Automating Restaurant Operations - Leverage Technology to Improve Efficiency and Satisfaction
Automating certain restaurant operations can help you save money, time, and energy. If you can do this right, you’ll end up with a competitive advantage that nowadays, means everything. When you, a restaurant manager, can provide a digital two-way communication channel with your employees, it will be a game-changer for your restaurant.
This may seem like a daunting task, but we’ll break it down for you.
The best way to go about this is by first identifying what are the responsibilities of your employees, and what responsibilities are specifically tied to the customer experience, and then consider the effects of automating these tasks. You can identify these by asking yourself the following questions:
How can technology be leveraged to improve employee efficiency and satisfaction?
How can leveraging technology minimize the time spent on certain tasks, or can you eliminate those tasks altogether?
Owners/Managers: Starting off with your responsibilities:
Employee scheduling
By automating scheduling, you can save time and stress, and focus on what you're good at - managing your restaurant and improving the customer experience. Overall, this will make everything run more smoothly and efficiently.
Examples of stand-alone systems that can do this are, 7shifts, Schedulefly many more, not including the major POS software companies that you may already have! (examples are Upserve, Toast, Square, and many more). Find out today what system is best for your business and whether or not you already have the software at your disposal by reaching out to one of our experts!
Ordering ingredients/supplies
This is likely a very time-consuming task for a manager. When done correctly, you can help your business save money, and minimize food waste!
Examples of stand-alone restaurant management systems that can do this are Restaurant365, Compeat, and many more, not including the major POS software companies that, again, you may already have, such as Upserve, Toast, Square, and many more. We have done this for many of our clients and can help you do the same.
Payroll
This one is a huge time and effort saver, as many solutions can both automate employee clock-in as well as payday. Managers can spend less time (and stress!) on payroll, and more time focusing on their menus and guests.
Examples of systems that can do this are, Paycom, Gusto, and ADP. Even Square has a built-in payroll solution. Find out which is the best option for your business today.
Now, let's move on to automating employee responsibilities
Ordering and paying
This is arguably the most important thing to standardize in your restaurant in order to save time and money. Having a platform that keeps track of all your transactions with your customers makes it easier and quicker for your employee to process payments and take orders, and we all know, efficiency IS money when customers hate waiting for their food.
There is a myriad of software solutions for this but some of our favorites are Toasttab, Upserve, and Square to name a few.
If you don’t already - use QR codes to link directly to your direct ordering page on your website so customers can order their food in advance.
Using a 3rd party order aggregator can help reduce the amount of work needed for employees to manually enter orders into the POS, and provide much greater accuracy, which means happier guests. Check out Cuboh and Otter as examples of a few that integrate with many 3rd party ordering platforms as well as many POS solutions. However, keep in mind that integrating these technologies can be challenging. We deal with 3rd party apps and integrations so you don’t have to.
Trust us - you’ll get hours back every week by implementing these changes. We’re here to help you seamlessly integrate these systems. Just a call or text away!