How an Online Restaurant Management System Can Help Your Business Grow?

Running your restaurant in a competitive market can be challenging unless you automate your workflow. Fortunately, with an online restaurant management system to automate some tasks, your restaurant’s website can streamline many processes and improve your business efficiency. 

For starters, your website will be able to manage orders, payments, delivery and takeout, reservations, and inventory. 

Secondly, an online restaurant management system will improve your marketing efforts. It can help you segment and personalize your campaigns, retarget your customers and nurture your relationship with your customers.

Read on to learn more about the benefits of automation in restaurants and how you can start automating your processes easily.

What Is Automation in the Restaurant Industry?

Automation in restaurants can be defined as using technology to streamline different types of everyday processes within a restaurant business. 

As the term is broad, it can include various types of technology use, from robot cooks in the kitchen to automating customer orders, inventory, or various other sales and marketing tasks using an online restaurant management system.

Due to labour shortages and COVID-19 measures that limited human contact, some famous worldwide food, and beverage chains welcomed automation in restaurants as a potential solution. 

McDonald’s, for example, started testing ten automated drive-thru restaurants in Chicago in 2021. The technology is 85% accurate and can take 80% of orders. As the chain has seen benefits for both customers and its employees, it has plans to continue to automate in more than 14,000 locations across the USA. 

Although with smaller budgets, the smaller restaurants followed. When they re-opened their doors for customers, many were equipped with QR codes for menus. Some of them, such as Isshin Ramen, have made their menus fully digital. This enabled their customers to complete the entire ordering and payment process using their phones without needing human interaction.

The concept of automation is relatively new among restaurateurs. With the idea of robotic kitchens first occurring, many restaurant owners still shy away from automation.

However, there are other, simpler, and more affordable ways to begin with automation in restaurants. Using an online restaurant management system is the first logical step.

What Is the Online Restaurant Management System?

An online restaurant management system is software designed explicitly for use within the 

the restaurant industry, helping restaurant managers and employees carry out the most critical tasks.

While some online restaurant management systems focus on specific areas, such as online food ordering, others tend to be more comprehensive. These extensive solutions often include the automation of various other processes, like payment processing, workforce and inventory management, or booking and reservations.

Using a restaurant automation system has become a necessity nowadays. Even before the pandemic, with the rise of technology and its implementation into everyday life, customers’ expectations have increased. 

With the worst of pandemics behind us, customers are now accustomed to smooth online ordering and shopping for all sorts of things, including food and meals.

Restaurants that stick to the old way of doing things and still, for example, take their orders by the phone can’t expect great outcomes and keep up with their competitors. Whether big or small, restaurants today must offer solutions that at least let their customers browse menus, choose options, and pay for their orders online.

Automating an online restaurant management system can help restaurants deliver fast and effortless service and meet customer expectations.

What Are the Benefits of the Online Restaurant Management System?

Many benefits of using an online restaurant management system are related to streamlining and speeding up everyday operations in order to meet customers’ expectations and improve their experience. 

The list below is not definite, but we’ve included the crucial ones.

1. Accurate Data. You no longer have to rely on manual data when using a restaurant management system. With its standardized processes and low margin for error, automation gives restaurants access to highly-accurate data.

2. Better Decisions. Instead of following their instinct based on unreliable information, restaurant managers can now make strategic decisions based on real, precise data. When it comes to marketing, for example, restaurant managers can now use real-time data to optimize their marketing campaigns and improve their efficiency.

3. Increased Profits. Statistics show that since 2014 ordering food online has grown 300% faster and now accounts for around 40% of the total restaurant sales. If you are still not using website ordering, you are missing a great opportunity to boost your profits. Automation can also help you maximize your loyalty program. With regular and personalized rewards and incentives, your guests will be happy to return and recommend your restaurant to their friends and families, reducing your acquisition costs in the long run.

   Furthermore, as automation can improve your restaurant’s guests’ experience, you can also expect more visits, higher checks, and a boost to your bottom line.

4. Higher Customer Satisfaction. Automation can improve customer satisfaction in numerous ways. The study has shown that what influences customer satisfaction the most is the quality of service you provide, primarily the responsiveness of your frontline staff. Many guests come to your restaurants for the experience along with the food. You can live up to their expectations and make their experience stellar by keeping track of their previous interactions, habits, and drink and food preferences, making your guests feel recognized and always welcome and improving their satisfaction. Automation speeds up the entire process and opens up a possibility for restaurants to personalize the interaction of their staff with the customers and the service they provide.

5. Better Employee Morale. Automation takes the burden of tedious and repetitive tasks from your employees’ shoulders and reduces the possibility of errors. Thus, employees have more time and energy to deal with more meaningful tasks, such as providing great customer service.

How to Automate Your Restaurant: Key Processes Your Online Restaurant Management System Should Streamline Right Away

Even if the whole topic of restaurant automation still seems a bit daunting, there are several key processes you should start streamlining right away to keep up with your competitors and not fall behind.

Interactive Online Menu And Ordering

Creating an interactive online menu with an ordering feature on your website is a significant first step to restaurant automation. And a must-have.

The interactive online menu with a direct ordering option will enable your guests to order food from your restaurant or anywhere else and, according to their convenience, choose where they would like to have their meal. 

