Next-Gen 6, What Are the Elements of the Next-gen Restaurants?
When we're talking next steps in the evolution of the real restaurant experience, we don't think about sci-fi, drone food delivery, taking pills or shakes instead of food. We are thinking about enhancing restaurants we all visit and love to be more lean, efficient and more connected with us, their guests. Having that in mind, and in the conclusion of this series of articles, these 5 key points come to mind when we want to describe the next-gen of restaurant experiences.
Co-creators
Guests control the experience along with the restaurant staff with the help of technology that bridges guest’s personal and restaurant business devices. As we have covered in the Understanding People section, if space provides affordances for a certain action, users will lean toward those actions. If there is more than one way for restaurant guests to order, modify orders, or pay for their food - like servers, but also by using their phones or built-in tablets, they will use it. If the easiness of use is high, the action might quickly become a habit, benefiting both guests and the restaurants they visit.
Value of Timing
New focus on perceived time and timing of the events as well as access to the tools to manage those solves both guest issues and improves the efficiency of the operations
Rise of Brand Ambassadors
Servers are gradually becoming brand ambassadors of the restaurants. There are fewer of them, covering more tables. They will have capacity because lots of their functions and time spent can be augmented with guests co-piloting the events (like ordering, paying, etc.). Brand ambassadors are focused less on logistics and more on relationships and understanding customers better. Having all this in mind, new brand ambassadors can actually earn more through higher sales, higher tips, even higher base salaries, making them even more engaged.
Understanding Guest Journey
Restaurant management understands and has full agency to affect all steps in the guest journey, on and off-premise. It is critical to map out the most important touchpoints, understand guests' sentiments there, improve those events, and of course continue measuring through guests' feedback.
Design First, Technology-enabled Operations
Digital technology enables leaner, simpler, and better restaurant operations and experiences. Move from improving localized issues to the holistic understanding of the whole system of customer and employee journey and employing a set of tools to affect the whole system.
The fact that tech solutions arise left and right, and getting adopted at high speed, speaks of fact that these next-gen restaurants as described with these 5 points are becoming an immediate reality, rather than future constructs.
We at Ready, working closely with our clients and partners, have adopted this worldview and working toward this vision. Check how our Connected Dining Platform can be implemented for your Dine-In and To-Go scenarios.
