![]() Restaurants can generate reams of data to run their businesses more effectively. But reviewing data about such wide-ranging elements as your guests, inventory, traffic, employee productivity, supply chain and marketing is only effective when you can know how and when these elements impact each other. Much like how a kitchen display system synthesizes orders from multiple sources and translates that information into clear directions for employees preparing food in your kitchen, a dashboard can track multiple collections of data from across your business and demonstrate how they impact each other so you can make more informed decisions. Do your current tools allow you to do this – or is there valuable information slipping through the cracks that would be beneficial to weave into the overall analytics you have for the business? ![]() Is your mobile app worth the real estate it occupies on guests’ phones? Evolving loyalty programs are making it more enticing for consumers to get the apps of their favorite restaurants. But this also means that restaurants have more – and better – competition when it comes to offering a smooth, personalized in-app experience to users. What does an easy in-app experience look like? It’s largely about offering guests simplicity, speed and easy access to the personalized information they want. At the recent National Restaurant Association Show, leaders from Paytronix and Red’s Savoy Pizza took to the stage and offered one example. The Red’s Savoy app includes an “order again” button to make it faster and easier to input future orders, a loyalty points tracker right on the home page, and a message section that allows for personalized communication with guests. ![]() Does your customer data have gaps in it where you’re missing insights that could be helpful to you? Or is it simply just too patchy to be able to help you draw meaningful conclusions? Predictive analytics may help you make connections that can help you deliver more personalized experiences to guests. As this report from Restaurant Technology explains, predictive analytics software draws from data analysis, machine learning, AI and statistical models to identify patterns and predict future behavior. So even after a single purchase by a guest, a business is able to zoom out and make predictions about guest preferences. This can be a money saver for operators as well, allowing them to predict future inventory needs so they can avoid both over-ordering and being caught short. ![]() At the recent National Restaurant Association Show in Chicago, the organization’s CEO, Michelle Korsmo, said the industry has about two job openings for every potential worker. As a result, restaurants are currently vying for workers who have significant bargaining power – leverage that often makes it difficult for all but the most highly resourced businesses to compete for labor. This ongoing need for support has only sharpened the spotlight already cast on technology – particularly on the urgent need for many restaurants to automate tasks ranging from order taking to food preparation. Automation will make the industry look a lot different by 2030, Korsmo said. A Restaurant Dive report about the automation technology on display at the National Restaurant Association Show identified several stand-out tools, including robotic fry stations, smart combi ovens, hygiene scanning and safety software, and robotic burger stations – tools that can help a restaurant manage tasks that are not only tedious or time-consuming but are also important to get right. While ensuring near-term survival has had to be the priority for many restaurants in the past few years, taking a longer-term view of your staffing needs is important too. How might you rethink your staffing structure in the coming years? If you’re already operating with a slimmed-down team, what tasks are slipping through the cracks as a result? Where might you automate tasks that currently stretch your staff in ways that have the potential to compromise your service and safety? ![]() Just like your guest data clarifies the habits and preferences of those who dine with you, your employee data can reveal truths about your team and your own training procedures that you wouldn’t be likely to learn otherwise. As a recent report from Entrepreneur explains, employee data is about more than tracking your staff’s working hours or sales. Perhaps your data can demonstrate that employees who receive more comprehensive training on your restaurant menu and specials tend to generate more sales – or perhaps there is less of a correlation than you expected. Wouldn’t that be helpful to know when you’re contemplating whether or not to invest in such training for all staff – and what aspects of training are most important to provide? Your data can also reveal who is most efficient in generating sales, so you can aim to have those employees working during your peak hours. When you review the data you have on employee performance, how much are you able to draw from it that can help you make proactive decisions to help your business? ![]() Consumers are used to getting what they want when they want it – and geofencing can help set guest expectations (and make you a more appealing choice for guests in a hurry). While the use of geofencing technology to increase the efficiency of food collection is nothing new, time has now proven its ability to expedite service. Last October, in an InTouch Insight study of 10 quick-service restaurants during peak dayparts, Chick-fil-A came in last for drive-thru times at eight minutes and 29 seconds on average. (KFC took first place for speed, with average drive-thru times of five minutes and two seconds.) Restaurant Dive reports that following a test of geofencing technology on its mobile app this past year, Chick-fil-A has been able to decrease its drive-thru times by between one and two minutes. Guests who enable location service on the restaurant’s app will get an estimate of how long their orders will take, whether for curbside, takeaway or dine-in service. Chick-fil-A staff are alerted when customers approach the restaurant and can begin preparing orders – and estimated wait times have been 90 percent accurate. ![]() At a time when high inflation continues to make restaurant food a harder sell, operators need any tools they can find to help them ensure the experience they deliver is one that people find worthwhile. Speedy, accurate food service is a key part of that experience. A kitchen display system is a modern-day reinvention of the manual ticketing process in a restaurant, and it’s a workhorse when it comes to helping operators precisely prioritize preparation tasks being assigned from multiple areas of the business. It can help you make the most of a smaller-than-ideal team and also deliver faster, more accurate, more consistent service across all of your ordering channels. ![]() It seems every part of a restaurant kitchen has a “smart” solution these days, whether it’s smart sensors to monitor the temperature of a pot of water, the volume of ingredients needed for a dish, or any number of other tasks. But these new tools are only as good as the knowledge employees possess in using them. Make sure your staff first understands the problem you’re looking to solve with smart tools and appliances. Then provide hands-on introductory training, follow-up training and ongoing monitoring to ensure you’re getting the most you can from these new additions to your kitchen. If you have a tech skeptic on your staff, it may improve your eventual buy-in by working with this person on the new tool, then having them teach others on the team. |
Subscribe to our newsletterArchives
January 2025
Categories
All
|