Throughout 2020, businesses of all types suffered through one of the most difficult economic environments imaginable. It happened because pandemic-driven restrictions created operational challenges that nobody had planned for, let alone were equipped to handle. Over time, a number of businesses adapted and found a way to continue serving customers, but there was one major exception to this rule.
This was, of course, the restaurant industry, which suffered major cutbacks as a result of the fact that businesses weren’t able to see clients in person. In many jurisdictions, restaurants and cafes were subject to some of the strictest operating restrictions, and they suffered some of the worst outcomes as a result. In the United States alone, at least 110,000 eateries shut down for good by the end of the year. Even though restrictions have been lifted in a number of areas, the surviving businesses have continued to struggle in their efforts to get back to normal.
Nevertheless, experts now predict the industry to rebound to pre-pandemic levels by 2023, and one of the keys to that recovery will be the adoption and application of conversational AI technology. Data scientists and business experts have opined that conversational AI will change the restaurant industry and prepare it to thrive in the post-pandemic era.
Easing Labor Shortages with Intelligent Agents
Due to the fact that restaurants were among the last businesses that were allowed to reopen as restrictions, many of those previously employed in it have moved on to new jobs. This has created a labor shortage, which has been further exasperated by supply shortages that have wreaked havoc on nearly every other industry in addition to that of hospitality. Conversational AI systems have already begun helping to fill the void that’s been left by the departures of these previous employees. Restaurants have started to add the technology to their existing ordering platforms and point of sale systems.
This makes it possible for customers to place their orders and request their checks via a smartphone app or through tabletop touch-screens using either a text or voice recognition interface. That frees up the remaining staff to handle tasks like food preparation, receiving payments, and making change. Since these deployments have elected to build on the previous use of traditional chatbot technologies for order-taking and various other customer-facing solutions, restaurants haven’t faced as steep an adoption curve as they rush back to business.
Perhaps most importantly, this has made it possible for those in the industry to improve their customer experience levels to something that’s even greater than what they had before the situation.
Taking Customer Experience Levels to New Heights
Another way that conversational AI is transforming the restaurant industry is that it’s helping to improve the customer experience in a variety of ways. First, it’s eliminating the time constraints that governed how human staff could interact with customers. For example, a conversational AI system can greet a customer immediately as they’re seated, eliminating wait times for those in a hurry. This may prove especially attractive to those in the fast casual space, which tend to attract customers who don’t often have much time to spend dining but want the full experience of doing so. Conversely, a conversational AI system can afford to wait on a customer that’s having trouble deciding on what to order, because it faces no pressure to move on to helping someone else.
However, these are only a few of the advantages that these agents provide, in spite of the fact that they might be the most visible of all of those discussed in the data science industry. The customer experience also benefits from conversational AI’s ability to deliver a consistent tone and message in every customer interaction. Whereas human staff might get frustrated due to fatigue or overwork and end up providing subpar service on occasion, a conversational AI system will give each customer the exact same experience on every visit. Since consistency is the key to customer satisfaction, that’s a massive benefit to have. In fact, it might eventually exceed the other benefits in terms of the overall economic value that they provide.
Considering the current situation, many organizations are attempting to phase in at least some form of contactless payments. Conversational AI also facilitates a true contactless experience, which became necessary during the pandemic. Since there’s evidence that customers now have a distinct preference for those contactless options, industry analysts expect them to continue long after they’re no longer a mandatory feature of the dining experience.
While there are a number of privacy issues revolving around data collection, conversational AI agents could actually help to streamline the process in situations where it’s unavoidable. In most cases, that would mean little more than payment details as well as the customer’s order. When things start to become more complicated, however, conversational AI software could help hospitality staff out.
Simplifying & Improving Data Collection
Conversational AI also provides restaurants with a valuable data collection opportunity with every customer interaction. It will process, sort, and store the data resulting from each customer interaction, preserving it for further analysis. The restaurant can use that data to power its marketing processes as well as to make critical decisions about menu changes, future promotions, and pricing.
Owing to the fact that an AI can learn as it interacts with each individual customer, a conversational AI system is also empowered to make personalized recommendations on the fly. This should improve the ability of a restaurant to upsell items and to anticipate the needs of each individual customer. Naturally, the accuracy of such recommendations will grow as it encounters a customer again and again.
Privacy advocates have understandably raised some concerns about this kind of procedure, which have been echoed in the industry by those who are worried about the potential for data breaches. That’s why conversational AI developers have already started to work on new encryption protocols as well as terms of service agreements that spell out exactly what kind of data is being collected. Consumers will know what they’re getting into before they ever place orders, which would allow them some control over their data. Most importantly, consumers would also have some kind of function that would allow them to eventually delete any marketing profile created, which should help to bolster consumer confidence in these new deployments.
Overall, though, it’s likely that these and other efforts will help to completely change the restaurant industry as a whole.
Remaking the Restaurant Industry
Although 2020 was a difficult year for the restaurant industry, there’s every reason to believe that it’s going to rebound in the coming months. It’s also equally as evident that conversational AI should end up at the heart of said recovery. As a technology, it’s become particularly well-suited to applications that involve a higher volume of customer interactions, which makes it a natural fit in this space. The restaurant market segment has already incorporated many of these changes, which has further helped to encourage their adoption.
For customers, however, there are real benefits as well. It’s clear that conversational AI is going to reinvent the ways that they interact with their favorite restaurants. With this technology in place, customers will be certain to get the personalized attention that they both want and deserve every time that they visit or connect online. In the end, that’s excellent news for them as well as the managers of the businesses that they patronize. Both are going to benefit from increased efficiency as well as effective high-quality customer service that will keep people coming back.
That means that many have expressed the opinion that the restaurant industry is ready to emerge from a year of crisis and enter into a new era of expansion on top of continued success.
