Running a restaurant, bar or any kind of eatery requires a lot of patience and hard work. From receiving an order to serving the food items on your customers’ tables, the entire process goes through endless steps.
The best solution to manage these laborious steps with perfection is restaurant automation. The new concept is a part of technical advancement that has transformed the vision and overall approach of the restaurant industry.
The term “restaurant automation” may indicate the idea of utilizing robots to perform all restaurant operations. Though it is not entirely wrong, it goes beyond that. A food business can adopt various restaurant automation techniques to optimize their operations.
Starting from accepting online orders, QR code menus, and food delivery to robot assistants everything falls under this category. According to Capterra, more than 76% of restaurant owners have already embraced three restaurant automation techniques. If you still need to, let us help you with 10 amazing restaurant automation techniques that you need to know about.
Before enlightening you about the main topic let us give you a clear idea of restaurant automation.
What is restaurant automation?
Restaurant automation defines the process of utilizing technology to strengthen restaurant operations and increase efficiency. Using tools to accept online orders, offering table reservation facilities, online food delivery systems, and involving robot assistants for various restaurant activities to replace human labor are classic examples of restaurant automation.
It helps restaurant owners perform and manage tasks in less time and that too with perfection. Find out some more benefits of restaurant automation in our next segment.
Benefits of restaurant automation
Here are the benefits of restaurant automation that show why you should also adopt the new technology:
1. Improves performance
With automated and error-free tasks, restaurants can easily improve their day-to-day activities in less time and increase efficiency.
2. Saves money
Automating various tasks replaces human labor in restaurants which ultimately saves the money that is otherwise spent on them. It also removes the cost of training them. You only have to pay for the technology that you are using.
3. Offers better customer service
The technology streamlines the ordering process and manages deliveries with ease. It offers a fast and satisfactory experience to the customers and also helps them get the things they want without much effort.
4. Better food quality
When the major tasks are handled by technology, chefs can fully focus on preparing the food which as a result helps improve the taste and quality of it.
5. Eases payment management
Handling all payments manually can be overwhelming for a person and error-prone as well. Restaurant automation solves this issue with digitized payment methods. It allows restaurant owners to accept and track payments with computerized systems and reduce human effort.
6. Keeps you ahead of competitors
As automation increases efficiency and overall restaurant management, it always keeps you updated and helps you stay ahead of your competitors.
7. Boost sales
With satisfactory customer experience, payment management and work efficiency restaurant automation does increase your restaurant sales to a great extent.
If after knowing about the restaurant automation benefits, you want to adopt the technology for your restaurant, check out our next segment to find out 10 restaurant automation techniques that you can consider.
10 restaurant automation techniques you need to know about
Automating the restaurant mechanism is not one thing. There are various methods through which you can achieve that.
Here we have explained the top 10 techniques to use for restaurant automation.
1. Online ordering and delivery system
Online food ordering is the new trend that today’s modern and tech-savvy foodies prefer the most. With automation, the entire process can be done through your mobile phones, starting from accepting orders, and tracking them to delivery.
Various online platforms are there that allow you to integrate online ordering and delivery services on your website. You can also do it through your mobile app.
2. Online payments
The online payment facility as a part of restaurant automation is like a breath of fresh air for restaurant owners and customers as well. It completely removes the hassle of cash transactions and makes the entire management process simple and smooth.
Transactions or bill payments can be done through mobile phones and virtual wallets which highly speeds up the billing process. Whether customers are visiting your restaurant or placing orders online, everything can be done digitally. All you need is the right platform for that.
3. Table reservation
The table reservation system is a revolutionary move in the restaurant industry that highly enhances customer experience.
With online table reservation tools, your customers can book their preferred tables at your restaurants in advance. This also helps you avoid long queues outside your restaurants during rush hours or festivals.
4. Menu automation
Gone are those days, when paper menus were served on restaurant tables for customers to browse through the food items offered. In this digital era, menus have gone through a massive transformation. Some of the examples of menu automation include:
- QR code menu where a customer needs to scan the QR code to access the menu instantly on their phones.
