Why the phone?

Restaurants are struggling with a growing number of incoming calls, and it’s causing great frustration for both the customers and the staff.

Many orders are still handled via the phone, and it is a massive channel for restaurants to focus on. Restaurants are missing out on opportunities with customers who choose to call in their orders. In actual words of a customer: “Ordering online takes longer, is impersonal, and actually costs more!”.

It’s the easiest channel to upsell because you can build rapport and a real relationship with your customers.

Phone Orders: a blessing or a burden?

For many restaurants, phone orders have always been a burden. They take attention away from in-house customers, end up requiring extra staff to handle, and are fairly expensive to accept on a regular basis. So restaurants turned to online apps and delivery platforms, captivated by the ideas of saving countless hours talking to customers.

For customers, ordering over the phone is generally convenient, quick, and doesn’t require them to sift through apps on their phone for half an hour. What they don’t love about phone orders are slow, impersonal humans on the other line, being put on hold, and the lack of personalization.

The restaurant phone can be a powerful tool in connecting to your customer, acting as the first line of service for questions. It seems simple enough; however, most restaurant owners and managers underestimate the power of restaurant phone calls.

Back to the Basics!

No doubt the prolonged pandemic and latest technology advances have accelerated restaurant e-commerce trends, evidenced by the numerous online ordering services and restaurants being able to offer them. At the end of the day, however, the restaurants that are able to offer the best restaurant experience and build customer relationships will always be able to thrive regardless of how much time everyone spends on our smart devices these days.

Let’s examine the core issues present in how most restaurants use the phone today, and how having the right phone service can easily help solving them.

Missed Calls

You’re in the middle of your restaurant rush. Suddenly, a customer calls to place an order or to make a table reservation and you miss their call…no big deal, huh? Well it is actually a very big deal because they just went somewhere else!

And don’t forget this: customers can call from anywhere with their mobile phone to place an order these days. Not only are you losing potential orders but additionally missed phone calls mean lost revenue opportunities from increased foot traffic into your stores!

It’s not uncommon for restaurant owners and managers to be frustrated when the phone is ringing off the hook, but no one can answer it because they are too busy in the kitchen or helping customers in front of them. This usually leads to missed calls that turn into lost customers; so not only are you losing potential orders but additionally missed phone calls mean lost revenue opportunities from increased foot traffic into your stores!

Solution: Pick up every single call and pick it up fast especially during the rush hours. Picking up the phone immediately not only lets customers know their time is valuable, it says convincingly you want them to call you instead of your competitors. You could hire a phone receptionist and add more phone lines, but most restaurants can’t afford an expensive professional telephone operator. Alternatively, you can use an automated, smart technology like Eat.chat Voice to scale quickly at a tiny fraction of the cost.

Eat.chat Voice automatically picks up every single phone call on the first ring regardless of how many calls that might be coming at the same time. It gives customers common information such as directions, hours, and friendly options to make reservations, order catering or connect to your staff.

Long Holding Times

Being put on hold on the phone means you are not as important to the restaurant, and you are not being taken care of. It can be frustrating when your phone call is put on hold for a long time because it’s hard to know what the restaurant is doing with all that free time they have while you wait.

Customers calling your restaurant will sometimes get put on hold because an employee was taking an order or helping a customer in the restaurant and went offline. When you are busy with customers in your restaurant, but also have phone calls coming in at the same time, it can lead to long holding times for both parties.

Solution: Although a dedicated phone receptionist could keep an eye on the calls being on hold and get back to them to offer other options, using technology here makes a lot more sense. Eat.chat Voice knows when staff are busy or on another line, gives customers an option to hold, or take other actions such as online ordering or leaving messages.

Eat.chat Voice can also help reduce the long holding times by automatically getting back to callers after a certain time and provide other options, letting them know their calls are important to you, and that you want to take care of them one way or another. This will ensure that you don’t have customers waiting on hold for an extended period of time and go unaided because there isn’t anyone available in the restaurant.

