uh interesting background
3:32
as it relates to this conversation. So I think it was 27 years ago right now kind
3:36
of dating ourselves. We were actually right around this time of year we were
3:39
in on mainland China in Nenzing u on behalf of the USC Marshall School of
3:44
Business um doing a preparing for a case study doing some research meeting with
3:48
factories. So a long time ago and here we are 27 years later. Um so yes I’m
3:54
Armen. I’m the chief marketing officer here at SIFT. Um I’ve been in the fraud
3:58
decisioning space for 10 years um next month. So it’s been quite a journey for
4:02
me. It’s a space that is rapidly evolving and presents a lot of unique
4:06
and interesting challenges to solve. Uh my background after the USC Marshall
4:11
School. Um I’ve kind of come full circle. So I started off in the food
4:15
industry even pre before business school operating my own quick service
4:19
restaurant and then after business school went into brand management in the
4:23
grocery products industry and then eventually found my way into B2B
4:26
technology and again last 10 years in fraud decisions. So, you know, this
4:30
particular topic um is very meaningful uh to me and I’m excited to engage in
4:36
the discussion.
4:38
>> I’m glad to have both of you here. Really looking forward to this today.
4:41
So, with that then let’s dive into our discussion about fraud. Armen, fraud
4:45
used to be considered a cost of doing business, but that’s all changed as
4:49
we’ve moved to a digital world with online ordering, customer loyalty apps,
4:53
and all the other ways customers conduct business with restaurants. So how are
4:57
you seeing that play out in modern restaurant organizations?
5:01
>> Yeah. So to your first point, yes, if you think back to pre the pre-in era,
5:06
you know, any merchant, you know, even restaurant like fraud management was a
5:10
cost of doing business and you know there was a there was a line item in the
5:14
P&L to account for that and it was kind of just managed according to that. If
5:17
you fell within a certain range that was great. All the rules have changed in the
5:21
digital era right now because how you treat customers or guests in a digital
5:27
channel re materially affects you know how they feel about the experience right
5:31
so this has become very much a consumer experience driven set of decisions with
5:36
financial implications both on stopping bad things from happening but more
5:40
importantly treating your best customers well and not insulting them not
5:44
presenting friction as they’re ordering online and so with that you know the fra
5:50
fraud management has taken a much more strategic position within the
5:54
organizations that we work at, you know, with at CIF. You know, evidenced with
5:57
Matt, you know, being, you know, in a sweet a seauite role, having purview and
6:02
really taking an active interest in digital fraud. Again, not just from a
6:06
cost savings perspective, but knowing that this really materially does drive
6:10
how guests interact with the brand and the positive financial growth
6:15
implications that are at
6:16
>> I think that’s right, Armen. When you really think about what’s changed over
6:19
time, we kind of joke about it in the restaurant space, thinking about 20
6:24
years ago, it was you take a credit card and it was the knucklebusters, right?
6:27
You’re you’re really taking that card from the consumer at that point. You’re
6:31
in the restaurant and and oh, by the way, 80% of transactions were in cash.
6:36
All of that has changed today. All of that is taking place online in in in the
6:41
internet. And we need to realize that our businesses are evolving. That piece
6:46
of the revenue is growing, but it is also about how consumers interact and
6:51
they want to have a seamless digital experience.
6:55
>> Well said.
