Your business should allow you to collect a wide range of data about your restaurant, but more importantly, it needs to help you make connections between those disparate pieces of information, enabling you to make apples-to-apples comparisons across your locations. Looking at your business, are there processes that are either manual or are occurring in some locations but not others? Eliminating the loose ends will help you to see clearer patterns across such areas as employee and store performance, guest response to your promotions, and average check totals – and will empower you to make more informed conclusions across your business.

A new rule issued by the Federal Reserve brings consistency to how debit card transactions are processed online or in person – and it comes as welcome news to many restaurant operators that had to pivot to accommodate contactless payments over the course of the past two years. The rule requires debit card issuers to enable at least two unaffiliated networks to process all debit card transactions, including “card not present” (CNP) or online payments. CNP transactions have historically cost more for businesses to process than in-store payments. The National Restaurant Association believes that the shift to more unaffiliated networks could translate to less expensive swipe fees for CNP debit card transactions. Further, the rule will also incentivize card payment networks to improve their fraud-prevention capabilities and help operators identify theft and data breaches more readily.

​Data has become increasingly valuable to restaurants, all while making foodservice businesses more appealing targets of cybercrime. According to Check Point Research, there was a 40 percent spike in cybercrime in the leisure and hospitality industry last year. Securing entry points is important to keeping information safe. A recent report from Modern Restaurant Management said legacy POS systems can be easy targets for attack. Taking action to bolster protection of every transaction at the point of sale is the most important thing you can do to safeguard your business from cyber criminals. That means having a POS with cloud-based monitoring and tech support. It helps an operator get to the root of a data breach or other problem quickly, then get back on track with minimal interruption.

For restaurants, guest data is the key to better sales, menu development and loyalty. But in an age of increasing cyber risk, what if some guests don’t want to share their information – or are turned off when you ask for it? First, make it easy and fast for them to share it, without a lot of discussion, clicks or scrolling required. Clarify how you will and won’t be using their information – and what benefits they will receive as a result, including special discounts, shorter wait times, member rewards or customized offers. Finally, make them feel safe – not only through your use of secure technology but also by ensuring their interactions with your staff feel genuine. Collect only the information you need and reinforce your commitment to protecting their safety and privacy.

​According to a recent survey by the National Restaurant Association, 65 percent of restaurant operators say they lack sufficient staff to support customer demand. As a result, when customers call in orders or reservation requests to restaurants right now, more of those calls are being transferred to lines supported by artificial intelligence. There are clear benefits — it’s easier to collect guest data, and a bot won’t get rattled during a busy shift or miss upselling an order. However, even the most established brands have been experiencing some growing pains with the adoption of this technology in recent months. Would your guests be amenable to connecting with you via AI? If not or you’re not sure, could you incentivize guests to place orders online or via app instead?

While restaurants aren’t yet offering guests fully personalized menus, that kind of customization is an enhancement that’s likely to be a more common aspect of the restaurant experience in the coming years. Those businesses with a treasure trove of guest data at their fingertips will be in the best position to capitalize on the change. Right now, you can take steps to strengthen the historical information you have to draw from. How can you tap the technology you have to better understand who your guests are, what foods and promotions they are drawn to, and when they like to order from you?

As we brace for a potential recession, your digital technology may be your restaurant’s best protection. It can help you identify the snags that may prevent you from operating more efficiently. But in an age when there is so much potential data for a restaurant to collect and analyze, analysis paralysis is common. To make the most of the information you collect, focus on several key metrics: how you can best streamline your labor, track staff performance, identify your best-selling items and other items that aren’t as profitable, and slim down your operating hours so you’re open when you’re most likely to profit. This will help you elevate your more profitable items and identify potential waste that is holding you back – whether that is in the form of a low-profit entrée, a low-traffic period that is difficult to staff, or a server who needs support in upselling orders.

​While it seems like every restaurant has a loyalty program these days, there is significant room for improvement: According to new research from Mercator Advisory Group, only 22 percent of consumers are satisfied with the level of personalization offered by their loyalty programs. Harnessing guest data can help you up your game. Make sure your program is connected to every place a customer can place an order with you, online and off, so you can collect transactional data and use it to personalize your efforts to upsell and cross-sell items, or to target them with exclusive limited-time offers or invitations. A QSRweb report says this approach can help you present real-time promotions that are more likely to hit the mark with guests, like offering a discount on two large pizzas to the subset of visitors who would normally order just one.

​The past few years have given restaurant operators a crash course in the importance of collecting data – about guests, ingredients, sales performance and many other factors. Have you applied this approach to identifying potential staff? By taking the time to analyze data about what works for your business – and not simply casting a wide net and hoping you bring in some good people – you stand a better chance to attracting and keeping staff who are well suited to your business. This report from Modern Restaurant Management advises mining employee data by taking surveys of employees. What is important to them about their position? What benefits would keep them in their job? How does your business measure up to competing businesses (both inside and outside of the industry) when it comes to pay, benefits, growth opportunities and job security? Perhaps you can identify even incremental improvements that could help you find and keep good people. Or, maybe those improvements aren’t possible for you financially. In that case, having this information at your fingertips now can still be valuable in driving you to retool your business model. At a time when so much about a restaurant is learned online before a person even visits, give your website’s recruitment page a tune-up – much like you’d make your online menu more mobile-friendly for a guest. Can an applicant quickly scan the page for basic information about your business and apply on the spot?

Running the most efficient operation you can is hinged on your data. It can tell you everything from how much of an item to order to how much staff to have on hand during a shift, thereby minimizing wasteful spending. But your ability to make informed predictions of your needs relies on the quality of your historical data – your record of recent weeks, months and years. What if your historical data has gaping holes in it? While the pandemic has spurred the adoption of restaurant technology across the industry, the quality of historical data about a restaurant may still need time to improve. Increasingly, restaurant tech stacks are enabling operators to not only adjust their forecasts based on factors such as weather and local events; they are also allowing brands to factor in historical data from similar brands across the industry. Ingest, for one, is allowing restaurants to benchmark against the performance of similar brands to help them get a more complete picture when their own historical data isn’t up to the task.