- Digital menu boards that display the menu attractively with prices and pictures.
- Food menus on restaurant websites and more.
5. Loyalty programs
For a restaurant owner, gaining customers and retaining the old ones both have equal importance. Loyalty programs help a lot in achieving the target for them.
Loyal customers would definitely stick to your restaurants and are most likely to bring in their friends and recommend it to their known circle as well.
So it is your responsibility to reward them which is easy with loyalty programs.
Today smart restaurant owners conduct loyalty programs that carry all their customer data. When they place an order, points get automatically added to their profiles for which they get discounts.
The best part about such automated loyalty programs is that they allow you to customize rewards based on customers’ ordering behavior.
6. Accounting and Reporting
Accounting tools are built to help restaurant owners handle the financial details of their restaurants. This includes the sales data, transaction information, and graphs to offer a clear picture of the restaurant’s sales. Users can also integrate it with a Point of Sales system to have a grip over the entire restaurant’s finances.
Point-of-sale system helps monitor every transaction of a restaurant and generate reports for detailed analysis.
7. Analytics
It is similar to the reporting software that allows you to keep an eye on the overall sales performance of your restaurant. All the transaction data that you receive from the accounting software needs to be reviewed thoroughly to analyze and build new strategies for the future.
Analytic tools reveal customer behavior based on their data and offer personalized deals for them.
8. Inventory management
An inventory management system can be a game changer for your restaurant as it can help you manage your raw materials and stock in the best way.
It helps:
- Increase the shelf life of your products and ingredients.
- Monitor requirements of raw materials in the kitchen.
- Gives you an idea about how long you can work with the existing stock.
- Set reminders based on the prediction to order more.
- Decrease the amount of wastage.
Besides this, it also offers a detailed report of your raw materials and how and when they were used.
9. Feedback management
Whether it is a restaurant or a clothing store, customer feedback is extremely important for every business to grow. Taking feedback on paper forms is outdated. Modern restaurants either use feedback management apps or rely on a third-party platform to gain feedback from their customers.
If you want to know about some useful tips to encourage customers for feedback, read our previous article “11 Ways to Encourage Online Reviews for Your Restaurant”
10. Customer relationship management
e all are aware of the CRM (Customer Relationship Management) tools that are used to track customer data and offer personalized services. CRM software also automates the email marketing system in your restaurant by sending personalized emails, newsletters, event updates and more to your customers to keep them informed.
How to automate a restaurant?
More and more restaurant owners are opting for restaurant automation for better restaurant management. There are various ways to do that as mentioned above.
To get a comprehensive solution, you can rely on a platform like FoodMato that efficiently transforms your ordinary restaurant into a full-fledged modern and automated one.
Starting from building a website to adding online ordering and food delivery systems, it does all the work for you.
All you have to do is:
- Register yourself on our website.
- Check our restaurant management services
- Pick your preferred package and get started.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you automate a restaurant?
To automate your restaurant, take the following steps:
- Choose a platform like FoodMato
- Register yourself on their official website.
- Choose a package and get started.
FoodMato covers everything that you need for your modern automated restaurants like online ordering, food delivery, restaurant review management, generating invoices, and more.
What is automated food service?
The term “automated food service” refers to the system of conducting restaurant operations using automated tools or robotic devices.
What is AI in restaurants?
AI in restaurants describes the usage of artificial intelligence in various restaurant activities that help reduce human labor and errors.
Will robots replace waiters and staff?
According to experts, AI can gradually replace humans in multiple industries. However, when it comes to restaurants it is a bit different. They believe that AI can replace humans in various restaurant operations but in cooking it is difficult.
Currently, AI is in its experimental phase and has already replaced humans in various activities. Whether it will fully replace humans in restaurants or not is a far-fetched idea but it is not impossible.
Wrapping up
Embracing new technology is one of the most effective ways of staying competitive in this market. As automation is the future of the restaurant industry, you need to automate your restaurant to acquire and keep a prominent position in the market. We hope that the above-mentioned restaurant automation techniques will help you understand the concept and take the first step towards modernization.