Restaurant Call Centers Don’t Eliminate Restaurant Visits

Restaurant operators fear the push toward digital interactions in the belief that take-out orders could cannibalize in-restaurant visits. But the research shows that hasn’t been the case. With customer service outsourcing, restaurant operators retain and improve their restaurant throughput.

Research firm, Sense360, tracked more than 21 million restaurant visits to identify any changes in consumer behavior 90 days before and after downloading a delivery app. The results showed no impact on the number of restaurant visits, at least in the short term.

Off-premise dining is simply another revenue stream. For many consumers, the choice is most often between eating at home and dining out, not take-out vs. in-store. The increase in off-premise dining, fueled by delivery apps and digital platforms, means restaurants retain business that they might have otherwise lost to home cooking.

Also, new ordering channels connect restaurants with people who may rarely if ever dine in-store. With a restaurant call center supporting off-premise dining, a restaurant can connect with consumers through phone, email, chat, SMS text and social media.

These options allow your restaurant to fit your customers’ lifestyle. So if they want to grab a family meal on the way to the soccer field, or indulge in the pasta special while binging movies, you can capture the revenue that might have gone to peanut butter and jelly sandwiches or a frozen dinner from the grocery store.

Even with the massive push for online ordering from restaurants over the past few years, the segment has grown to only about 13 percent of the takeout and delivery market. Phone orders are still the king, with about 90 percent of consumers preferring to place a takeout or delivery order via voice.

When partnered with an outsourced restaurant call center, your operations can provide a high level of service at a lower cost. Orders can be taken faster in a quiet work environment, and entered directly into the restaurants POS instead of writing an order on a paper ticket and punching it in. A busy sandwich shop can take lunch orders from 10 customers at a time instead of one at a time.

Poor experiences such as a delay or confusion about the order can damage the brand’s reputation and result in negative feedback on social media. One bad experience may lose a customer for good.

We have decades of experience in customer service outsourcing for Fortune 500 companies, and our restaurant division builds on that background.

Our virtual agents are trained just like your in-store staff and understand the opportunities to up-sell and cross-sell on every order. We employ multiple trained agents to handle incoming calls and digital channels to increase throughput at your restaurant, resulting in more people getting through the door faster.

In our experience, restaurants increase their average ticket size by at least 10 to 15% due to our up-selling initiatives.

Don’t fear the growth of digitally aided dining. Tap into the power of a restaurant call center to capture the off-premise dining dollar your customers are ready to spend.

For more of a visual of TSD Global’s restaurant division please check out our short explainer video here.