How well is your restaurant able to harness real-time data about how it’s operating? Right now, devices connected through the Internet of Things (IoT) are making it possible for restaurants to not only generate more revenue, but also avoid costly problems. Consider parts of your operation that customers don’t necessarily see, but which are critical to how you operate – like your energy consumption or equipment performance, for example. Sensors connected through the IoT can analyze data from these parts of your business, identify patterns and flag problems or unnecessary down time. As a recent report from Restaurant News says, this can help a restaurant stay on top of equipment maintenance and avoid costly repairs, or help optimize energy consumption so you can avoid an unexpectedly high energy bill and operate with less environmental impact. We have all been there: It’s been a long day, you’re hungry, you’re craving a meal from a favorite restaurant, and you want it here now. Somehow the effort it takes to order or adjust a past order to your preferences – never mind collect orders from others – feels like more than you want to manage. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could skip that first part and allow the restaurant to get a jump start on preparing your dish? This functionality is something that Panera is offering their loyalty club members. The new feature, dubbed Crunch Time Ordering, allows guests to pre-program their favorite meals into their app and set them to be ordered at a set date and time. The app sends the person a reminder to place the order for pickup or delivery, then they just need to swipe a prompt within the app to complete the process. This kind of functionality is something to consider if you serve craveable foods that your guests think about at certain times of the week – like a large coffee on the way to work, a soup-and-sandwich combo for lunch during a busy work day, or a Friday-night pizza to kick off the weekend. Looking at your guests’ ordering habits and the preferences of your most loyal fans, are there ways you can remove friction from your ordering process and make it a little easier for people to get the food they crave? Name a restaurant business challenge and there is a tech tool to help address it. As a result, it’s easy for restaurants that have the means to invest in new tech to drown in a sea of options. Adopting new tech to help manage staff schedules sounds useful. Yet so do inventory management systems, tech-based staff training and kitchen display systems. If you can’t do it all, focus on what’s going to help elevate your brand by asking one question: How will this improve the hospitality we deliver? At the recent FSTEC Conference, restaurant CEOs reinforced this message. Gregg Majewski, CEO of Craveworthy Brands, said he has seen far too many operators get distracted from that goal. “Hospitality is key,” he said. “It’s how you win guests, and it’s how you make your franchisees money.” Each month, artificial intelligence-powered tools are being adopted in more guest-facing restaurant roles. As a recent article in The Spoon put it, we will likely see the biggest use of this technology in quick-service roles, in particular, because they tend to be lower-paying, higher-turnover jobs. Wendy’s and White Castle are two such brands stepping into this territory – and now delivery providers including Uber Eats and DoorDash also have plans in the works for AI-powered ordering. Once brands have established some history with guest-facing AI, we’ll know more about how it is impacting order accuracy, labor challenges and the guest experience. If the changes are positive, restaurants beyond the quick-service category may well look for ways to weave it into their models too. Could you see a way to use chatbots or other AI tools to support your service? People learn in different ways – and the tools you use to reinforce food safety skills can help you make the lessons stick. Restaurant Technology News suggests using virtual reality headsets to role play different scenarios with staff. Having them take part in exercises that feel real can help muscle memory kick in. Ongoing reinforcement is helpful too – and leveraging their smartphones can help you make sure they always have the information they need. Send employees reminders and just-in-time updates via their phone, or simply allow them to use their phone to access a bank of helpful food safety information when they have questions. Could automation be the answer to perennial labor challenges in restaurants? As the opportunities for restaurant automation increase and pressure remains on operators to manage tasks with the support of a smaller-than-ideal staff, it’s natural to ask the question. How you answer it could mean the difference between attracting talented employees and losing them. While it may be tempting to envision running your business without having to worry about an employee calling in sick or forgetting their shift, the human touch is something that guests and restaurants want. Recent research from PYMNTS found that only a small portion of guests enjoy using QR codes (17 percent) and kiosks (18 percent) for ordering instead of menus and counters – and while younger consumers are more interested in these tools, almost 60 percent still enjoy the experience of interacting with waitstaff. Automation can help you make those interactions better by allowing your staff to spend less time on tasks that the guest doesn’t even see. A recent report from Modern Restaurant Management advises operators to focus on hiring talented people and automating inventory management, food preparation and other unseen tasks that support staff but don’t replace their interactions with your guests. Finding the right balance between those parts of your business is where you can deliver the personalized, convenient experiences that will most delight your guests. There is a big opportunity for restaurants to improve their off-premise guest satisfaction – and the accuracy and timing of kitchen fulfillment is at the heart of it. That’s according to restaurant commerce platform Qu’s 4th annual State of Digital survey, which included responses from 85 fast casual and QSR brands representing over 30,000 locations. The survey found that many of these brands are seeing 15 percent lower guest satisfaction on orders, largely due to inaccuracies in orders and the timing of them. Using a kitchen display system to manage order flow, throttling and employee tasks can help, particularly if you’re integrating orders from multiple streams and would like to be able to not only manage order accuracy better, but also to steer guests to other ordering channels when one channel is overloaded. Restaurant kiosks are labor savers, particularly if operators use their full range of applications. Beyond handling mobile ordering and payment, restaurants can use kiosks creatively to reinforce the brand experience, entertain guests and steer people toward particular menu items. According to Savor’s Restaurant Technology Ebook 2023, restaurants are using kiosks to prompt guests to sign up for their loyalty program and provide updates on rewards. Some are using kiosks as interactive consoles that help guests pass the time with games that include branded content. Kiosks can serve as autonomous beverage service stations, allowing guests to customize and pay for their drinks. You can also promote particular menu items on kiosks by featuring mouth-watering photos and descriptions of the profitable items you’re hoping to sell on a given day. Making staff feel appreciated – and more likely to engage with the business and remain on the job – isn’t just about offering tangible rewards. The little things you can do to recognize a job well done, or acknowledge personal milestones like birthdays or work anniversaries, can all help you boost morale and make employees feel like they are making important contributions to the broader team. Harness your employee-facing technology to automate email messages and other alerts so you can trigger these communications as needed without a lot of manual effort. Is your restaurant adopting more guest-facing self-service automation and technology to streamline service and ease labor challenges right now? If doing so feels like you’re making your service less personal, there are steps you can take to ensure your guests feel like they have been receiving your best service — whether it’s from your app or from a member of your staff. A recent report from Automation & Self-Service suggests customizing the user interface: For example, increasing font sizes and presenting content in a wider range of languages can make the user feel more confident when interacting with your brand. Then encourage the guest to create an account on your system so you can offer personalized content and recommendations related to their tastes and ordering patterns. This will speed up their subsequent ordering processes — and also improve your chances of increasing their check sizes with items they enjoy. You can then use that data to send them promotions that are likely to connect with them at the times they are most likely craving your food. Finally, offer some help to navigate your system. Chatbots and virtual assistants can answer questions, but also be aware if there are parts of your ordering process that are bottlenecks or result in abandoned carts so you can smooth out your ordering process from start to finish. |
Subscribe to our newsletterArchives
May 2024
Categories
All
|