Several years into managing ingredient inflation, supply chain snags and other strains on your bottom line, you may feel like you have raised menu prices to their limit – or that you’re running out of ways to cut costs. But AI automation is helping operators identify new ways to optimize operations at the front and back of the house, saving resources in the process. In a recent webinar from QSRweb, “When Raising Prices Isn’t Cutting It...How AI Automation Cuts Costs & Customer Complaints,” panelists discussed how AI can accomplish this through precision forecasting on multiple levels at once. For example, it can forecast how the weather next week is likely to impact your guests’ food preferences, guest traffic, and therefore your inventory and labor needs. It can ensure you have the right ingredients on hand at the right time, so your team isn’t scrambling to refill a key ingredient on the line just as people are lining up out your door during the lunch rush. It can help operators manage around particular scenarios – like if Joe doesn’t make it to work today, how will we manage his tasks effectively and safely? It can prevent the unfortunate ripple effect that can lead to mistakes, safety problems, and inconsistency – all issues that can impact guest experience, as well as staff morale and turnover. This frees managers up to deliver better guest experiences, which AI can also enhance by delivering personalized information about the people coming through your doors. Looking at your current operation, where are the bottlenecks, or areas where you feel you could use staff more effectively or deliver a better experience for guests? Could precision forecasting help? To be sure, consumers seem to expect more from in-restaurant dining nowadays. But delivering value and enhancing the overall guest experience doesn’t necessarily require sweeping changes. Some tech-supported improvements can help in a big way – and recent research suggests there is untapped potential here that can benefit restaurants. A survey from Incisiv about the future of restaurant dining found that the majority of restaurants are leaving opportunities on the table to use digital experiences to boost food’s emotional and communal power, as well as offer seamless and efficient service. Making improvements can include everything from simplifying group dining by allowing easy bill splitting to connecting guests with behind-the-scenes content about your ingredients. Similarly, efficiency tech (such as sensors to detect the presence of guests or in-restaurant app modes to allow guests to track orders) can improve the experience of guests, but these tools aren’t widely used in restaurants. Looking at your order streams, where is there room to make things more seamless – and in effect, exponentially enhance the experience for your guests? |
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July 2024
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