6:57
>> Excellent. Thank you so much. And Armen, for those who aren’t familiar with Sift,
7:00
can you briefly describe how your solution supports these things that
7:04
you’ve discussed so far? Yeah. So just a very brief background on Zift like we
7:08
are a digital fraud platform AI powered fraud platform uh working exclusively in
7:14
the merchant space the broadly speaking in restaurants and online ordering quick
7:19
service restaurants casual dining like Cheesecake Factory are very much you
7:22
know a core part of what we do. We’ve been doing this for 14 years. The way we
7:27
do what we do is we operate a global data consortium so that every
7:30
transaction that we’re scoring uh benefits every transaction that we score
7:35
in the future. And so you know Cheesecake Factories benefiting from the
7:38
the one trillion events that we score on an annual basis globally. Um and so what
7:43
we solve for at SIFT is u an an array of digital risk decisions across that
7:51
digital consumer journey. It it starts with a new user creating an account for
7:56
the first time and the risk associated with that. So CIF provides a risk score
8:01
for that real time in the moment to when they log in to their account where there
8:05
may be stored value or a loyalty program to when they transact and actually place
8:09
an order right there’s risk associated with that and then if there’s a dispute
8:13
or a chargeback sift is there in the equation as well and a few other touch
8:17
points across that digital consumer journey but that’s very much how we’re
8:20
looking at uh managing digital risk is across that consumer or guest journey
8:26
and being everpresent and and having the intelligence to to drive a real-time
8:30
decision.
8:32
>> Excellent. Thanks, Armen. And I think that’s also a great segue just to hear
8:35
more from Matt about his journey with SEFT.
8:38
>> Sure. I mean, hopefully I can shed a little bit of light on how the CFOs are
8:42
looking at fraud today and and certainly in in in the digital arena, but I think
8:46
it’s broader than that. It really sits in the entirety of the seauite and I
8:50
I’ll touch a little bit about that, but I think it’s important to understand
8:53
sort of the journey from the Cheesecake Factory side of how we got here as well
8:57
and the partnership, right? So, we’re about a $4 billion company today. Uh, 10
9:03
years ago, we had virtually zero online sales or digital sales in in any way.
9:09
And so, you’re handling fraud really at the point of sale in the restaurant. You
9:13
fast forward through the adoption of delivery, really the acceleration of
9:18
that with COVID, and today our company is doing well over half a billion
9:23
dollars in digital sales and it’s growing. And I see this being through
9:27
all of those channels probably a billion dollar business in in the next five
9:32
years. So you can understand that it’s super important. Every basis point is
9:36
going to make a difference. But beyond that, it touches the consumer, right?
9:40
And so at the Cheesecake Factory, our mission is to create an environment
9:44
where absolute guest satisfaction is our highest priority. So as this was all
9:49
taking place really in the in the very early stages of COVID, we knew we needed
9:54
to have a partner. we don’t have the expertise to manage that and it was
9:58
evolving way too fast. A centralized best-in-class partner to really help us
10:04
protect fraud and protect our legitimate guests. So back in 2020, we did an
10:10
evaluation. We ran your standard corporate RFP and looked at all of the
10:14
different players and it was very very clear for us that the AI generated
10:19
proactive approach that the SIFT model deploys was best-in-class and we run
10:25
very very complicated restaurants and it’s very important that we have 100%
10:29
uptime all of those attributes that we could scale over time like I said going
10:34
from zero to what we see as a billion dollars. We needed a partner that could
10:38
help do all of those things for us, right? It’s really important to make
10:42
sure that the business in totality, not just finance, views this as as an
10:48
imperative. There are some key financial metrics, of course, right? I I would say
10:52
the ROI is nearly infinite. Uh we we’re probably saving well over a million
10:57
dollars annually at this point in time with the fraud prevention driven by the
11:01
the the SIFT application that we’ve deployed. our acceptance rates are
11:06
exceptionally high, well above the benchmark, and this is from the the Visa
11:11
business review. Um, and so we’ve really looked at this holistically, and I think
11:15
that it’s been a critical part of how we’ve grown that business and had the
11:20
confidence to continue to invest in that business, whether it is loyalty or
11:24
online ordering or through the website or or any of those other avenues. Um,
11:29
the other things maybe I’d mention really for us is that we wanted
11:32
something that was automated. I don’t want to spend a lot of money back of
11:35
house, right? It’s a very coste effective situation that really is
11:39
handsoff for the most part for us. Uh and and most importantly, again, just to
11:43
kind of end with a note that it’s very customer-friendly. We want our
11:46
legitimate guests to be able to execute their transactions seamlessly. We want
11:52
to capture all of that revenue while protecting fraud. So, there’s two sides
11:56
to that to that coin and and it’s been an excellent journey for us.
