Past few years, we’ve noticed that restaurants, especially small ones are behind on technology. E-commerce companies that sell products online are much further ahead with using technology as tools to aid their businesses. The beautiful thing about today is technology doesn’t cost an arm and a leg and you can have some of the same tools big brands use that will help excel your restaurant more than you can know.
There is a huge opportunity for restaurants to use chatbots. It sounds crazy, but it’s the truth. Chatbots can help you drive foot traffic to your restaurant, help save time with customer service, better serve your customers, and create stronger relationships between your brand and your customers. Today, people want answers to their questions immediately. You, of all occupations, should know that people have very little patience today.
What is a Restaurant Chatbot?
A chatbot is an automated messaging assistant – it’s when you integrate automated software with a messaging platform. Once you have this setup, your customers can interact with it. Typically, this is used with Facebook Messenger, SMS text messaging, and WhatsApp. This industry is growing rapidly and we can expect this list to be much bigger in the future. Chatbots offer the ability to map out conversations that you may frequently have with customers ahead of time so your customers can get instant responses when they want them. It can also allow you to let your brand’s personality show in way of text communication. Don’t be fooled though, chatbots are not only about text messages… you can also send pre-recorded audio messages for even higher impact.
How Can a Chatbot Help My Restaurant? What Are the Benefits?
There are unlimited benefits of using chatbots for your restaurant. The most obvious benefits are that you can use them for customer service inquiries, offering coupons that can’t be redeemable and following up with customers on feedback. More advanced chatbots collect information on customers’ interests so they can use that information in the future to have more personalized conversations. Chatbots can ultimately save your restaurant time and save your restaurant money. If you own a restaurant, we believe chatbots are right for your business!
How to Use a Restaurant Chatbot – What Are Some Practical Ways I Can Use Chatbots for My Restaurant?
Coupons
You can connect chatbots to Facebook ads. This allows you to run an ad offering a coupon to people near your restaurant. Once users click the ad, you can collect their email and/or phone number and show them a coupon. Once the user comes into your restaurant, they can show the server the coupon. Your server can mark the coupon as “redeemed” on the Facebook Messenger app which will make it so the user cannot use the offer more than once. After that, the server can enter in the total of the check. This will help you track Return on Investment – every restaurant’s concern. Chatbot systems that integrate with Facebook Messenger are great in which they can help you keep up with your database of customers.
Customer Service
Imagine hearing a server say something ‘behind scenes’ that is disgusting… they think customers can’t hear them, but you heard them loud and clear. You don’t like confrontation… so you are just annoyed and may not go back again. Afterall… the food was just ‘okay’. The owner will never know about the experience, and you’ll never be treated right. The restaurant also lost your business for good. Imagine if there were an easy way to reach out to the restaurant – knowing the owner or manager would be notified immediately about the issue. You wouldn’t have to confront the staff and could hide behind your phone screen to explain the situation. You get an instant response and they make things right. This is what every customer expects and wants. Yet if they message your Facebook page, they may not hear from you for a few days. Could you imagine the frustration? You just wanted that situation ‘handled’ but they’ve ignored you or don’t care enough to check their Facebook Page often enough. This shouldn’t happen and happens every day. Most poor experiences go unheard… and as a restaurant owner, you need to know about them. For all the customers that don’t like confrontation, don’t wait until they leave a bad review on Yelp. Offer them a QR code in their to-go order or at the table that they can scan to open your Restaurant Chatbot. Then they can have an immediate conversation about your experience and you can handle it instantly.
Scan for Wifi
Offer a QR Code on a table-topper that users can scan to get the password for your Wifi. Use this as an opportunity to collect their email, phone number, what types of food they like, etc. This can all be used later to help you market to the user better and make more personalized recommendations to them.
Need Help?
Need help setting up a chatbot for your restaurant? Sharpen Marketing specializes in conversation marketing and we love to help local restaurants as often as we can. Schedule an appointment.