Inconsistent Phone Etiquette

More than in any other type of business, first impressions are massively important if you are running a restaurant. That’s why you’ve put so much time into decorating and designing your interior. That’s why you spent hours toiling over your menu and working on its design. That’s why you spend 20 minutes picking the perfect filter when posting pictures of your food on Instagram. That’s why you make sure that you have great hosts and waiters who are ready to greet your customers with smiles on their faces. And that’s why you need to make sure that the first impression you make on the phone when someone calls your restaurant is just as strong. Phone etiquette is just that important.

Unless you have a dedicated, professional phone receptionist, it is likely each customer will get a different experience each time they call in. It depends on who picks up the phone, their communication skill set, their knowledge of the menu, time of day and whether it’s during the rush.

There are many restaurant owners who don’t have a professional phone person, and because of this, they miss out on potential sales. With all that is going on in a restaurant it’s easy to forget the importance of good communication skills when communicating with customers over the phone; but some restaurant owners may not realize how important those skills are until they get feedback from customers about their experience over the phone.

Solution: In order to provide consistent, professional customer service restaurant owners and managers should consider using a restaurant-specific automated voice or chat system like Eat.chat Voice which simplifies the restaurant’s communication process while providing an excellent customer experience – whether they call in on a weekday morning or during busy lunch hours.

Eat.chat Voice provides a professional, consistent, customized greeting to each caller every time. It also provides restaurant owners and managers with the ability to customize restaurant messages for various events like VIP customer appreciation days, local restaurant promotions or specials. The system is easy-to-use and offers a variety of features that will help you build your brand and provide an excellent experience on each call – because as every restaurant owner knows – happy customers are loyal customers.

Staff Interruptions

Your restaurant is busy. Customers are waiting at tables and in front of the cashier. Servers are serving, runners are running, cooks are cooking. You need all hands on deck at all times in order to keep things running smoothly and efficiently. However, the customer on the phone is not getting put on hold. Let’s say they’ve been waiting to place a pickup order or to make a reservation for an important event.

What to do! You’ve got a few options. Either you can put the customer on hold and resume your restaurant duties, or interrupt one of your staff members so callers don’t have to wait too long. If it’s a first-time caller, then they will need more time than usual to help them out with their questions because they’ll need to be briefed on restaurant information.

To stay in the customer’s good graces, we recommend that you don’t put them on hold if they’re already frustrated with a wait time or call quality – this will only make things worse and could lead to an unhappy customer.

Solution: The Eat.chat Voice system eliminates this problem altogether. The restaurant phone should be treated like an extension of your restaurant’s customer service team because it can serve as one more resource that you have at your disposal when taking care of customers’ needs.

Every call is picked up immediately and handled professionally, allowing your waitstaff to concentrate on servicing the customers in front of them. You can even take multiple incoming calls at once during the restaurant rush without customers ever getting a busy signal. This will help increase the call volume and the rest of your business activities including dine-in traffic and catering.

Impersonal Service

We know you are busy running your restaurant, and that it’s hard to find time to greet guests on the phone. It’s becoming more and more difficult to personalize with callers, greet them by name, tell them about today’s specials, or answer their questions in an engaging way.

Not being able to personalize customer experience is a serious downside of providing great customer service. Staff will be consumed with taking orders instead of making guests feel welcome.

Solution: Using the right phone service will help customers feel welcome on every call, let you offer today’s specials or give guests options to make a reservation, connect to catering, check hours, get directions, or speak with the host.

Eat.chat Voice, when combined with online ordering and live chat agents, truly gives customers a unique phone experience. It greets each customer by name, gives them a fast option to re-order, use their mobile phone to chat with live agents, place an order, make a reservation, or ask any questions regarding their preferences or the menu.

Language Barrier

We want our customers to feel comfortable talking with us, but some of your employees aren’t fluent or able to communicate well in English. They may be causing your customers discomfort when they call for customer service. The language barrier can keep customers from getting the experience they deserve.