12:00
>> Yeah. I want you to just just jump on to to Matt’s point specifically around the
12:03
outcomes. And so Matt mentioned like a very specific cost savings, right, that
12:10
that been captured um of known fraud that’s been stopped. And that’s great.
12:15
That’s a very hard dollar savings. And you know what Matt also referenced
12:19
around treating your best customers well, not you know what’s called
12:23
insulting them and presenting challenge or friction to them when you know
12:26
they’re good. The vast majority of digital transactions, they’re good. And
12:30
so knowing that really lowering the bar and allowing those great customers,
12:35
great guests to have a great experience is what keeps them coming back. It
12:39
what’s what adds to their loyalty and their lifetime value associated with the
12:43
brand. All very important and you know really great great to hear you know Matt
12:48
recap that um from the Cheesecake Factory perspective.
12:53
>> Excellent points Armen. Thank you. And Matt just thinking about the numbers
12:56
that you shared those are incredible. Now, you mentioned both the direct and
13:00
indirect costs of fraud. So, I would like to dig into that a little bit more.
13:03
As Matt mentioned, digital ordering was exploding and that opened new paths to
13:07
fraud. So, Armen, what are some of those you’re seeing?
13:13
>> Yeah, so within the online ordering and restaurant space, we’re seeing, I’d say,
13:19
two major types of fraud patterns. one would be associated with what we call
13:26
policy and policy abuse. Um, and that we typically see for an account opening and
13:31
a bonus promotion that might be available to a consumer at account
13:35
opening that can and and is abused certainly across the fraud uh across the
13:39
restaurant and online ordering industry. Another type of policy that’s abused is
13:44
uh refund or return abuse where, you know, somebody places an order and they
13:48
decide they don’t want to pay for it and they might just, you know, submit a
13:52
charge back um not in good faith. Um the fraud I’m describing in this first
13:57
category is what may be known and what is known as friendly fraud, first party
14:02
fraud. The Merchant Risk Council calls it first party misuse. Um and and
14:07
oftentimes it’s just consumers like you and me that are otherwise good that just
14:10
decide to go bad for a moment and you know that can become costly that adds
14:14
up. Um, in contrast, the other type of fraud that I would say is perhaps uh
14:21
more systemic and per and probably and very likely more dangerous is the
14:27
organized fraud that you typically associated with with cards that were
14:32
stolen or procured from a secondary market on the dark web, leveraging the
14:37
online ordering platforms to do rapid card testing and affirming that those
14:42
cards are in fact legitimate. um and that is costly to the restaurant
14:47
operators as well. There are false orders placed. There are chargebacks
14:51
that um that ensue following that card testing and that can happen at massive
14:56
massive scale. And so that organized type of card fraud is I’d say the the
15:01
second big attack pattern that we see especially in the restaurant uh and
15:06
online ordering industry.
15:08
>> Perfect. Armen, thank you so much. And you’ve been can you tell us specifically
15:10
about maybe what’s happening within the restaurant industry specifically?
