Outdated manual processes holding your restaurant back from progress are now gone and replaced by automation solutions. Technology is evolving at such a fast pace, that it’s allowing automation tools to streamline operations and maximize productivity.
Especially when you are managing a restaurant, it’s difficult to keep up with everything. You have to focus on the customer, and how hard is it to focus on many things at once? It’s pretty hard, and automation tools have brought a solution to this.
In this article, we’ll dive deeper into how you can use automation tools to master the art of effective restaurant management.
Audio-to-text converters
If you want to transcribe audio to text, you need to have the right tool to do so. Transcribing audio for your restaurant is important, especially if you live in a tourist, or multicultural area, where different languages are spoken.
Customers might browse through your website and watch a video. Maybe the video they are watching isn’t in a language they know. Depending on the software you are using, high-quality audio-to-text converters can transcribe in more than 120 languages and 45 formats.
Maybe after their breakfast, lunch, or dinner, customers choose to give you some feedback in their language. This is where transcribing customer feedback takes place and becomes useful.
Each software you use has a relatively similar process when converting audio to text. There are 3 essential steps to follow:
Upload your recording: The first step is to import your file from anywhere, Google Drive, Youtube, Dropbox, and more.
Choose the language: You can either choose to transcribe manually or automatically. Both of them have high accuracy rates, but of course, manual transcription still wins, but also consumes more time.
Proofread and export: It’s important to proofread and edit final transcripts.
Restaurants located in tourist areas can find audio-to-text converters helpful.
Managing restaurant shifts is more important than anything else. Restaurant managers only have enough time to deal with other duties, and wasting too much time on employee scheduling can be a burden on them.
That is why employee scheduling for restaurants should be considered a priority. Employee scheduling software makes managing work schedules more effective by taking into consideration what the business needs are, eliminating all day-to-day scheduling errors.
Up-to-date schedules: You always have an overview of the latest schedule via the app.
Leave requests: Your employees can submit leave requests, where you can instantly approve and review them.
Open shifts: Self-service shifts allow employees to fill in time slots. This is an excellent way to help you fill in schedules.
Shift swaps: Employees can agree with each other to transfer shifts between themselves. Once you approve this, it automatically makes the changes.
Spend reports: Ad hoc reports that allow you to see how your budget is spent, including labor costs.
Keep in mind that each employee scheduling software is different, so it’s important to carefully read what each of them features before using them.
Point-of-sale (POS) system integration
54% of businesses are currently using mobile POS systems for processing transactions. POS systems are the backbone of restaurants, and integrating them with automation tools is an even better choice you can make.
POS systems can be connected with kitchen display systems, customer relationship management (CRM). inventory management, and more. This way, you are promoting easy communication across several departments and eliminating the need for data entry, reducing errors, and providing accurate insights for an improved decision-making process.
Inventory management systems
If there’s something restaurants need to pay close attention to, it’s their inventory. Managing inventory is a continuous challenge for many restaurant managers. Inventory management systems automate these processes by giving you real-time inventory insights and generating purchase orders.
By implementing inventory management systems, you are saving in the long term. You reduce food waste, avoid stockouts as much as possible, and have better insights into the decision-making process.
If you really think about it, in some restaurants, it might be common for the waiters to tell you that they ran out of certain orders. It isn’t a pleasant experience for the customer, so it’s best when you inform them ahead of time, or avoid it completely.
Inventory management systems are great for keeping you prepared, without needing to waste too much time on managing your inventory.
Online reservation systems
Restaurants aren’t only dealing with customers who suddenly come to eat, but those who make reservations as well. In short, reservations can consume lots of time, and trust us, it’s not something fun to deal with. Especially during peak hours, they are even more time-consuming to deal with.
Online reservation systems allow customers to book in advance, also automating the reservation process for your team members. Through this system, you can set reminders, confirmations, and manage waitlists. This helps in increasing customer satisfaction and reduces table turnover rates.
Don’t forget that not every restaurant accepts all kinds of reservations, so this is to your advantage. However, it’s essential you make it easy for customers to reserve on your site.
If it’s complicated, customers might decide not to place an order. Therefore, consider posting it on your social media channel first, or setting up a targeted ad that directly leads to your website for reservations.
Kitchen display systems
Communication skills and order management are necessary when running a restaurant, especially when taking orders in the kitchen. Kitchen display systems replace traditional methods of using paper tickets to place orders. This time, you have orders displayed in real-time.
