3 Ways to Increase Restaurant Sales with Conversational AI
July 31, 2019 • 4 minute read

Three Ways to Increase Restaurant Sales with Conversational AI

Managing a successful restaurant is no easy feat. Guests have unlimited options at their fingertips, and their experience at your restaurant is often the biggest differentiator from competition down the road. Guests crave a speedy solution to their ordering needs, a personalized experience, and 100% accuracy. And they want it every single time they visit. Every restaurant dreams of a day when they can make this happen for guests. 

But there is good news! With the right technology, like Conversational AI, great guest experience can become a reality. Through sophisticated, human-like, virtual assistants, everything from digital ordering to guest care can be transformed for your guests. 

But, with so many competing technology priorities, how can you fit Conversational AI in your budget? 

Sure, Conversational AI will drive an increase in your guest’s satisfaction. Guests will feel heard, pleased with short wait times and the ease of their ordering, and, in turn, they will be more loyal to your restaurant or chain. What’s equally important, though, is the improvement that Conversational AI will create for your top line and sales performance.

1. Be consistent or you’ll miss out (on easy sales)

According to an internal survey, only 30% of guests are offered an upsell when ordering at a quick service restaurant.  And, only 25% of guests will actually accept the offer to upgrade or add to their order when asked. Even the best trained employees miss some opportunities to upsell, which leaves money on the table. 

Imagine what would happen to your sales if you had a Conversational AI solution that never forgot an upsell? This would drive a remarkable boost in incremental revenue and take away pressure driven from razor thin margins. In fact, by offering all guests an upsell, you’d increase the acceptance rate by over 200%!  Your average order size will increase, guests will be pleased with the personalized recommendation, and your restaurant will have been insight into buying patterns.  A win-win for both restaurants and guests!

2. Voice is King. Waiting is not. 

Phone is a popular channel for guests to order takeout or delivery. But, high call volumes go hand in hand with high abandonment rates due to long wait times. And every guest that hangs up is a lost sale. During peak times, restaurant staff are often so busy that they don’t have a free hand to answer a call. And, if every call at your restaurant is expected to be answered by only a human, there will always come a point when you have to turn calls away. And when this happens, guests’ satisfaction and sales will drop.

Traditional automation, like IVRs, won’t make the cut to solve this issue. Customers expect easy, effortless, and productive conversations which cannot be achieved with traditional automation. On the other hand, Conversational AI answers every call on time and takes orders accurately and efficiently. This is because Conversational AI can understand customers’ intent with human-like accuracy to produce sophisticated dialogues, unlike traditional systems that simply respond to keywords. 

The combination of eliminating abandonment and upselling to your customers can drive an average of 7% increase in store sales, which is millions of dollars in additional revenue for a multi-location chain annually. 

3. Give your guests what they (actually) want

We’ve heard time and time again that the biggest frustration for guests is order inaccuracy.  Who wants to wait for their food, only to find that a portion of the order is missing or made incorrectly? Inaccuracies have a massive negative effect on your guest’s satisfaction and on your bottom line. 

Caused by human error typically during busy times of day, these mistakes create a ripple effect of inefficiencies throughout the restaurant. For example, it creates an inventory management problem, food waste, and valuable time and energy to recreate the order. Not to mention, an inaccurate order will make a guest less likely to return to a location, which can negatively affect store sales in the future.

Conversational AI eliminates inaccurate order intakes. The advanced language understanding in the technology allows the order to be collected with human-like accuracy. And, because Conversational AI never gets too busy or overwhelmed during peak hours, orders will stay consistently accurate. Plus, our system will confirm the order with the guest 100% of the time, so mistakes can be caught before it becomes a problem.

 

The benefits of Conversational AI can be seen throughout your guests’ journey. From order intake, to upselling based on preferences, to order accuracy, Conversational AI will drive a major increase to both your guest’s experience and your bottom line! 

Want to learn more? Let’s talk.