As anyone who’s worked in the restaurant industry knows – efficiency is essential for the success of a busy service.
If everyone in the team understands their roles, communicates effectively and has the tools and technology necessary to support their work, there’s no better feeling. On the other hand, once delays and mistakes start to creep in – things can snowball, and fast.
As well as improving staff morale by tightening your restaurant franchise’s efficiency, you can reduce waste, enhance customer perceptions of your business and improve your sales.
Let’s explore how…
Why efficiency is essential for food delivery
Think of it this way… if you don’t focus on the efficiency of your ghost kitchen brand’s operations, what are the consequences?
Missed orders? Inferior quality food? Under-pressure staff? Wasted time, ingredients, decreasing customer satisfaction, low reviews and ratings…? It’s a vicious cycle that erodes your profits and the success of your restaurant.
Quite simply, efficiency makes business sense. It’s important to ensure all staff (from your head chefs to KPs and delivery drivers) receive clear training and instructions, so they’re empowered to deliver smooth operations no matter their role.
As well as staff training, the two main ways to improve your virtual food brand’s efficiency are a focus on reducing costs and improving sales…
How to reduce your restaurant costs
Poor cost efficiency can come from a number of sources. This can include:
- Inadequate stock management, including storage and supply chain issues.
- Human errors (often from manual processes), resulting in incorrect or missed orders.
- Poorly managed staff scheduling, with either too many or too few staff.
Focus on each of these key areas, thinking about ways to track, monitor and improve your kitchen’s performance. Whether it’s training your staff in proper food safety systems (such as HACCP), keeping up to date inventories or clear food storage policies – there are lots of ways to decrease wastage (and costs) for your restaurant.
Furthermore, the latest EPOS systems (often with customer relationship management tools built-in) will help you automate customer orders and marketing, plan staffing around predicted busy-periods and streamline stock management.
How to improve your restaurant sales
Once you’ve audited your restaurant franchise’s costs, it’s time to focus on the other side of business efficiency: improving your profits.
Here are some key aspects to focus on:
- Improving your advertising – especially focusing on automated emails, digital presence and localised social media advertising.
- Consider upselling – what side-dishes, drinks, special events or extras could you highlight?
- Incentives and discounts – returning customers spend more than new diners, so improving customer loyalty through incentives and discounts is key to increasing sales.
- Streamline your ticket management – make sure your POS system links up with all the online food delivery platforms your brand appears on. Greater automation also means fewer manual processes, less opportunities for mistakes and improved customer satisfaction.
For more advice on increasing the efficiency of your restaurant franchise, check out the Peckwater Brands blog. From using tech to increase your food delivery sales to overcoming industry challenges and making the most of your POS system, stay up to date with the latest tips and trends – and one step ahead of the competition.
Topics from this blog: Operations