15:14
>> Yes. Uh absolutely. And so uh one um one asset that we provide at SIFT is we’ve
15:20
unlocked the the data within our network and make it freely available on
15:24
sift.com. So it’s uh called fiber fraud industry benchmarking resource. You can
15:29
get there at sift.comfiber. And you can filter by industry. And so
15:33
within the restaurant ordering industry, which you can filter by, as an example,
15:38
the payment fraud attack rate globally across our network, all industries, all
15:42
geographies um in the second quarter of this year was
15:50
4.3%. In contrast, within the within the
15:54
restaurant ordering industry, it was three and a half points. though you’re
15:58
seeing about, you know, nearly a onepoint reduction relative to the
16:03
global population within the restaurant and ordering industry. Why? What we’ve
16:07
seen over the past three to four years since the pandemic broke out is
16:11
companies like the Cheesecake Factory really leaning in and getting a handle
16:15
on their fraud controls and putting just best-in-class capabilities in place,
16:20
knowing that, you know, with margins that are sometimes not software margins
16:24
in the restaurant ordering space, every dollar counts. And so I think this is an
16:28
example where we’re seeing the the restaurant ordering space just
16:31
performing better than the global population across all industries.
16:35
>> Armen, you were too nice there. I mean, I think honestly, yes, we saw the spike
16:39
in fraud happening. All of the the things that you’re saying, I think we
16:42
understand that to some degree in the restaurant space, but the real critical
16:46
thing is to find the right partner to deal with it. We are not equipped to
16:49
know the types of details that SIFT does, the way that Sift can manage the
16:53
product. That’s really how this uh partnership came to be, right? We knew
16:57
that we had financial impact. We knew that we had guest impact, but we don’t
17:00
have the expertise in a world that is increasingly dynamic. It was so
17:04
interesting to hear you talk about the different types of fraud that you’re
17:08
seeing. And what I would say is it’s going to continue to evolve. What every
17:13
restaurant really needs is a partner who’s going to understand how these
17:18
fraudsters continue to evolve their approaches and continue to invest,
17:22
continue to have the right product to it scale over time. We know that the
17:27
environment is only going to become more complex with AI and all of the different
17:32
uh approaches that will be you know used for delivering sales, delivering guest
17:36
experiences and we need to make sure that we can focus on the restaurant side
17:40
of it and we have somebody who can help us with the fraud side of it. So
17:44
appreciate everything that you’re doing in in investing in your company for for
17:48
the benefit of all the restaurants.
17:50
>> Yeah, appreciate it. Now, it’s very much a partnership and we’re able to both
17:54
focus on our core competencies and and ultimately it’s all about serving the
17:58
customers or the consumer well. And so that’s uh you know that’s where the
18:02
common ground is.
18:04
>> Excellent. Thank you and thank you for sharing your perspective there Matt
18:07
because it really sort of underlines why having the right fraud prevention
18:10
solution is even more critical. So we touched on the importance of widening
18:14
the lens on fraud prevention so that it’s not a siloed function. Matt, why do
18:18
you think modern CFOs recognize the importance of expanding it into their
18:22
domain?
18:24
>> Well, I think somebody has to take charge, right? Anytime you’re in an
18:27
organization and and and and I think as Armen said earlier on, a lot of times it
18:32
sits in accounting or finance because it’s loss prevention. Historically, it’s
18:37
been siloed into that camp, you know, but that’s really an old school belief
18:41
because that was probably more when it was, you know, cashbased or in the
18:46
restaurant, per se. You know, today your online presence is your brand. Today,
18:52
your loyalty program is the biggest funnel for new customer acquisition and
18:56
that the way they experience your restaurant online may drive them into
19:02
the restaurant ultimately as well. And so it really starts with understanding
19:06
that it has to be marketing, it has to be operations, it has to be technology,
19:12
you know, and and as a CFO, I sit in a chair that’s a little bit unique because
19:16
I can harness those resources together in a way that’s, you know, more
19:20
effective and and faster. Uh, and it and it starts with a very very clear
19:24
business case. We talked about the over million dollars that we’re saving and
19:28
and and the ROI, but it’s also about getting that sales funnel, making sure
19:32
it stays open and marketing and operations, making sure that they know
19:36
that it’s going to be a seamless interaction with our guests. So,
19:39
everybody needs to play a role and everybody needs to understand it’s not
19:43
just the savings, it’s also about the sales and the long-term health of the
19:48
business in an environment that’s only going to continue to be digitally
19:52
focused. Yeah, thank you.
