Freedom to Focus on the Guest Experience
Over the past several months, the xtraCHEF team has traveled to various restaurant industry events around the country. At these events, we’ve had numerous conversations with restaurant owners, operators, and finance teams concerning the most critical factors to consider when making technology investments, including back-of-house systems.
While many mention topics such as automation, ease of use, controlling costs, enhanced ordering, self-service, etc., one theme is consistent throughout all of these conversations: the less time operators have to spend on repetitive, time-consuming tasks, the more they can focus their teams on what’s truly important: the Guest Experience.
The Guest Experience Should Take Precedent
In this day and age where 69% of millennial diners take a photo of the food before eating, ensuring that the diner’s experience is enjoyable from the minute they walk in the door to when they leave a review is of utmost importance. Anything that detracts and/or distracts employees from enhancing the guest experience is a wasted opportunity. When you automate manual, redundant tasks, you can spend more time training and coaching your team to provide excellent service, improve your reputation, and earn repeat guests.
Having in-store operators spend time dialing up and calling vendors to place an order, manually entering purchase information into an AP or inventory platform, or combing through Excel documents to analyze your costs can and will overextend your staff. This creates a domino effect that is ultimately felt by the customer and the bottom line of your business.
Employees May Change, but Technology Should Last
At a recent industry event, something one of the panelists said really stood out:
“We know our employees might change from time to time, but we want our technology to last.”
In an industry where the average employee lasts 1.8 years, you don’t want to train employees to follow old-school, paper-based processes that might include paper filing, data entry & “don’t do it like this, do it like this”. Instead you want flexible, integrated, and easy-to-use automation technologies. Modern, cloud-based technologies are quick to get up and running, mobile-friendly, and easy for new users (especially digital natives) to learn. No longer should you have to factor in extensive system training as you update your teams.
State-of-the-art AP automation solutions for restaurants, like xtraCHEF, are built to handle all types of businesses — from Fast Casual to Fine Dining and everything in between. They can be configured to accommodate what’s works for you restaurant and your team. It’s designed to work in all facets of the business: for the chef or in-store manager wanting to make sure invoices are input accurately and in a timely manner; the Financial Controller who wants to be able to accurately pay (or short pay) their bills and reconcile all invoices; the Owner/Executive who wants to know the pulse on their profitability at any given time.
Ready to see it for yourself?
If you’d like to learn more about to build scalable back-of-house systems that can benefit your restaurant and your guests’ experience, we can help!
Simply request a demo of xtraCHEF, and we’ll show you how easy it is to streamline functions such as accounts payable, ordering, budgeting and more at your restaurant. Begin saving time and chopping food and labor costs right away. Your guests will thank you for it!
