Since the third quarter of 2024 particularly in the United Kingdom, staff costs are destined to increase. And those costs have to be recouped in almost all business styles, but for restaurants and fast food costs are at critical levels. So what can you do to offset those increased costs or even to reduce or eliminate them? There are a number of solutions you might not have considered.
A secondary pressure carefully applied to business from government where staff are employed is the new employment legislation where it is clear to most employers that getting things wrong could prove to be a very expensive lesson indeed. As a two pronged target against business, ensuring that efficiency of staff in employment and the least staff that you can operate with can become a 'make or break' for most restaurant pubs and bar business.
So is it really possible to reduce overheads of staff costs with simple communications equipment like a paging system? Let's consider how these types of systems can help any type of customer facing business, but in particular restaurants or any F&B and pubs and bars.
Consider the typical areas where there can be problems that make staff less productive:
* Food collection from the kitchen
Often an area where staff are under pressure to collect the food from the kitchen and take it to customers as soon as possible, but also an area where there can be problems because the food was not collected in a timely manner - thus affecting the service levels offered, AND can sometimes spoil food when it goes cold and customers reject it. Time is critical when food has been prepared and the inability to notify staff becomes very costly indeed over time.
A kitchen pager system is a great answer, allowing staff to know when food is ready for delivery at the kitchen so that it can be taken to the customer immediately. Staff through improved efficiency can offer a better service than it was without a kitchen paging system. SOLT offer a kitchen to waiter pager solution that can either operate to a screen on the wall, or directly to watch pagers worn by staff.
* Improving service at the table
It is possible to place a calling button on each table that can communicate to staff that maybe the customer might want a drink or other service, or perhaps they just want to pay the bill. Not having a system can actually cost sales of ancillary items, reduce the service levels because staff are very busy and even if a customer just wants to pay and is not being attended to, adds time to table turns.
SOLT has small wireless calling buttons designed for a table that can message staff via a wrist watch pager or can message a general staff area on a screen - these are low cost and high value to any restaurant, and they offer a great improvement of overall efficiency in a restaurant environment.
* Customer service improvement
Customers today expect high level service especially at the increased prices they pay. And waiting around for a table causes frustration. Customers congregate around the main door and inside, often being seen by other customers causing them to 'walk away' to another restaurant. But staff have little or no way of handling waiting customers or guests without the proper equipment that allows them to manage the wait list in a professional way.
Customer or guest pagers in a system can allow the customer to be recalled by staff immediately the table is ready for them. Benefits include faster service levels, improved table turns and an overall better management of customers. LRS offer a customer paging system that can improve these areas of business.
* Improve food delivery direct to table
Operating a large fast casual restaurant is not easy as most large restaurants will attest. Having anything over around 50 tables can result in staff wandering around the premises looking for the customer, while the food the staff are delivering slowly goes cold. I have seen staff take over 5 minutes wandering around trying to find the customer on a regular basis. Over a week in a busy restaurant tables are turned slower, staff are inefficient, and the company is missing out on EXTRA sales and service levels to customers. Some systems allow management to actually see the exact savings on a day to day, week to week, moth to month and annually and use the data to reduce lost time even further and even maybe with less staff.
A typical tracking system is the LRS Table Tracker - developed specifically to show exactly where the customer is seated, and the system even 'tracks' if the customer moves to a different table. These types of solutions are priceless when you need accurate information, fast food delivery, and increased table turns in the peak times of the restaurant pub or bar.
Conclusion
Staff management and the provision of equipment that helps staff to more efficient remains as critical today as it always has been. But with these increased costs to business for every staff member the problems are highlighted. Even if you pass on the costs to customers, they will expect a very high level of customer service that often cannot be given without the specialized systems available.
While SOLT wireless calling buttons most operators view as table call buttons, SOLT offers a number of alternative systems and solutions that are very cost effective, can be used for different problem areas (such as SOLT kitchen paging to staff) and certainly will help in the fight to ensure staff are always operating as efficiently as possible.
Staff efficiency is no longer just something restaurant operators talk about, but do address directly. With the SOLT equipment creating low cost, highly effective systems site wide there is no longer a disinterest in these types of solutions. By improving communications on-site there is no doubt that any restaurant, F&B, pub or bar will benefit from this type of equipment.
And the tracking of where customers are located has become critical in creating far more table turns, the data collected is a massive asset that cannot easily be collated any other way so its important to have emphasis towards the tools that enable you to improve - all based on technology that is entirely tested and leads in this important area.
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