19:56
>> What Yeah, what Matt just shared, sorry, mayor. what what Matt just shared um is
20:01
absolutely a trend within the restaurant ordering industry and across all
20:06
industries that we work with where we’re seeing seuite leaders including the CFO
20:13
really stepping up and taking a broader view of not just their domain and it’s
20:18
not just about cost savings but an intense focus on serving the consumer or
20:24
the guest or the shopper well and and that really aligns all parties across
20:30
the organization. And so therefore, you know, reporting responsibilities of
20:35
fraud decisioning, fraud management um has really become more of a consumer
20:41
experience mandate. That’s the lens with which these types of decisions and
20:45
investments are being made. And you know where that discipline does report up
20:50
into the office of the CFO as is the case with Cheesecake Factory, there’s a
20:54
common language now that we’re seeing unlike 10 years ago or 15 years ago and
20:59
it’s really remarkable um that you again this intense focus on serving customers
21:04
well, serving consumers well.
21:08
>> Those are excellent points. Thank you so much. And I do think that that’s a great
21:11
note on which to leave us. However, before we turn to some questions from
21:14
our audience, I would like to ask you both if you have any additional thoughts
21:17
that you’d like to share. Armen, why don’t you start?
21:21
Matt touched upon this earlier that uh we are in a rapidly evolving space.
21:27
Often times the adversaries have better tools than we do. And so this is very
21:33
much become a cat-and- mouse experience unfortunately. Now, the good news is is
21:39
those of us that are fighting fraud are leaning heavily into AI powered
21:44
detection capabilities and automated solutions. And that’s that’s where SIFT
21:48
plays. We have, you know, leading research to really drive what that next
21:53
attack pattern looks like, what’s happening in the dark web, in the
21:57
chatter, and we monitor those those those forums, believe it or not, to
22:00
understand and learn from what might be coming next, what that fraud actor
22:05
playbook looks like. And so, um, you know, the point Matt made earlier is
22:11
companies like the Cheesecake Factory, their core competency is running
22:14
restaurants and treating guests well. Um, our core competency at SIFT is
22:19
really applying decision science to make the very best risk decisions in real
22:24
time to help companies like the Cheesecake Factory. And it’s the
22:27
partnership that matters most. And so, I I want to use this opportunity as a as a
22:31
as a chance to thank Matt again. It’s been a journey over the past five years
22:35
between Cheesecake Factory and Sift. Uh very grateful for the relationship and
22:39
the results um I think are quite compelling. So thank you Matt for uh for
22:43
coming along the ride with Sift over the past several years.
22:47
>> Well, it’s it’s been great and um you know again I I would sort of echo the
22:51
thoughts that you’ve made over the last couple of comments. I mean really it’s
22:54
all about sales for any business ultimately, right? And and so that’s the
22:59
common language that we can talk about in in our business. And and ultimately
23:04
sticking to core competencies is super super important. Finding a partner that
23:09
can scale with with robust growth over time across multiple channels and
23:15
unforeseen opportunities and obstacles over time is is super important. You
23:20
know, one of the things that I’ve really learned uh in in my tenure is I don’t
23:24
want to switch partners. it there’s a it’s prohibitive and there’s a cost and
23:28
so you know we we really did our due diligence upfront to find who we thought
23:32
was the best partner and I think we’ve been proven right
23:37
>> well said perfect note to end on there so thank you both so much so in the time
23:41
that we have left I would love to turn to some questions from our audience uh
23:44
just to jump right in here our first one says I work with a brand that is siloed
23:48
at the moment what are some first steps we can take to help make fraud
23:51
prevention a more cross teamam function Matt Either of you want to take that?