Kitchen display systems can integrate with POS systems and automatically update your orders, making sure that the chef is getting up-to-date and accurate information. Humans can easily make errors, but technology has come such a long way that it minimizes them.
Marketing automation software
E-commerce marketing automation software gives restaurants the power to automate their email marketing campaigns. On average, email campaigns for the restaurant industry include an open rate of around 18.5%. Anything you can achieve above this will be on your side and let’s not forget that you can combine email marketing with social media campaigns and targeted ads.
This not only saves you time, but lots of resources that you can use for other parts of your restaurant. The online world has connected us more than ever, and your marketing campaigns can reach more people than you may think.
Business Intelligence (BI) systems
A BI system is excellent for helping you make better decisions by analyzing trends and data in your restaurant. BI systems are popularly known to be used by managers who want to learn more about their customer preferences and buying habits. Especially when you own a restaurant, this is highly important since you want to turn new customers into loyal ones.
Learning customer's preferences gives them comfort and once they start feeling comfortable coming to your restaurant, this will open new doors for you, and make your life much easier as a manager.
Additionally, let’s not forget that BI systems can also conduct a competitor analysis. If your competitor is doing something you aren’t, the system will inform you.
How great is that? You’re busy enough with your daily tasks, and instead of wasting time trying to figure out what competitors are doing, the BI system does the work for you!
Accounting software
Managing finances at a restaurant can sometimes be a hectic job, especially when you need to keep track of your income and expenses. However, restaurant accounting software can effectively manage your finances and closely keep track of your expenses and income.
Through the software, you can always keep close track of your invoices, billing, and payroll processes. You aren’t only saving time, but cutting major costs.
Automation systems are the future
The world is heading towards an automated future. Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML), and other technological advancements have made it possible for automation systems to prosper.
You won’t believe it, but robots are actually starting to work in some restaurants around the world, and the numbers will most likely grow in the future. Automation systems are integrated with our daily routine, and believe it or not, they never get tired like we do.
In short, automation systems are making manager’s restaurants everyday life less of a headache, and allowing them to focus on more important tasks.
Outdated manual processes holding your restaurant back from progress are now gone and replaced by automation solutions. Technology is evolving at such a fast pace, that it’s allowing automation tools to streamline operations and maximize productivity.
Especially when you are managing a restaurant, it’s difficult to keep up with everything. You have to focus on the customer, and how hard is it to focus on many things at once? It’s pretty hard, and automation tools have brought a solution to this.
In this article, we’ll dive deeper into how you can use automation tools to master the art of effective restaurant management.
Audio-to-text converters
If you want to transcribe audio to text, you need to have the right tool to do so. Transcribing audio for your restaurant is important, especially if you live in a tourist, or multicultural area, where different languages are spoken.
Customers might browse through your website and watch a video. Maybe the video they are watching isn’t in a language they know. Depending on the software you are using, high-quality audio-to-text converters can transcribe in more than 120 languages and 45 formats.
Maybe after their breakfast, lunch, or dinner, customers choose to give you some feedback in their language. This is where transcribing customer feedback takes place and becomes useful.
Each software you use has a relatively similar process when converting audio to text. There are 3 essential steps to follow:
Upload your recording: The first step is to import your file from anywhere, Google Drive, Youtube, Dropbox, and more.
Choose the language: You can either choose to transcribe manually or automatically. Both of them have high accuracy rates, but of course, manual transcription still wins, but also consumes more time.
Proofread and export: It’s important to proofread and edit final transcripts.
Restaurants located in tourist areas can find audio-to-text converters helpful.
Managing restaurant shifts is more important than anything else. Restaurant managers only have enough time to deal with other duties, and wasting too much time on employee scheduling can be a burden on them.
That is why employee scheduling for restaurants should be considered a priority. Employee scheduling software makes managing work schedules more effective by taking into consideration what the business needs are, eliminating all day-to-day scheduling errors.
Up-to-date schedules: You always have an overview of the latest schedule via the app.
Leave requests: Your employees can submit leave requests, where you can instantly approve and review them.
Open shifts: Self-service shifts allow employees to fill in time slots. This is an excellent way to help you fill in schedules.
Shift swaps: Employees can agree with each other to transfer shifts between themselves. Once you approve this, it automatically makes the changes.
