As the restaurant industry undergoes constant changes, the importance of operational execution becomes even more crucial. Clear visibility into the execution of operations is vital for long-term success. This visibility is derived from your capacity to convert data into actionable information, providing clarity for both you and your team.
Issues such as speed of service, labor scheduling, menu modification, guest feedback and cleanliness are imperative to ensuring your guests will want to order from you and keep coming back.
Operations
Having near real-time information in the hands of your existing operations team is critical to seeing clearly where things are going well and where they’re not, so action can be taken at locations when and where needed.
This capability will allow your OPS team members to cover more locations in the event you find team members suddenly unavailable and will also avoid unnecessary contact with / trips to locations where things are going well.
Menu
First, examine your menu and determine which of your menu items are most suitable for these activities.
Assuming you have a range of suitable menu items available, then focus on items that can be produced easily / quickly which will help your team with speed of service. Following this, where possible look for items that offer higher margins.
Reducing your menu can also lead to benefits such as requiring fewer team members and improving speed of service.
Location, Location, Location
Next, examine where your restaurants are located. Are there locations situated on or near a Campus or Mall. Are others in a Rural, Suburban or Urban setting? Examining these areas can help you determine whether a location should be open or closed.
For example, locations in urban buildings or transportation hubs may be better off closing on certain days as more people work from home.
Labor Scheduling
Adjusting your staff may be one of the most difficult decisions any restaurant operator will have to make. Having a labor schedule will help you communicate effectively and ensure that you have the appropriate team members manning each location.
As part of your labor schedule, you’ll also want to properly manage labor allocation to minimize expense. So, what affects our labor allocation? Customer demand and employees on the clock are two main variables.
Understanding the ratio of how busy a location is at any time and how many employees are working is crucial to controlling labor cost. Visibility into this ratio can be seen by looking at your labor as a % of sales for every hour the restaurant is open. This will help you identify the hours where management may have had too much or too little labor on the clock for the demand.
Last, but not least, make sure your team members know who to contact in the event of a schedule change. Having the correct team at each location everyday will help maximize your speed of service and along with that guest satisfaction.
Cleanliness
You’ve always had a strong structure around your cleaning procedures and now you’ve taken steps to enhance that even further and some have gone above and beyond by adding sanitation specialists for added visibility. Given the current environment it goes without saying, you can’t stress enough, the importance of communication regarding your cleanliness. From your website to your restaurants, it's important for you to actively communicate what your staff is doing to maintain a clean and safe environment for themselves and guests.
Guest Feedback
We know today that cleanliness has slipped a notch in importance to your guests but not so fast because according to a recent study, it's right behind seeing your staff outfitted in PPE and taking steps to ensure their safety - like cleaning.
To help, you’ll want to measure and report on the key metrics important to executing on your customer experience promise. Whether its data gathered from your POS, Drive Thru Timers, Web Portal, Loyalty, Social Media or all of these along with the myriad of other ways available to gather voice of your customer it’s important to:
- Listen to what your customers are saying
- Quickly respond to any concerns
- Use that information to enhance your training processes and raise your level of execution
Continuously monitor activity to ensure you’re consistently delivering on your brand's promise of excellent customer service. Adjust as needed.
Summary
While the restaurant industry is always changing, one constant we know from our clients is being able to transform their data into actionable information is helping them see opportunities as well as issues more quickly / clearly and adjust as needed.
Leveraging your data to manage the risks challenging the business is imperative to surviving through change and quite possibly coming out stronger and better positioned to tackle growth. If your company is interested in exploring how we might be able to provide you and your teams with greater access to actionable information click the button below to contact us.