23:56
>> I I’ll jump in. I mean, it really speaks to kind of the role that I’m playing and
24:00
and I and I think first of all for for the, you know, for the question here is
24:05
to elevate it. It’s not just about fraud prevention. Again, I think what we
24:09
continue to talk about it is is it’s the totality of the business. It’s the
24:13
experience of the guest. So, yes, we want to prevent fraud. We we don’t want
24:17
to have the the creep on the expense line. There are real savings in an ROA
24:22
that you can measure, but it’s immeasurable if you can protect the
24:25
guest experience. You can have your your legitimate guests have that seamless uh
24:31
sales that you can generate for your company and and really if you go to to
24:35
to marketing, you know, that that’s a an easy intro. But also with operations,
24:40
they want to make sure that it’s going to be easy for the people in the
24:43
restaurants or behind the scenes to continue to operate the business as
24:47
easily as possible. And then with technology, as I said a little bit
24:51
earlier, you don’t want to have to change partners. You want to find the
24:53
best-in-class. And so you want to get technology on board to get that solution
24:57
in, integrate it, and know that it’s going to be robust and seamless. So
25:02
really bringing everybody to the table up front and explaining that the the
25:06
more uh the broader business case, I think, is super important.
25:12
One technique that I’ve seen across, you know, many different um industries that
25:17
we support here at SIFT is um the establishment of a consumer experience
25:21
council. Um and that becomes the rallying cry for cross functional teams
25:26
including the office of the CFO, operations, product, um risk management,
25:31
etc. to to really work together and fraud decisioning is one of the pillars,
25:36
one of the disciplines that they talk about within that forum and solve for,
25:40
but it’s done through the lens of delivering a great consumer experience.
25:43
And so if you are in a company where fraud management is still kind of
25:47
feeling like it’s 10 years or 15 years ago and it is truly siloed maybe sitting
25:52
within an IT organization you know my my guidance would be um find birds of a
25:58
feather establish a consumer experience council and then have that proper
26:02
context to talk about risk decisioning and fraud decisioning through the lens
26:06
of growth and treating customers well.
26:09
>> I love that advice. Thank you. Our next program here or question here says, “You
26:13
talked about friendly fraud, particularly as it relates to loyalty
26:16
programs. What are some safeguards restaurants can put in place to help
26:20
prevent these activities?”
26:22
>> Matt, do you want to do you want to take a crack at that one first? Yeah, I think
26:26
it’s important to um we we we have a rewards program here at the Cheesecake
26:30
Factory and and one of the things that was most important about when we thought
26:33
uh about establishing that. It’s been about two years now is to make sure that
26:37
at the very beginning you’re addressing the fraud. You don’t I think you don’t
26:42
want to get into a situation with a loyalty program two or three or four
26:45
years down the road and then decide to bring in a partner and integrate after
26:50
you found all of the the bugs and issues. It’s really great if you can
26:54
establish it up front. At least for us that that’s been the most important
26:58
thing and it kind of dovetailed, right? So if you think about our journey with
27:01
SIFT started in 2020 and then our our rewards program really started from a
27:06
pilot to about two years after that. So we we I think you know maybe it was a
27:10
little bit luck but I think we scheduled it correctly from our company
27:12
standpoint. It’s good to get the fraud piece in first and then do the loyalty
27:16
program.
27:18
>> Yeah, very very good point. You know I very much related to the question is did
27:23
you know one of the world’s largest banks is in fact the Starbucks loyalty
27:27
program. If you think about all the store stored value that’s sitting there
27:31
in in accounts aggregated across millions of consumers it is massive and
27:36
therefore the risk is very very high. The risk of a a bad actor hacking in or
27:42
procuring login credentials from the dark web and going in and transferring
27:46
points is very real. Right. it it’s it’s bad for the brand, it’s bad for the
27:51
consumer. And so, um, mitigating that risk and putting the controls in place
27:56
and not making it an afterthought, making it part of the design up front to
28:00
prevent that really negative guest experience and financial loss associated
28:04
with an account takeover where loyalty points are swiped is really, really
28:08
important. These are problems that we solve at SIFT every day. And uh and I
28:12
think to Matt’s point is make this part of the design upfront and and and
28:17
certainly not an afterthought.
