Restaurant Owners: How Do You Balance Phone Orders with the Risk of No-Shows?

[vijaytupakula]

I'm Vijay, co-founder of Cate AI, and I'm reaching out to this knowledgeable community to delve into a topic that's both intriguing and challenging for many of us in the restaurant industry: Phone Orders and the No-Show Dilemma.

I recently had a fascinating conversation with a restaurant owner with 4 locations in Austin, and it opened my eyes to a common yet under-discussed issue. This owner has made a bold decision – he doesn’t accept phone orders at all. His reason? He's experienced too many no-shows. Surprisingly, he prefers to miss out on these orders rather than deal with the hassle and loss that comes when customers don't show up to pick up their food.

This got me thinking and I'm curious to hear from you all:

1. Do you accept phone orders in your restaurant?
2. If so, do you take payment during the order or at the time of food pick-up?
3. Most importantly, how do you handle no-shows, especially when payment hasn't been made in advance?

I understand that every business is unique and what works for one might not work for another. However, sharing your experiences can shed light on innovative solutions or best practices that we might not have considered.

Is avoiding phone orders entirely a wise decision to prevent revenue loss from no-shows? Or are there effective strategies to mitigate this risk and still capitalize on the demand for phone orders?

Your insights and experiences are invaluable, and I'm excited to hear your thoughts and strategies on this topic.

Disclaimer: I want to make it clear that my intention here is not to promote my product, but rather to gain a deeper understanding of how restaurant owners like yourselves are navigating this issue. I believe your insights can significantly contribute to finding effective solutions for our industry.

[ryanwanner]

@vijaytupakula  This is a great topic of conversation, and I'll be curious to see what other solutions restaurateurs have come up with!

I can count on one hand the number of no shows I have had in 15 years, so really while I see it being a significant issue in the more urban environments, where my shop was at meant it was easiest to just take the loss and move on.  For me, it wasn't really the worry of no-shows that caused me to de-emphasize call in orders. I continually had the "what do you serve?" questions when we were in our rushes, and since I kept staffing slim it meant that I lost a set of hands for 15-20 minutes while they babysat the order. The time lost in a weekend definitely added up.

I still allowed call in orders, but I completely stopped advertising the option. I pushed people towards our webstore and our app. This did a lot to drop our phone in order volume, but every now and then a "what do you serve?" question would still come through.

There's an app in the Square Marketplace called SoundHound for Restaurants. It's an AI-based phone service that takes your to go order, sends the customer a payment link, then sends the order to your Square system, where it acts just like an online order does. I tried it out when it first was rolling out. I really liked it for the most part. The little issues I had was how it handled non-order calls. It was supposed to forward them to the shop line. It was hit and miss early last year. (I know it's been fixed now) My major problem with SoundHound had nothing to do with them, it was how badly my customer base rebelled against it. There were reports of agents being screamed at because it was another "darned computer thing". My phone in orders dropped to one per weekend, and my online ordering didn't see an increase. Lost a lot in sales because of them. Aahhh, the joys of being in a rural environment.....

Depending on your location, I think that SoundHound would be a great way to get past the no-show orders. Let them not show: they've already paid. Food for the FOH vultures... 🙂

[vijaytupakula]

Hey @ryanwanner 

its been long, Thanks for your reply. Its good to know the feedback of the customers and I agree it was to early for the AI to be that good and handle the calls seamlessly but with recent updates AI is so much powerful and it feels so much natural and its only going to get better. I have been working on solving this problem for the last 2 years and being in AI space and working with different AI models and technologies I can promise you that we are in a good shape where our phone AI solution works seamlessly with square point of sale. Dont take my word, just see it in action. I am attaching a video that I have created for one of my customers and let me know your thoughts or if you are interested I can setup a demo for you. 

https://vimeo.com/1004691044/e48ec13611?share=copy