​Intouch Insight’s newly released 23rd Annual Drive-Thru Study tracked the performance of key brands in the quick-service space – and some of the lessons are worth considering in other restaurant categories as well. For instance, suggestive selling was again found to be a useful means for restaurants to direct guests’ attention to special offers and boost check totals. While it tends to add time to transactions, it doesn’t do so evenly: In the drive-thru setting, it added an average of 10 seconds to service time, but when the suggestive sell occurred after the order was placed (versus during the initial greeting) the orders took 28 seconds less to complete. Restaurant brands that are less focused on shaving seconds off the order completion process can still reap benefits from consistent suggestive selling – but surprisingly few brands follow through with it. (In the study, only 56 percent of the measured interactions across all brands included suggestive selling – even though it’s a more natural practice in the quick-service category.) That said, the brands that have implemented AI to automate suggestive selling upsold 88 percent of orders. In your online and app-based orders, are you automating suggestive selling – and incorporating AI-based applications to make consistent, targeted suggestions? Even if you’re not operating in the drive-thru space, if you’re not yet making additional suggestions based on a person’s ordering history, at a time when they are hungry and already craving your food, you are likely leaving money on the table on more orders than you might expect.

​It may seem like the world has moved beyond Covid-19, but the virus continues to make the restaurant landscape feel different than it once did. Where, when and how people consume food from restaurants has changed. The numbers prove it: As a recent Washington Post report indicates, restaurants are serving 16 percent fewer people in their dining rooms as compared to before the pandemic. Meanwhile, off-premises dining has picked up the slack. While carry-out business is down 3 percent, delivery is up more than 5 percent and drive-through business is up 13 percent. The National Restaurant Association’s Hudson Riehle says a commanding 39 percent of all restaurant traffic is coming through the drive-through lane. This has divided restaurants into a couple of categories – those that provide fast, convenient, quality service for people on the go, and others that focus more on providing a memorable dining experience that’s worth lingering over. If you’re among the large and growing number of restaurants in the first category, consider how you might iron out any kinks in your mobile ordering, pickup and delivery processes. If you don’t provide drive-through service, how can you incentivize people to collect carry-out from you? Could your technology empower your staff to track orders with greater precision and bring them out promptly to waiting guests? Consider how you might infuse your service model with some flexibility and show guests that dining with you – whether off-premises or on – is a convenient and worthwhile option for them in this new environment.

Takeout is here to stay (and even if you’re eager to serve a full dining room again, you have reason to be happy about the takeout part). The proof is in the numbers. According to a new survey of more than 2,000 U.S. consumers by Paytronix Systems, 63 percent of the money that U.S. consumers spent on food orders last year was on food eaten at home. Digital channels supported those orders by a large margin: Of the money consumers spent online on food orders, 89 percent was spent on orders placed via desktop websites, mobile apps and aggregator apps. What’s more, the research found that consumers spent 50 percent more on average when they placed orders online for takeout. Paytronix CEO Andrew Robbins says that in 2021, a consumer’s ability to order online, collect orders via a drive-thru or curbside pickup, and earn rewards through loyalty programs will create the most opportunities for restaurants. This makes it all the more critical to be able to use your POS to quickly summon information about what your recipes cost, which menu items deliver the most profitability, and what items a guest has ordered in the past. If your restaurant receives a grant from the American Rescue Plan, consider using it to fine-tune your tech to streamline your takeout so you can suggest the profitable items and combinations that a guest is most likely to crave time and again.

Some aspects of restaurant dining have seemed to become ancient history in the pandemic era. Case in point: It’s hard to imagine when the salad bar or buffet line will make a widespread comeback. But the equipment that made those kinds of services possible remains. So, like so many other areas of restaurant service right now, it’s time to reinvent it. Campbell’s has done just that by updating its self-service soup stations: In the current environment, they suggest placing a warming plate over soup wells and then lining up pre-packaged containers of soup for customers to collect, or (as a space-saving solution that also accommodates longer hold times) using a multi-tiered warming cabinet that can also be placed over existing soup wells and holds containers of soup to-go in various sizes. Both options enable easy soup collection by customers. They also allow easy replenishment of product from the back of the house – either by filling the cabinet with additional pre-poured containers of soup stored in a larger enclosed warming cabinet in the back, or by pouring more servings as needed from tureens behind the counter and adding them to the containers awaiting collection by customers. These new solutions from Campbell’s weave in some other benefits related to food safety, waste management and customer satisfaction too. Each soup container can be sealed with a sticker to boost customer confidence in the security of the soup they are about to consume. Further, the containers allow for precise pouring of soup in various sizes to help prevent accidental overpouring. Finally, serving from pre-portioned containers allows you to offer size options beyond the traditional two. Selling a few size options not only appeals to customers, but it can also help you craft new combo promotions to elevate check totals.  Check out Foodservice CEO to find out about all the Cambpell’s self serve solutions at https://www.foodserviceceo.com/self-serve-solutions.html​

​Throughout the past year, takeout and delivery have occupied a larger part of many consumers’ lives than they did before. Even as we emerge from the pandemic and people return to restaurant dining rooms, expect your customers’ off-premise food habits to persist. According to the National Restaurant Association’s 2021 State of the Industry Report, 68 percent of consumers say they are more likely to purchase takeout from a restaurant than before and 53 percent say takeout and delivery have become essential to the way they live. How authentically do your restaurant’s values translate to an off-premise experience? If your business prides itself on treating customers like family and remembering their favorite dishes, are you including a personal note in their to-go bag and using tech to track their orders and feed that data into your loyalty program? If your brand is focused on protecting the environment, are you providing recyclable, compostable or reusable packaging? As restaurants have transitioned to greater tech adoption in the past year, some operators may feel they are losing the personal touch – or the more experiential brand elements that once helped consumers connect with them. But that doesn’t have to be true. While you may be losing face-to-face connections with your customers, you can lean on supporting elements of your brand – like your business background story, staff personalities, service mindset, behind-the-scenes anecdotes, food selection and packaging – and rethink how you communicate them. If a delivery driver dropped off a bag of food from your restaurant to someone who had never visited your restaurant before, what would the person’s impressions of your business be?