I have a friend with a severe dairy allergy. We joke about how “high maintenance” she is when she orders her meals at restaurants, but it’s imperative that her food is cooked without butter, cheese, and other dairy products or she’ll get violently ill.
Years ago, she went to dinner to meet her boyfriend’s parents (now her in-laws) at a fancy Italian restaurant. She went through her usual ordering routine, alerting the server that even a tiny amount of dairy would sicken her. When her meal was served, the pasta was covered in cheese, and she had to send it back, which was mortifying when she was trying to make a good impression on her future in-laws. She was lucky, though, that the mistake was so clearly visible. If the dish had been cooked in butter, or if a tiny amount of cream was added to the sauce, she wouldn’t have noticed the error and she would have gotten sick from eating it.
Whether a customer orders a meal as is, or requests a modification because of a life-threatening food allergy, because they’re a vegan, or just because they dislike cilantro, the restaurant should provide exactly the meal they wanted.
Improving order accuracy is in restaurants’ best interests. It boosts customer satisfaction and loyalty, positive online reviews, and coveted word-of-mouth recommendations.
Conversely, messing up customers’ orders is not just embarrassing for your establishment – it’s also bad for business. Just one wrong order can prevent a customer from returning and can cause them to bad-mouth your restaurant. One bad review can turn potential customers away, which can negatively impact traffic, sales and, ultimately, your reputation.
Incorrect orders also lead to more waste (and related costs) as your team will need to throw away the wrong order and remake it correctly. Often, restaurants comp the incorrect meal, which means your employees have made it twice and not gotten paid either time. If this happens repeatedly, the costs add up.
The good news is that technology can help increase order accuracy. Implement digital solutions and you’ll be able to collect and analyze data to improve accuracy as well as safety and quality.
Today’s tech solutions are affordable and accessible for restaurants of all sizes and budgets. Use your tech tools to:
Digital solutions allow you to track compliance and accountability across the enterprise, or drilled down by restaurant location, so you can assess performance and adjust, as needed. This also allows you to identify and reward your top performers, incentivizing them to stay long-term.
In addition, there are other steps your employees can take to increase order accuracy, including:
Prove to your guests that they matter and that you value them by getting their orders right. Tech solutions are the key to maximizing accuracy (and successful outcomes) in your restaurant.
Dallas Henderson, a 25-year veteran of the service industry, is an Account Manager at RizePoint. RizePoint is disrupting traditional market software with their innovative, new product platform Ignite™ Supplier Certification Management, which helps small to medium sized businesses simplify the supplier certification and maintenance process. Contact Dallas at [email protected]rizepoint.com.
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