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Ordering up efficiency: Optimizing work flow using mobile technology

Restaurants are beginning to integrate various technologies that are allowing them to achieve greater efficiencies.

March 11, 2015

By Satish Varma, cofounder, Clorder Inc.

I am sure you’ve been in this situation before. You are the manager on duty during the restaurant’s busiest night, tasked with seating the myriad families that are waiting impatiently all around you.

You are trying to keep them at bay – making sure they are contained until their tables are ready. If only there was a way to turn tables quicker, feed more families faster, minimize complaints of hungry patrons and ultimately help the chain become more operationally efficient. With a solution like that, any restaurant could be positioned for success.

It is comforting to know that with the advent of mobile technologies, this scenario is starting to change. Restaurants are beginning to integrate various technologies that are allowing them to achieve greater efficiencies. The result: operators will know their customers better and are well positioned to cater to individual patrons’ preferences (yes it can get that granular even for large chains), tables can turn over more quickly and revenue should increase.

Tablets can result in higher tabs

Every restaurant wants to generate more revenue from higher tabs. Integrating mobile (tablet) technologies are quickly helping restaurants fill seats faster, and then, turn around the tables more efficiently. Many large restaurant chains and independent operators are using tablets to manage their customer flow and business operations. Let’s take a look at how.

Have a seat

Tablets such as iPads can be used for enhancing work flow and be applied to many functions that can help drive efficiencies. Some restaurants are placing tablets on the table that are capable of order taking, collecting payments and entertaining the kids. This is helping lower labor costs, improve service and foster faster table turnaround times – the more the customer can do at the table, allowing the server to sell, the greater the revenue per table on average will be. And the more information a customer provides, the more valuable he/she is to the restaurant. The intelligence gleaned from tablet input arms restaurant operators with key data necessary to ensuring it meets its customers’ specific needs.

By letting the tablet do its magic, restaurants can dedicate their resources (servers) to promoting higher levels of customer engagement, giving them a chance to up-sell. The more functions that are automated using the help of mobile technology, the more time employees can spend attending to customers. Servers now can be more attentive and engaged in a casual conversation with customers and recommend add-ons, leading to increased tab amounts. 

Tablets are also helping many restaurants centralize table reservations by easily streamlining requests from walk-ins, previously made reservations, reservations made through restaurant sites such as Open Table or online as well as from phone reservations. Using a tablet as a management system is already helping restaurants optimize their efficiencies by turning tables more quickly and serving more customers.  

In summary, tablets are bringing many advantages to restaurant operators from improving and leveraging labor costs to garnering vital market intelligence. As adoption continues, restaurant goers will have far superior eating experiences.

Take it to go

Delivery order fulfillment is another area that could significantly benefit from mobile technologies. It is perhaps the most important impression left on customers when placing delivery orders. Today, there are end-to-end solutions that facilitate and simplify the order process. There is currently much room for improvement in the to-go and food delivery function. Using mobile technologies from the time an order is placed to the time it gets delivered, makes it easier to track flow and gauge the process. A common problem restaurant operators face is that customers rarely receive their food order on time. Oftentimes, there are significant delays.  

Implementing a location-based service that enhances delivery order fulfillment by incorporating algorithms into a software delivery system can help manage the process -- from the initial placement and scheduling the orders to the time they are dispatched and organizing drivers’ schedules. 

Operators can use mobile applications to schedule and track orders in the kitchen based on current requests, size of new orders, delivery distances, driver availability, traffic conditions and many more items of intelligence that could play a role.

To gain better control over deliveries, a restaurant operator could employ a GPS system whereby they can track information coming from the drivers in the field to know precisely where the fleet currently is and what the traffic patterns are like. This requires reliable mobile integration to work appropriately.

A dispatching team should be able to know which orders are being worked on in kitchen and when a particular order will be ready for the driver to pick and deliver. They can plan more efficiently and group orders they carry, based on the information coming from kitchen and their driving destinations. Leveraging software capabilities and integrating a GPS system into an electronic-based ordering system could completely improve the to-go and delivery order functions for restaurant operators.

An increased appetite for technology

According to the GE Capital 2014 Chain Restaurant Industry Review report, more than two-thirds of restaurant operators relied upon social media applications in 2014.  Digital marketing and social media will be the true differentiators in the fight for restaurant market share. Nielsen found that U.S. consumers now own an average of four digital devices and spend 60 hours per week accessing content from those devices. An increasing number of the population is using Smartphones while on-the-go to glean information relevant to restaurant choices. The trick is how to use these social channels to drive revenue and engage with the customer. 

Restaurants could design programs that directly appeal to their customers using mobile apps. These apps can not only inform customers but also ascertain their preferences, which can positively impact revenue and increase sales. Knowing customers help control costs too allows operators to tune in to precisely what types of foods to feature. There would be less waste in the kitchen if menus incorporated customer preferences based on intelligence drawn from the gathered data.

Cater to the customer

Mobile technology allows operators to know their customer intimately and directly target them in ways that entice them to frequent their restaurants. 

Why not target your customers by employing integrated technology to feature alerts on specials of the day or create targeted email marketing campaigns? 

Some techniques operator can deploy to directly target customers using mobile technology include:

• Conducting surveys and incentivizing - Place a tablet on the table or have the patron use their Smartphone to participate in surveys in real-time and offer incentives, such as 10 percent off the bill for those who complete in real-time, maybe less for those who complete it online and then show proof;
• Creating loyalty programs - Use the intelligence gleaned from survey to know the customer better and to create promotions that ultimately drives sales;
• Featuring what they want – Develop an offering which ultimately drives sales by listening to your customer when they engage in mobile technology to communicate with you
• Driving excitement with a constant feed of social media displayed on large screens – Many restaurants today have digital signage inside their locations; why not devote some of them to these social news streams to get the customer hungry and excited? 

All these programs would help the restaurant own their customer, build their brand, drive traffic and enhance business overall.

Check in, please

Whether you’re hungry for takeout, delivery or dine in, the restaurant industry is undergoing change based on technological advancements in software, hardware and of course, with the emergence and adoption of various social channels. And, the next time you go to a restaurant to check in with your kids, it is certain you will still have to wait. You might want to bring your own tablet – for now.  But in a year or so, I think the experience will be a very different one as mobile applications penetrate restaurant operations and prove advantageous to enhancing customer engagement. This will truly change the way restaurants serve up their food.

Satish Varma is co-founder of Clorder Inc., a Los Angeles-based developer of a cloud-based online food ordering solution that helps restaurants enhance their web presence and promote their brand. Currently, nearly 300 restaurants use Clorder’s custom-branded technology solutions to manage their own online identity and better reach, engage and retain their customers.