Is Your Restaurant Ready for the Holiday Rush?
It’s rapidly approaching that jolly time of year when people are out in droves shopping and eating out — both in-restaurant and getting takeout or delivery. That’s usually great news for restauranteurs, except in the current labor and market climate, it may be causing more anxiety than excitement.
Holiday alarm (jingle) bells?
If customer wait times hit excessive lengths, either waiting for a table or waiting for service, there is even the possibility of damaging the restaurant's reputation. How long is too long? Well, Touch Bistro’s 2022 Diner Trends Report suggests that 30 minutes is an important demarcation line. 42% of Gen Z, 50% of millennials, 54% of Gen X, and 63% of boomers consider a wait time of over 30 minutes to be a major deterrent.
And the danger of negative reviews is real. Yelp reports that in the first quarter of 2022, mentions of wait times was up 23% over the same period a year ago and mentions of short staffing are up an incredible 229%. Though those don’t necessarily mean negative reviews, when we combine it with another finding in a New Voice Media (now Vonage) survey, American businesses are estimated to lose $75 billion annually due to poor customer service and, that after one negative experience, 51% of customers will never do business with that company again. These numbers aren’t specific to the restaurant industry, but they do set off those holiday alarm jingle bells. If guests’ expectations of service aren’t met, you may lose that customer, most likely permanently.
Technology could be your restaurant’s secret ingredient
When it comes to restaurant guest experience, variety is the key. Technology can give your guests the option to order & pay how and when they like. That means we need to think of technology as complimentary to traditional methods. So, guests get their menu but have the option of menu on their mobile phone. Guests can order through their server or through their phone. And when it’s time to pay, they can pay through the server or, you guessed it, through their mobile phone. Immediately we can see guest frustrations being mitigated. If servers are busy, the guest can wait if they want or go ahead and pay on their own.
The key is that the technology must be easy to use, well designed and integrated with your point-of-sale technology.
Importantly, this doesn’t just improve the guest experience by allowing them to have control if they want it. It also empowers servers by removing some of their transactional responsibilities, allowing them to more easily serve more tables and letting them focus on the qualitative part of their relationship with guests.
Since servers can serve more tables more easily, and guests can leave when they like, without necessarily having to wait for a server, tables are turned faster and more guests can be seated, meaning revenue increases
Better guest experience, support for servers and increased revenue? That sounds like a holiday gift we can all get behind.
If you want to find out more about how Ready’s order & pay hospitality, entertainment and restaurant tech can help your brand increase revenue and improve customer experiences, please get in touch with our team today.
About Ready
Ready partners with innovative restaurant, foodservice, and hospitality brands to create frictionless order & pay experiences that WOW guests.
Our mobile-first flexible order & pay software platform empowers guests with more choice, boosts revenue, and connects brands directly with customers.
We are a company of food lovers whose goal is to make guests, servers, and operators say, "Why hasn't it always been like this?"
Our clients are Restaurants, Hotels, Stadiums, Venues, and anywhere food or drinks are served.
Ready to order. Ready to pay. Ready when you are.