You want to have a professional sounding phone receptionist, but it is hard and expensive to hire one. It’s not just about the language skills. The tone of your voice can be important as well. A friendly voice that sounds like an American accent will make all the difference in how customers perceive you or your company.

Solution: Our virtual receptionist uses state of the art human voice technology that can sound like a real person. This means that no matter where you are located or what language your employees speak, we can help you provide excellent customer service without any awkwardness on either side of the phone line.

Eat.chat Voice uses advanced deep learning technologies to synthesize speech that sounds like a human voice with proper intonation. With our technology, you don’t have to hire a professional phone receptionist to be able to give callers great experience and project the image you want for your restaurant.

Lack of relationship building

Enjoying your meal still is, and will forever be a local experience whether it was ordered online or in person. Customers are more likely to order food when they can communicate with a real person. They want to know what’s in their food, if it’s a popular dish, or that there will be someone available if they have special requests or concerns. They love being recognized or greeted by their familiar server. They feel connected to your restaurant.

However, ordering online especially through third-party deliveries can be as impersonal and stressful as it gets. You are on your own, have to navigate websites, and make decisions based on limited text descriptions.

Chatbots get stuck in repetitive loops and can’t really understand what you’re saying to them. They don’t have the ability to learn from your conversations with them like humans do.

Solution: A successful restaurant thrives on having relationships with customers. You can build relationships and customer loyalty by making personal connections with them one at a time.

EatChatVoice with Live Chat Ordering is a voice ordering platform for restaurants that allows customers to connect with you. The powerful technology bundle greets customers by their name, gives them options to connect or re-order, efficiently handles common questions, and even takes orders when your staff is busy helping other customers.

By having real human operators on the other end of our system, we give people an experience closer to talking with a friend than scrolling through menus online. Our technology was developed in-house using cutting techniques – much more personal than any bot could ever be.

Lack of Marketing and Promotions

It’s hard enough to run a successful restaurant, but you also have to worry about marketing it online and offline. You need to constantly promote your restaurant in order to attract new customers and keep the existing ones coming back.

The problem is most restaurants suffer from a lack of marketing and promotion. Small restaurants and cafes simply don’t have enough time and resources to market themselves but still want to attract new customers.

More often than not, your existing customers don’t even know everything that you do! For example, you might offer catering services but they don’t know about them. You might have online ordering or special promo codes on the new dishes. You might want to let them know about your best sellers every time they call you. Imagine your chef could visit every table and talk about the house’s specials!

Many restaurant owners don’t realize that they can promote restaurant specials over the phone to customers. This is a great way of reminding them about your restaurant and what it has to offer, without having to use up valuable time in person.

Solution: Maximize every opportunity a customer come in contact with your restaurant either on the phone or in person. With every incoming phone call, Eat.chat Voice helps restaurants grow their business 24/7 by constantly promoting everything in the menu, including special offers, catering options etc., as well as reservations for tables. It also provides text messages with links to promote takeout orders and online ordering.

This is a powerful restaurant marketing machine that can be used 24 hours a day. With every incoming phone call, restaurants can now provide their customers with everything they need – from menu items to reservations and online ordering. Our restaurant marketing software tool also offers loyalty program and eCommerce capabilities so you can sell gift cards, special menus or add products directly through your site.

With this innovative technology you can focus your efforts on building relationships with customers while we handle all the details involved in running your business such as taking phone calls, making reservations, managing ordering even when you’re busy with other customers, and taking customer surveys after each order. It’s like having a full-time phone receptionist and a marketing manager working for you around the clock without paying any extra salary!

SUMMARY

Eat.chat Voice is the only restaurant phone, text and chat solution that has been specifically designed to help restaurants increase sales while providing an excellent customer experience – whether they call in on a weekday morning or during the restaurant rush.

Eat.chat Voice can provide consistent answers to the most frequently asked questions, always promote reservations, catering and restaurant specials.

Eat.chat Voice also provides restaurant owners with caller metrics and analytics, so they can measure each call’s success rate and make necessary adjustments or changes based on those measurements.