Zondar! Nerds in Food Land

An interview on runningrestaurants.com with Scott Wise from Scotty’s Brewhouse gives insight into why and how he took his business online:

• More orders are received online than on the phone.
• Online ordering is easier to up-sell and its not forgotten by wait staff
• Integrated with the POS system
• “couple of thousand” US dollars to set up
• %5 of each order goes to his online ordering platform provider
• More accurate orders - reduces chance of human error
• Perfect for the college kids (mobile internet ready)
• Remembers orders so the second time is quicker
• Pre-ordering (order on Sunday for Thursday when you pick the kids up after school)
• Office administrator uses an invite to send a link around the office - each person does the order themselves. Because the job of the administrative assistant becomes easier, more likely to keep their business because of a competitive advantage.
• Integrated with call centre so people miles away process the order online  (Eliminates labour costs). Scott mentions this didn’t work very well the people who took the orders were rude and didn’t know the menu well.
• People are not left on hold so don’t go elsewhere.
• How to spread the word of online… Within the four walls because the captive audience are your customers. Put up a signs. Email to all people on the DB. Some radio, no print or TV. Use the website.
• Press releases
• Capturing customers information in much more depth than in the past; name, email, order history, great for marketing. Scotty uses birthday and anniversary, birthday person brings friends who pay and may become repeat customers.
• Find out geographic location of patrons. How long since they haven’t ordered, get in touch to ask why…
• Makes reporting on customers a lot easier.
• Helps you know who your top 50 - 100 customers are

Why should you not get into online ordering? Small operators who are not interested in growth. Those interested should understand that setup can take a long time. If you want to stay how you are then fine - if you want to try and be more successful then explore new technologies.

www.scottysbrewhouse.com or MyFace & Spacebook

The interview also mentions the great Australian restaurant chain (No, wait its American!) Outback for its super easy to use online ordering system. Though when I checked the Outback system was down.

This guy arrived with a printed coffee order at the cafe this morning. Could have been from a spreadsheet, it had around 10 coffees on it. He flashed it, “Can i just leave this with you?” The order was transferred to lids and queued up…

Someone spent some time at a computer to get that order together, they could have just emailed it. The Cafe then printed it on to cup lids, 10 mins later the guy rocks up to collect his tray of coffees for colleagues. Cafe invoices him or even better his company through online payment. Relationship sorted!

Mornings when you get to work and don’t have time to pick up your coffee on the way. At your computer, fired up your browser, checked email. You could duck out to get a coffee but its around 9am, your favourite cafe will be clogged with punters. It would be at least 9:30 by the time you’ve slinked back in, coffee & fruit toast in hand…

If you could place that order from your desk, the cafe could either run it up to you or you could shave that queue waiting time off the coffee run.

The buts :

• The $5 order isn’t enough for the cafe to hire an extra runner (minimum charge?)
• Coffee might be cold when you get there (Customer enters pick up time?)
• Cafe has to have computer and wireless hooked up (Who doesn’t have that stuff already?)
• Ordering the coffee online could be more hassle than

Would it give some cafes a competitive edge over others? Are there potential gains in revenue enough to pay for the system? It does have possibilities for expansion into office catering…