Franchising

California Fish Grill dives into voice AI

Photo: California Fish Grill

December 20, 2023

To allow restaurant staff to focus more on the customer experience inside its 55 restaurants, California Fish Grill replaced its traditional phone system with voice AI ordering thanks to a collaboration with AI provider Kea, said California Gish Grill VP of IT Patrick Waiyawaytar.

"We are working to reduce stress for our valued front-of-house team, especially when dealing with phone orders," he said in a company press release. "Kea's AI technology allows us to streamline processes, easing the workload for our cashier team and ultimately enhancing the overall customer experience."

California Fish Grill has seen a boost in average ticket size due to the upselling feature as Kea's natural language processing understands the difference between menu items and identifies intelligent selling opportunities on 100% of calls, said Adam Ahmad, CEO and founder of Kea.

A cornerstone of kea's human-centered approach is "the human in the loop" feature, Ahmad said in the release. Rather than using only AI, which often has a low call completion rate, Kea's system integrates live agents that monitor the order, increasing order accuracy, call completion and customer satisfaction. If the customer needs to speak to someone in real-time, agents can jump in, or if the call drops, the agent will call the customer back.

"Our mission is to empower local restaurant chains to thrive," Ahmad said. "With Kea, California Fish Grill can continue to focus on what they do best, serving high-quality, sustainably sourced seafood, and we can focus on handling their to-go orders for them. It's a win-win."

Restaurants interested in trying AI to enable hospitality and scale through digitization can book a demo at kea.ai.