If you are a restaurant owner looking for a way to improve your customer experience, chatbots are one of the best ways to do so.
Increasing the efficiency of your restaurant operations and customer experience go hand in hand. No one wants to wait for days to get a response from your support team or even browse through your website for more than a few minutes to find the information they are looking for.
Customers today want an immediate response, and chatbots can assist restaurants with this.
Chatbots can show menus, place reservations, place and modify orders, and answer FAQs 24/7, among other things.
Chatbots have proven to be a valuable asset to modern-day restaurants. With the power of chatbots, restaurants may be aided by powerful artificial intelligence to become more efficient and robust.
This article outlines the essential benefits of chatbots for restaurants and customers alike. Get the whole picture and decide whether a chatbot is a good investment for your restaurant business!
In this article:
- Restaurant Chatbots: What are they?
- Seven best uses for restaurant chatbots
- The Takeaway: Are chatbots for you?
Restaurant Chatbots
Simply put, chatbots are computer programs powered by Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning capabilities to accept reservations, show restaurant menus, and take orders seamlessly without evoking a call to a human-led support team.
Restaurants may also employ this conversational software to answer commonly asked inquiries and solicit customer feedback. A restaurant chatbot can do these things on a website as well as through a messaging channel like Facebook Messenger, where you set predefined answers to the most common questions asked by customers, such as
- What time are you open?
- I want to see your menu
- I need a table for 2
You can easily modify your chatbots to answer customers’ questions regularly, giving time for your support team to respond to more critical issues and questions.
An article by Business Insider shows that 80% of organizations want to introduce chatbots to their customers over the next couple of years. Although customers are looking for personalized answers to their questions and do not want to feel like they are talking to a robot, the advent of chatbots is powered by the Internet generation’s need for personalized, super fast service.
While it is not always possible for people to give 24/7, uninterrupted service manually, machine-learning-based chatbots get the job done quickly. These bots, using ML, can supply the missing human touch in customer assistance. When something challenging arises, a human agent can always take control.
Seven Best Uses Of Restaurant Chatbots
Chatbots can give recommendations, handle orders, provide special discounts, and manage most consumer questions or concerns. The best thing about chatbots is that they do it with a friendly, conversational interface. As a result, chatbots are excellent at increasing consumer engagement and happiness.
If you are not convinced yet, here are 7 of the best uses for restaurant chatbots
- Reduces the burden on your IT staff
Support teams and help desks have become essential to restaurants with an online presence. It enables restaurants to provide customers with continuous assistance. Anytime a customer tries to perform an action online, the IT teams are responsible for providing the information they need.
This becomes burdensome when a restaurant scales and starts bringing in many visitors to its site. It is not ideal for any restaurant in a world where cost and productivity efficiencies are required. Here is where chatbots come into play.
Chatbots can help restaurants address Level 1 (repeated and basic) questions about their operations, such as customers inquiring about the menu, operating hours, allergen information, and more.
Customers may handle their concerns quickly by chatting with the conversational virtual assistant. As a result, the wait time is decreased, which has a significant beneficial influence on operational productivity. It also reduces the burden on team members to stay online and alert to respond promptly to customers.
- Simplifies ordering process
The pandemic, combined with technological advancements, has increased the need for food delivery and has offered an unparalleled opportunity to meet this demand on equal footing.
With a chatbot, you can instantly give a frictionless experience to customers right from the ordering process. Users can quickly look up your restaurant and start interacting with your chatbot, asking questions they have about your menu items and specials, and place an order with a few clicks.
Chatbots can even suggest items that customers might like based on what’s popular in that location and at any given time. So whether your consumer wants to dine in or get takeaway, chatbots keep your business running smoothly by simplifying the ordering process.
- Makes reservations a breeze
Many people who prefer to dine out at trendy restaurants make reservations ahead of time so they do not have to worry about table availability, especially on busy days. In addition, customers may use a chatbot to reserve tables in seconds rather than reserving via phone, which can confuse restaurant staff during rush hours.
There is no aggravation or lost time when the entire booking procedure is done in just a few clicks and with a powerful AI-based chatbot solution. There is no confusion or missed requests, which offers a fantastic opportunity to acquire long-term patronage. Chatbots can also send confirmation emails or reminders to consumers to ensure they do not forget about their bookings.
- 24/7 availability
Extending customer service outside operating hours is usually tricky for businesses. For example, most restaurants cannot afford a live chat service available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. As a result, if a problem emerges after business hours, the customer must wait until the help desk has time to resolve it.
On the other hand, a Facebook or website chatbot may be accessed at any time and can answer client questions.
Chatbots built for restaurants specifically assist businesses in overcoming such a hurdle. Most problems may be resolved promptly by these sophisticated chatbots. Moreover, customers do not have to wait for extended periods for a resolution with the 24/7 support provided by these bots.
- Aids your marketing funnel
With 1.4 billion individuals utilizing chatbots, these intelligent tools have effectively taken over traditional B2B and B2C marketing. This opens up a wide avenue for restaurants to use chatbots to aid in their marketing strategy.
One of the key reasons chatbots are so popular is their ability to catch consumers’ attention and keep them engaged for an extended period. In addition, they are unobtrusive and simple to use, and more than half of consumers choose live chat assistance to answer their questions.
Marketing and sales teams might use data collected by chatbots to develop methods for proposing new menu items that add value to the customer’s purchase. A chatbot might also offer the consumer relevant information or reminders, such as the subscription renewal due date or even a cart abandonment email.
- Upselling and cross-selling opportunities
Modern chatbots can help restaurants upsell to customers who are placing orders online. This might include emphasizing the choice to select a large piece rather than a small or medium-sized meal or proposing side items frequently requested with what has been ordered thus far.
Chatbots can also collect contact information from individuals who communicate with them via their machine learning capabilities. This allows restaurants and other hospitality businesses to contact customers who have shown an interest and target them with relevant and customized promotional information, such as special offers and discounts.
- Automates your restaurant operations
Artificial intelligence advancements, combined with the widespread usage of messaging apps, are spearheading the rapid development and deployment of chatbots around enterprises worldwide, and the restaurant industry is no exception.
AI has progressed to the point where chatbots can conduct extremely useful, human-like conversations. This allows restaurants to make use of the low-cost and broad-reaching technology to communicate with more customers, thereby improving sales and profits.
The Takeaway: Are Chatbots For You?
For any restaurant, fostering brand value and loyalty is extremely important. So how can chatbots help?
Chatbots are a super efficient tool to divulge the correct information to customers without them having to search widely for it. It also reflects a brand’s ideals, and a positive one will create a lasting impression on your customer.
The restaurant Chatbot’s strongest feature is its ability to cultivate client relationships and maintain constant contact. Intelligent chatbots examine client information and interactions. As a result, they can respond with more appropriate solutions. They’re a perfect tool for monitoring and planning brand mentions to convert leads into customers.
Chatbots are an integral element of modern restaurant and food chain enterprises because of all the potential they have to offer.