Sponsored by Reachify
Starting and owning a restaurant can be a thrilling experience, however, it can also be more challenging than it is exciting. Restaurants are fast-paced business environments where different activities are happening all at the same time.
As a result, smart restaurateurs are constantly searching and utilizing services that help them run their restaurants smoothly and more efficiently. And one of these useful services is Call Deflection. In this article, we are going to discuss how this helps restaurants, with a real life case study.
But first…
What Is Call Deflection all about?
Call Deflection is a phone technology that allows you to manage high-volume inbound calls by redirecting your customers to self-service channels such as online ordering and chatbots. Therefore, your customers will not have to wait for a live representative to respond, and you can deflect the vast majority of calls with the right call-to-actions and incentives.
When it comes to boosting your customer experience, utilizing Call Deflection plays an important role in ensuring customers don’t get frustrated while allowing your staff to focus on food production. Call deflection can take on many forms. One such platform in the restaurant space, namely Reachify.io, provides Call Deflection where call menu options are added to allow callers to receive text messages with a URL to your website where they get an option to order food, see the restaurant menu, get directions, see promotions, and more.
How Call Deflection Helps Restaurants
It can be an uphill task attending to all the incoming phone calls during the peak hours of the restaurant, or when the restaurant is understaffed. This has been especially true during the coronavirus pandemic when most staff can’t go to work or finding staff to hire is tough.
Below are some of the ways call deflection can help restaurants run smoothly.
- It helps serve phone customers so the staff can focus on food production and serving the dine-in customers
- It helps retain customers and save possible missed online orders
- It provides an efficient way to speed up the digital transition of your restaurant
- It allows restaurants to still serve phone customers when understaffed
Why Has Call Deflection Worked So Well For Restaurants?
There are many benefits restaurants have seen, but below summarizes the most common ones.
Most Customers Prefer Self Service
To start with, statistics have shown that most customers believe that phone call processes are unnecessarily stressful and they prefer self-service. Using Reachify’s call deflection technology for your restaurant is an innovative way to add in a call menu option that allows callers to receive text messages with a direct link to your website or other options for self-serve. Many restaurants have online ordering, but bringing awareness to it is difficult.
Boost Customer Experience
Customer experience can significantly impact the success of your restaurant, and making your customers wait a long time on the phone is bad for business. Call deflection technology can help you serve your customers faster, which helps boost your restaurant using the age-old ‘word of mouth’ promotion. No-answers can frustrate anybody, making them feel unwanted.
Boost Employees Productivity
When you overwork your employees and give them more work than they can handle they’ll most likely be less productive or possibly even quit. Making use of services that reduces your employees’ tedious workload can help boost their productivity and morale. With Call Deflection, you take the load of customer calls off your staffs’ shoulders.
See How Much Call Deflection Helped Bruno’s Pizza
Since 1975, when the first restaurant opened in Mishawaka, Bruno's Pizza has been serving traditional Italian cuisine in Michiana. Bruno's Pizza has gained and maintained a reputation for producing high-quality food. Below is a case study of Bruno’s Pizza experience with Reachify’s call deflection technology.
The Challenge
Bruno's Pizza was swamped with the phone ringing for order taking with just one employee answering the phone while simultaneously handling the front. Call volumes were significantly high, even with Bruno’s Pizza online ordering in place, the call volume was especially high during the Friday and Saturday peak periods. This was too much for one employee to handle and every call missed resulted in lost orders.
The Solution
Bruno Pizza’s made use of Reachify’s Call Deflection service, which provided a self-serve menu that allowed callers access to the support they needed with ease in an innovative way. Call menu options re-route calls automatically to SMS text messages, allowing customers to access online ordering, directions, hours of operations, and Bruno’s Pizza promotions with a single click.
The Results
In the first month of using Reachify’s Call Deflection technology, Bruno’s Pizza was able to re-route 80% incoming calls to online self-services.
- 50% of the customer calls were rerouted to online ordering
- 18% of the customer calls were rerouted to directions and hours
- 12% of the customer calls were rerouted to Bruno’s Pizza Promotions
Here is what John Cataldo, the owner of Bruno’s Pizza, has to say about Reachify’s Call Deflection Technology.
“I wanted my team to focus on food quality and production, not order taking. Reachify provides an easy and simple way to guide callers to online ordering, leading to improved production, wait times, and food quality. Online orders increased by at least 50% for peak times.”