Some digital menus can be accessed using a QR code placed at the restaurant’s table. Using it, your guests can avoid waiting for the waiter to bring the menu and then all the hassle of explaining their order. At the same time, using the interactive menu will reduce the risk of getting their orders wrong or mixed up. 

What’s more, instead of just taking orders and bringing them to the kitchen, the staff will be able to focus on providing a great experience for your guests.

However, to be efficient and improve the satisfaction of your customers, the interactive online menu has to run perfectly. It needs to be well-designed, fast, and engaging, including all the necessary information your guests may need. Furthermore, your online menu must provide a seamless user experience on any device your guests use.

Delivery and Takeout

Delivery and takeout were traditionally used in fast food and quick-service restaurants.

With over half of the adults finding delivery and takeout essential to their lives, nowadays, all types of restaurants, including luxury and fine dining, have started offering these kinds of services to their guests.

The delivery process, however, has become far more complicated, with many third-party providers performing it.

Handling orders manually has become unmanageable, resulting in long waiting times and errors. Automating the process using an online restaurant management system to keep track of and sync all your orders in one place will help your employees manage it easily, even during the busiest nights.

Product Recommendations

Once your customers start browsing your restaurant’s website, you’ll want to ensure they realize you have offers they will enjoy. 

You can achieve this by using automated recommendations on your website, which will suggest meals, products, or special offers based on your customer’s previous interactions with your restaurant. 

Let’s say your customer has a dietary restriction. Based on their data and previous online behaviour, the algorithm will only suggest plant-based meals if they are, for example, vegan or vegetarian.

Digital menus can also make recommendations based on external factors, such as weather or the time of the day. During the summer, they’ll recommend items such as milkshakes or desserts. At the same time, during the cold days, they will suggest warm tea, or a coffee, making it an excellent opportunity for upselling.

Reservations

Another simple way to improve your processes using an online restaurant management system is by automating reservations. 

Just think about how many hours per day an average restaurant host spends making all the calls to confirm reservations and manage reservations. You can save all that time and effort by moving your reservation process online.

When making reservations, your guests can see table availability in real-time and provide any special requests or important information. They will also be able to confirm their reservation via automated messaging.

Inventory Management

Even though inventory management is crucial for restaurant operations, most restaurants still use spreadsheets to manage it. As they rely on human input, these spreadsheets often contain inaccurate and unreliable data.

Automating inventory management using an online restaurant management system can help restaurant managers have accurate figures, better estimate their food costs and make informed predictions. 
Furthermore, inventory automation can reduce food waste, one of this industry’s most expensive pain points, improving the restaurant’s bottom line. Preventing food waste can cut costs for an individual restaurant by 2 to 6 percent.

Segment Your Guests

By segmenting your guests, you can get to know them better and personalize your marketing efforts. This way, you will improve your chances of sending the right message to your guests at the right time.

However, using a spreadsheet for this purpose is highly inefficient, time and energy-consuming. 

Instead, you can use your website and an online restaurant management system to automatically manage your contacts into segments. 

For example, you can use automation to segment your guest base into categories, such as high spenders, regulars, VIPs, or critics, based on various automation rules you define. Then, you can target each group using a unique and personalized marketing approach.

Nurture Customer Relationships

As returning customers pay 67% more than the new ones, retaining them has proved to be more profitable than acquisition.

You can reach out to your existing guests by sending them relevant offers or product recommendations, sharing the latest news or deals for your restaurant, or offering them rewards. 
With an online restaurant management system, your website will be able to select the right content based on the guest segments automatically.

Automate Personalized Messaging

Automation can help you offer a unique and personalized experience by sending tailored messages based on your guests’ details and previous behaviour. 

You can define many different rules for sending messages to your guests. For example, your online restaurant management system could automatically send happy birthday messages or discounts to VIP customers for Valentine’s Day. 

After the first visit, you can offer them a considerable discount. Ten visits to your restaurant can be greeted with a big thank you, while two weeks with no regular guest visits could trigger a “we miss you” message.

These messages will improve your guest’s engagement with the restaurant and their satisfaction and loyalty.

Retarget Potential Guests

If you’ve ever googled a product, then logged into your Instagram to find multiple advertisements offering similar items, you’ve been retargeted. 

Retargeting is a process quite similar to product recommendations. However, it focuses on visitors who’ve left your restaurant’s website without making an order.

Like product recommendations, restaurant websites can use automated retargeting to capture new potential guests they would otherwise lose.

The Bottom Line: Do You Really Need an Online Restaurant Management System?

Restaurant automation has become a necessity in the restaurant industry. An online restaurant management system can help you streamline your restaurant’s everyday processes, improving efficiency, customer satisfaction, and thus your bottom line.

If you need help developing an online restaurant management system on your website, whether by using the online interactive menu, table reservations, inventory management, or automating marketing – Concise Studio has a solution for you. 

Remember: to run a great modern restaurant your guests will become hooked on, you must adapt to your guests’ needs and habits and answer their expectations. A well-designed, interactive restaurant website that runs smoothly and effortlessly is your first logical step towards automation.

Send us a message, and we will happily help your restaurant grow!