Order Tracking in Restaurants: How ConnectSmart® Kitchen Can Help

Recent articles suggest off-premise dining is on the rise and restaurant operators are scrambling to find ways to maintain market share. Mobile ordering and delivery are conveniences that consumers are demanding in a tech-savvy world and, off-premise dining is becoming a way for operators to differentiate themselves and stay competitive. Guests want the option to order carryout and delivery online, as well as mobile payments. According to Toast’s “Restaurant Technology in 2016” report, 79% of diners agree that restaurant technology improves their guest experience, and 57% order from a restaurant’s website online daily, weekly, or monthly. The founder of Olo, Noah Glass, found that 60 percent of food purchased inside a restaurant is consumed outside. Toast also stated in “50 Restaurant Statistics for Restaurant Owners in 2017” that 51 percent order takeout or delivery directly from the restaurant website. In NRA’s “Mapping the Restaurant Technology Landscape”, 37 percent of restaurants offer online ordering. This percentage is expected to move upward in the years to come. In fact, Jen Kelly with Ritual stated that in the coming years, 50 percent of orders are expected to be mobile orders and pay.

How QSR Automations Can Help

Here at QSR Automations, we develop our products with the entire guest experience in mind. One of the latest software updates to our kitchen display system, CSK 7.0, is essential to staying ahead of off-premise dining demands and creating an overall well-connected restaurant. Here’s an example of how this powerful update will work for restaurants and diners. Imagine this: a customer places an order on your mobile app or through your digital ordering partner (DOP) and it goes directly to the cloud. The digital partners could be a mobile app, online ordering partner, restaurant website, or delivery partner. Next, CSK Enterprise will send the digital ordering partner a quote time. This is made possible by the quoting engine inside CSK. The DOP will receive the quoted time and then has the ability to share that data with the diner. Next, the Enterprise will provide order and guest information to the restaurant and CSK down at the site. CSK can then begin sending real-time order status updates about the order, keeping both the DOP and the diner informed about their order. You will know every milestone throughout the order process, starting with when the order is read by restaurant staff and how long it takes to make the order. You can even know where the food is along the process, down to real-time order-level statuses and item statuses. All of this information makes implementing an order tracker easy and efficient. Although this sequence should create a seamless guest experience, mistakes can still happen within busy restaurants. Let’s say a guest has a complaint about their order. You can easily look back at the data and pinpoint the issue so the same problem doesn’t happen again. You can use all of this real-time data to make smarter business decisions for your restaurant – after all, when it’s all connected, it creates a more powerful solution and a better guest experience! If you’re interested in learning more, check out the video below that highlights the capabilities of the ConnectSmart Platform. Subscribe to the blog for more interesting restaurant content!

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About the Author

Amber Mullaney led all things marketing for QSR. A proud Texan native, she graduated from the University of Houston with a degree in Public Relations and spent her career in the healthcare industry before making the switch to QSR and beyond, saying she loves a good challenge. Amber has a long list of things she loves, including tacos (especially tacos), sweet tea, Texas, the outdoors, and traveling with her husband and two daughters.