28:20
>> Excellent example. Really kind of puts it all into perspective there. Our next
28:24
question asks, “How do you see customer trust and brand reputation intersect
28:28
when it comes to fraud?”
28:31
>> Well, the brand is everything, right? Ultimately, the trust that the consumer
28:35
has, whether it’s the trust that they’re going to have a great burger when they
28:40
come into the restaurant or that the company is going to manage their data,
28:46
whatever data that might be, it’s credit card information or their personal
28:51
information is is everything today. And and with the way that the news cycle
28:56
works, one little slip up can have a devastating impact on on the brand. So,
29:01
I I think that we we all need to keep that in context and we’re thinking about
29:06
fraud. The consumer needs to believe that you as a company are doing
29:11
everything you can to help protect them and and and that, you know, that loyalty
29:17
uh it can be easily lost and is hard to regain. Uh and so again, it’s kind of
29:23
like thinking about the loyalty program that we were just talking about. You
29:27
need to put those safeguards in place first because losing that trust is is so
29:33
hard to regain. And so you don’t ever want to be in a position where you
29:36
haven’t invested the you know that extra money and it’s not a lot to make sure
29:42
that you’re protecting your guests.
29:45
>> Very well said. And you know and the only comment I will make is as a CMO
29:50
hearing a CFO say that brand is everything is music to my ears. So,
29:55
thank you Matt for that.
29:57
>> Perfect. Thank you so much. I think we’ve got time for one more question.
30:01
So, we’ll end on this one. How do you communicate or do you to customers how
30:05
your brand is conducting fraud prevention activities to help safeguard
30:08
their information?
30:10
>> That’s a super interesting question and something that we’re continuing to
30:14
evolve our perspective on. Right. When we think about something like on the the
30:19
credit card protection with SIFT, we’re we’re actually not really communicating
30:23
most of that today because it’s sort of back of house. You know, there there are
30:27
other aspects of that are a little bit more forward- facing. So, I think for
30:31
us, that’s why prevention is so important at the Cheesecake Factory
30:34
because we’re not necessarily broadcasting that we’re doing a great
30:36
job with protection, but we are. And so, that that in in our mind is that it’s
30:41
it’s sort of envelops everything that we do. uh and and we’re you know we’ve been
30:46
building this brand for for 50 years. Um but so right now for us it’s a little
30:51
bit more about ensuring that we provide that protection because we’re not
30:55
broadcasting everything that we’re doing.
30:58
>> Very important point. You know these real time risk decisioning technologies
31:02
are um below the surface and and that’s a good thing for the consumer. They the
31:07
consumer does not need to necessarily want to know. uh what they do want to
31:12
know is that they’re going to have a great experience every time they
31:14
interact with a brand. The one exception that we are seeing is on these socially
31:19
engineered attacks where you know a you know a nefarious actor might be emailing
31:24
using email to reach out to a consumer with a lookalike domain and even
31:29
creating a lookalike domain that might look and feel like the Cheesecake
31:32
Factory. So, I’ve seen proactive communication to educate consumers that,
31:37
hey, you’ll never get an email like this from our brand. If you see a property
31:42
that looks like this asking you to reenter your credentials, know that
31:45
that’s not legitimate. So, I’ve seen that type of communication different
31:49
from the real- time risk decisioning that we’re mainly talking about on this
31:52
call.
31:53
>> That makes so much sense, Armen. Appreciate that insight.
31:57
>> Perfect. Thank you so much. That is all the time that we have today. Thank you
32:01
so much to Matt and Armen and of course to all of you for being with us today.
32:04
Just a reminder, this webinar will be available on demand and you’ll soon
32:08
receive an email with a link so you can rewatch or share the content with your
32:11
colleagues. Have a great day.