Spend reports: Ad hoc reports that allow you to see how your budget is spent, including labor costs.
Keep in mind that each employee scheduling software is different, so it’s important to carefully read what each of them features before using them.
Point-of-sale (POS) system integration
54% of businesses are currently using mobile POS systems for processing transactions. POS systems are the backbone of restaurants, and integrating them with automation tools is an even better choice you can make.
POS systems can be connected with kitchen display systems, customer relationship management (CRM). inventory management, and more. This way, you are promoting easy communication across several departments and eliminating the need for data entry, reducing errors, and providing accurate insights for an improved decision-making process.
Inventory management systems
If there’s something restaurants need to pay close attention to, it’s their inventory. Managing inventory is a continuous challenge for many restaurant managers. Inventory management systems automate these processes by giving you real-time inventory insights and generating purchase orders.
By implementing inventory management systems, you are saving in the long term. You reduce food waste, avoid stockouts as much as possible, and have better insights into the decision-making process.
If you really think about it, in some restaurants, it might be common for the waiters to tell you that they ran out of certain orders. It isn’t a pleasant experience for the customer, so it’s best when you inform them ahead of time, or avoid it completely.
Inventory management systems are great for keeping you prepared, without needing to waste too much time on managing your inventory.
Online reservation systems
Restaurants aren’t only dealing with customers who suddenly come to eat, but those who make reservations as well. In short, reservations can consume lots of time, and trust us, it’s not something fun to deal with. Especially during peak hours, they are even more time-consuming to deal with.
Online reservation systems allow customers to book in advance, also automating the reservation process for your team members. Through this system, you can set reminders, confirmations, and manage waitlists. This helps in increasing customer satisfaction and reduces table turnover rates.
Don’t forget that not every restaurant accepts all kinds of reservations, so this is to your advantage. However, it’s essential you make it easy for customers to reserve on your site.
If it’s complicated, customers might decide not to place an order. Therefore, consider posting it on your social media channel first, or setting up a targeted ad that directly leads to your website for reservations.
Kitchen display systems
Communication skills and order management are necessary when running a restaurant, especially when taking orders in the kitchen. Kitchen display systems replace traditional methods of using paper tickets to place orders. This time, you have orders displayed in real-time.
Kitchen display systems can integrate with POS systems and automatically update your orders, making sure that the chef is getting up-to-date and accurate information. Humans can easily make errors, but technology has come such a long way that it minimizes them.
Marketing automation software
E-commerce marketing automation software gives restaurants the power to automate their email marketing campaigns. On average, email campaigns for the restaurant industry include an open rate of around 18.5%. Anything you can achieve above this will be on your side and let’s not forget that you can combine email marketing with social media campaigns and targeted ads.
This not only saves you time, but lots of resources that you can use for other parts of your restaurant. The online world has connected us more than ever, and your marketing campaigns can reach more people than you may think.
Business Intelligence (BI) systems
A BI system is excellent for helping you make better decisions by analyzing trends and data in your restaurant. BI systems are popularly known to be used by managers who want to learn more about their customer preferences and buying habits. Especially when you own a restaurant, this is highly important since you want to turn new customers into loyal ones.
Learning customer's preferences gives them comfort and once they start feeling comfortable coming to your restaurant, this will open new doors for you, and make your life much easier as a manager.
Additionally, let’s not forget that BI systems can also conduct a competitor analysis. If your competitor is doing something you aren’t, the system will inform you.
How great is that? You’re busy enough with your daily tasks, and instead of wasting time trying to figure out what competitors are doing, the BI system does the work for you!
Accounting software
Managing finances at a restaurant can sometimes be a hectic job, especially when you need to keep track of your income and expenses. However, restaurant accounting software can effectively manage your finances and closely keep track of your expenses and income.
Through the software, you can always keep close track of your invoices, billing, and payroll processes. You aren’t only saving time, but cutting major costs.
Automation systems are the future
The world is heading towards an automated future. Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML), and other technological advancements have made it possible for automation systems to prosper.
You won’t believe it, but robots are actually starting to work in some restaurants around the world, and the numbers will most likely grow in the future. Automation systems are integrated with our daily routine, and believe it or not, they never get tired like we do.
In short, automation systems are making manager’s restaurants everyday life less of a headache, and allowing them to focus on more important tasks.
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