In today’s world technology can help any restaurant to thrive. From the kitchen to the cash register, technology is increasingly becoming an important element of a restaurant’s ability to continue to succeed. Inventors are constantly releasing new technology that helps restaurants run faster, easier and more profitably. In fact, the tech revolution has transformed the restaurant industry as a whole. In this post we take a look at some ways technologies are helping restaurants to thrive.
Scheduling Software
Scheduling has always been something that restaurateurs struggle to maintain. In today’s world there are scheduling software that can help to generate and send out a digital schedule to every employee. These types of software can help to optimize position and shift times, as well as to analyze forecasted sales levels. They can also record time-off requests, employee availability and shift swaps which can be done directly in an app. In addition to that, statistics show that scheduling software has helped restaurant to reduce labor expenses by 2% annually.
Restaurant Reporting – Inventory tracking
When it comes to restaurant reporting, it goes without saying that inventory tracking is important to ensure that a restaurant isn’t wasting resources. Many restaurants have failed, simply because they were not able to accurately track their inventory and ended up with an abundance of spoiled food as well as failing to notice that food was being taken. The pen and paper restaurant reporting concept of tracking inventory is rapidly becoming a thing of the past. Many restaurants have been leveraging electronic inventory technology to have greater visibility of their primary assets. Besides being able to provide greater accuracy and efficiency for inventory counts, this technology has the ability to calculate how much inventory a given restaurant should possess, based on the menu items that they sold. If a discrepancy is found, it can alert managers and make them aware that inventory is being wasted, stolen or that inventory is lower than expected as a result of over-portioning.
Wi-Fi
Chances are that you cannot name a popular restaurant which does not have Wi-Fi. Most major restaurants provide Wi-Fi technology to their guests. This is the case for fast food places such as Burger King and McDonald’s, to their more expensive counterparts like T.G.I.F and Chili’s. The reason why so many restaurants are providing Wi-Fi is due to the numerous benefits it provides to the establishment. Some of those include:
- Increased customer loyalty.
- Increased foot traffic.
- Customers stay longer and subsequently spend more.
- Brand awareness.
- Customer insight.
Digital Table Manager/Reservation
One of the number one reasons why people leave bad reviews for restaurants is a long waiting time. Restaurants are now able to use digital reservation and table managers to reduce the waiting times customers face on a particular busy night. These types of software can provide ideal seating arrangements based on party size and book reservations directly through an app. In addition to this, these digital table software can provide waiters with a party’s dining history such as their favorite dishes and special dates like their anniversaries and birthdays. Through this type of technology, the wait staff is able to provide updates to customers in regards to the status of their food.
Online Ordering
Even before the onset of the pandemic, statistics demonstrated that online ordering technologies were growing with consumers. And, even though there are apps that people could use to order food online, most people would prefer to purchase from the restaurant directly to avoid excessive fees. Restaurant operators who have incorporated online ordering technologies into their brand have noticed numerous benefits, such as :
- Higher revenue.
- Greater accuracy when it comes to fulfilling orders.
- Gain valuable data about how often a given customer purchases and the items that they usually get.
In today’s world, having excellent food is not enough to fight off the competition. So it comes as no surprise that some of the most successful restaurants in the industry, use technology to help them thrive in several ways. Even though these types of technologies are expensive, the results restaurants will be able to receive by leveraging them, are well worth the initial investment.
