Operations
Lessons restaurants can take from retail when it comes to tech
May 10, 2024 by Hope Neiman — cmo, tillster
The retail tech boom has transformed the way we shop for everything from shoes to cars. And now it's revolutionizing our coffee orders and pizza deliveries. The same retail customers that expect their loyalty programs, mobile apps, and in-store experiences to be interconnected now expect the process of ordering food to be just as seamless.
Many restaurants have taken significant strides toward meeting these expectations, but there's still a long way to go. Restaurants must juggle more ordering channels than ever before, which makes a well-integrated tech stack that much more important. By prioritizing a well-integrated tech stack, restaurant leaders can put their employees in a better position to deliver agile and seamless customer experiences.
How restaurant tech fell behind the curve
Loyalty programs, kiosks, web orders, mobile app orders, standard in-person orders — these are just some of the touch points restaurants have to optimize to satisfy customers. When the pandemic ushered in the era of contactless ordering and pickup, customers grew accustomed to the convenience of the restaurant experience. Yet many of the patchwork tech solutions intended to serve as temporary fixes during the pandemic are still in place — and restaurants are straining to keep up with customers' increased expectations.
Restaurants generally adapted to the pandemic in one of two ways. Some prioritized control above everything else, opting to build their own restaurant tech solutions. However, most restaurant operations don't have the resources, staff or expertise to build best-in-class coupon or loyalty programs themselves. Consequently, this approach has contributed to an uneven, poorly integrated mix of solutions that are too confusing for customers to navigate.
Other restaurants opted for an approach that prioritized speed. This meant using templated solutions that were easy to implement but didn't necessarily reflect the specific needs or brand identity of the restaurant. Like the approach that prioritized control, this approach also led to poor integration and glitchy experiences for consumers.
No matter which path a restaurant took, the result was the same: unreliable systems that created a host of new customer service issues. For example, suppose a customer is looking to cash in on a deal with the restaurant's loyalty program. They walk over to an in-store kiosk, but the kiosk doesn't offer a connection to their loyalty program or is too complex to use. Confused, they take their place in line to order at the front counter.
In this scenario, what incentive does this customer have to use this kiosk the next time around? I don't see one. The message they received from this failed interaction is that they can't trust the restaurant's technology. It isn't worth the trouble. Magnified at scale, this can turn kiosks and other potentially lucrative investments into sunk costs.
Using modular commerce to achieve greater tech stack flexibility
Restaurants and retail obviously face different challenges. However, your restaurant can take a lesson from retail in how to build a tech stack that's interconnected.
Instead of settling for a one-size-fits-all solution, select your ideal mix of solutions and integrate them with a modular commerce approach. Modular commerce allows you to implement standalone best-of-breed solutions in a way that integrates with existing elements of your business and tech stack. In practice, this means a change to your loyalty program would be reflected in your kiosks, and vice versa. A modular approach makes the process of adding and removing new services or features much more frictionless.
In addition to flexibility, this approach also lightens the load on developers and other tech leaders in your organization. Instead of having to build multiple menus for your kiosk, web and app flows, you can build a menu service that integrates your menu into all three of them. In practice, this helps your kitchen operate more smoothly. For example, orders from an in-restaurant kiosk should take precedence over a mobile order because the mobile customer presumably has not yet arrived. Capturing these nuances makes workflows much simpler for restaurant staff and prevents orders from unnecessarily snowballing.
While a modular approach promotes greater integration throughout your tech stack, it's important to remain strategic in your decision-making. This is where the difference between a vendor and a partner becomes vital. In a vendor relationship, interactions grow few and far between after the company signs on the dotted line. But the right partner can serve in an ongoing advisory role, providing expertise on integration possibilities with any new technologies your restaurant is considering.
Prioritize function over flash to delight customers
The trend of retail customers expecting more from their restaurant interactions is unlikely to reverse any time soon. In fact, I expect it will become even more prevalent over time.
However, the restaurants that succeed in meeting customer expectations won't necessarily be the ones that make the splashiest tech investments. We've seen this approach fail time and time again. Instead, the restaurants that get basics like seamless integration right are the ones that will have the ability to surprise and delight customers.
Moving forward, the ability to introduce personalized, tailored experiences without clashing with your existing tech stack will help you adapt to new customer expectations faster than your competitors.
About Hope Neiman
Hope Neiman is the Chief Marketing Officer of Tillster, a leading global player in the burgeoning restaurant technology space. Hope and her team drive outcomes by combining data and technology to expand sales and increase consumer engagement in a measurable way. Through Hope’s marketing expertise and brand vision, Tillster grew from a kiosk company into a best-in-class, metric rich engagement and ordering solutions provider for multi-unit national and international restaurant brands.
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