7 Ways To Boost Revenue Using Restaurant Analytics
/The restaurant industry is competitive and unpredictable. So, as a restaurant owner, you might find it challenging to keep up with the latest trends and align your processes accordingly. Thankfully, recent technology advancements give you access to valuable information, allowing you to track and repair any operational issues.
Advanced tools like POS and online reservation systems can help you efficiently gather customer data and performance analytics. Such information provides a comprehensive image of the restaurant’s overall performance and business patterns, enabling data-backed decision-making.
Let’s find out how you can boost revenue, grow your customer base, and get a competitive edge with restaurant analytics.
Manage Staff Efficiently
Labor cost is one of the biggest expenses of a restaurant. It takes between 25% and 40% of the gross revenue, so you need to optimize this aspect of the business to maximize your profits.
With data analytics, you’ll be able to identify slow shifts and effectively cut costs by allocating fewer employees during that period. Moreover, analytics can help you schedule your staff strategically to maximize revenue based on what part of the day your sales are highest.
Likewise, with proper data, you can optimize labor costs during peak seasons. For instance, based on historical data for the holiday season, you can schedule the right full-time and part-time labor balance.
Improve Marketing
Marketing activities account for a large portion of a restaurant’s total expenditure. If done right, they can bring in great ROI. However, making uninformed decisions might lead to financial losses and harm the brand.
Luckily, there are plenty of strategies that can help you stay on top of your advertising game. For instance, WiFi marketing is one of the best restaurant techniques to collect measurable data. You can then use detailed customer analytics to tweak your campaigns, win back lost customers, boost their visit frequency, and readily assess their satisfaction.
Optimize The Menu
Restaurant analytics can help you determine what menu items perform best, which dishes get people back to your restaurants, and on what meals you can offer discounts and promotions. Also, it can help you identify dishes that get lots of orders but no re-orders and those that don’t gain traction at all.
Once you have the right data in hand, you can try and improve certain items or remove them from the menu. At the same time, you can re-introduce or give an extra push to the most profitable dishes. Menu optimization can help you boost revenue and ensure repeat business.
Reduce Food Waste
Restaurant analytics can help you fine-tune inventory by offering an overview of past and present inventory levels in relation to orders and cash intake. As a result, you can adjust inventory levels and schedule orders to boost efficiency by always having the most requested menu items in stock while also reducing food waste. Armed with the correct data, you can also predict seasonal trends and plan your inventory wisely.
Enrich Guest Experience
Data analytics is the key to developing accurate customer profiles for building solid relationships and strategizing better in the future. You can efficiently track demographics, order preferences, and reservation habits to personalize the dining experience. For instance, you can offer a free dessert to guests on their birthday, send a special offer with their cuisine preferences in mind, or reward the most loyal customers.
Predict Future Sales
Although the restaurant industry is unpredictable and sales forecasting is a complicated task, you can anticipate future trends with predictive data analytics. Whether it’s an ingredient gaining popularity in your guest preferences or a trending diet, you’ll be the first to know. That way, you’ll be able to strategize better to meet those demands and stay ahead of the competitors.
Similarly, by analyzing historical data, you can gain insights regarding the top-performing periods. Then, backed by credible data, you’ll stay on top of it by stocking and staffing accordingly.
Enhance Home Delivery Systems
Following the COVID-19 pandemic, food delivery has become a global market worth more than $150 billion. You’ve undoubtedly tapped into it, but you need to optimize your operation to thrive financially from takeaway orders.
With the help of data, you can gain valuable insights about how to boost the home delivery process. For example, you can learn which dishes are most often ordered, whether people are satisfied with food quality and delivery timings, and how you could improve your takeaway packages.
Conclusion
Restaurant analytics can give you the much-needed advantage in this competitive industry to get where you need to be. You can learn what drives profitability and what pulls it down by collecting, organizing, and analyzing data. Then, you can rethink customer interactions, train employees, optimize menus, and tweak operations accordingly to provide the best dining experiences to your guests and boost revenue.
