How Big Data Strategies Boost Your Restaurant Sales?

Digitization is transforming the functionality and operations of the overview of the food and beverage industry. Big data is still a new concept and is evolving at an exponential rate. Many business leaders and managers think it is only useful for IT or finance. All industries can use big data also in restaurants, bars, and cafes.

In this article, we will dive deep into what big data is? We will also learn how this new digital strategy will help to increase your sales. In this blog, we will cover the following point:

• What is big data?
• How to collect the data with restaurant POS software?
• Big data strategies boost your restaurant sales.
• What are the potential issues of Big Data deployment?

What is big data?

Big data is a combination of both structured and unstructured data in large volumes. Big Data is so large and complex that it is a challenge; to manage and process the data with traditional techniques or software. Big Data is capable of drawing; the strategic meaning of datasets. It becomes a challenge for the human brain to process such a large amount of data.

Big data is transforming into an enormous industry because business leaders have understood the potential application of this technology in their business growth.

How to collect data?

The name itself suggests that the system will need a large amount of data to function smoothly. That is why it is the biggest challenge in front of the restaurant, bar, and cafe owners to collect such a vast amount of data. The following steps will help you to gather the required amount of data:

POS system:

You should implement the best restaurant POS software to track customer orders and transactions. It is a perfect tool to collect, store, and process data for future reference.

Phone calls:

Your restaurant business should not leave any opportunity to collect data. Many new guests will call your restaurant for a reservation. It is a perfect way to collect data, understand their preferences and add it to the big data platform.

Social media:

Social media is an influential tool to collect data and increase your visibility. Your marketing manager should run multiple campaigns on various platforms. These social media marketing campaigns will help you to reach your target audience and collect data.

Online surveys:

Online surveys are one of the effective ways to collect relevant data. Conducting online surveys help you collect feedback and customer data; to understand their experience. It also helps to understand what changes they are expecting in your services.

Email:

Emails are the way to have constant professional communication with your clients. You can use emails to collect feedback from your guest and stay connected. Accordingly, if you would like to learn more about the potential benefits of Restaurant Email Marketing then reaching out to a marketing company in your local area that has worked on successful email marketing campaigns can help you to plan your next steps.

Live chat:

Live chat platforms on your website and social media channels will help you collect a large amount of data from each visitor.

Chatbots:

The process of data collection is even simple when you rely on chatbots. Modern chatbots help you to save user data on the system and analyze it.

Now that we looked into how to collect data, now let us take a look at how to use this big data to boost your restaurant sale:

Ways to use big data strategies to increase your restaurant sales:

We have pointed out few big data strategies to increase your restaurants, cafes, or bars sales:

Customer profiling:

Once you collect a vast amount of data, one of the first techniques to implement is to do a customer profile analysis. Big data gives you a large amount of data for you to understand the customer patterns. It helps you with the guest demographics like their location, personal preferences, and other vital information. Customer profiling helps to understand customer behavior and traits to provide a top-notch customer experience.

Improvise menu and services:

Once you do the customer profiling, this big data strategy will help you increase your sales. Big data helps to spot the top and least sellers from your menu. It will also help to understand which dishes or cuisine needs more promotion or discounts to increase their sales and visibility. Big Data helps to analyze customer behavior; track the number of walk-ins in an hour to ensure; staff availability. It also benefits to personalize the menu and services according to the guest. Improvised menus and services will undoubtedly increase your sales.

Improve table management:

To make the maximum profit margin, you need to utilize the tables at the optimum levels. Restaurant POS software can help order and pay over the table; that reduces the waiting and serving time. Reduction in waiting and serving time will help to deliver more orders to more customers. You can use big data to analyze; the required number of staff at the peak time and ensure quality delivery of food and service.

Better business expansion strategy:

Restaurant owners must have a strategic plan for business expansion. Before you think about expanding your business following are the areas you need to look into:

What is your target audience demographic?

Who are your competitors in that area?

What are the real estate costs?

How much will the labor cost be?

What are local cultural habits?

When you think about business expansion, you need to collect and process a lot of data. Restaurant business leaders need to understand the population density, cost of living, customer behaviors, competitor analysis in that particular area. It is almost impossible to analyze such a large amount of data by a human. That is why implementing big data will give you a complete overview; of the data and identify the next ideal location for your restaurant.

Track employee performance:

It is crucial to track employee performance to make strategic decisions. Because employee performance affects your revenue in direct and indirect ways. For example, the team with the highest productivity will yield more revenue. Less productive teams will make lesser revenue. The best benefit of big data is that it is unbiased and tracks everything. That is why big data helps you analyze employee performance and spot the resources; which do not meet your organizational goals.

You implement the best restaurant POS software in India to track your server’s performance and identify the improvement areas. Big data helps you to understand the weakness and strengths of your team. You can use this strategy to understand which server sells the maximum amount of alcohol and learn his tricks. Your low performing servers can learn from his practices and improve the overall sales. When there is a group or VIP reservation, you can designate the top-performing server in that area to maximize the sales.

Improve employee management:

Many business leaders in the food and beverage industry find it a challenge to manage the employees efficiently. Big data helps you to identify the peak hours of your business. When you have this data handy with you, employee scheduling becomes a cakewalk because you know how many employees you need at what hour. Big data understands the potential limitations and pitfalls of the system. That helps you manage the schedules for the short and long term. When you handle your employees efficiently will improve their productivity and result in increased sales.

Inventory management:

Inventory plays a crucial part for any restaurant, bar, or cafe because you need to maintain a balance between demand and supply. Food is a perishable product; you should not overstock or run out of stock that will hamper your business. Because when you overstock the products, there are higher chances of food perishing, and when you run out of stock will decrease your revenue. Big data helps to analyze and predict cooking and ordering patterns. Having this analysis and prediction handy; assists you to manage your inventory better than any human. Management of inventory efficiently will help to boost your restaurant sales. POS software is a powerful tool to track your inventory levels and update them in real-time.

Enrich guest experience:

Restaurant guests pay for ambiance, food, and service altogether. The quality of food depends on the capability of your kitchen staff. Big data plays a crucial role in enriching the customer experience. With the help of big data, you can personalize the communication based on prior interactions. Big data tracks visitors, their ordering, and reservation preferences. Personalization of interaction with guests makes them feel valued and gain repetitive business. Restaurant POS software will help gather customer feedback and improve the overall services to enrich the customer experience.

Create a loyal customer base:

It is a challenging and costly process to attract new customers than retain your existing customer. Loyalty plays a crucial part in the hospitality sector because if the customer likes your food, ambiance, and service, he will return and suggest it to his friends and family. Big data strategies help to give a top-notch customer experience and hence create a loyal customer base.

Efficient marketing strategies:

Marketing helps your business to communicate with existing customers and increase your visibility to a new client base. Your marketing team runs omni channel campaigns to increase your visibility. They leave no stone unturned to make their marketing strategies more efficient.

It becomes a challenge to track the performance; of all the marketing channels and collect all the necessary data. Your marketing team might run campaigns on social media, websites, and drip emails. Big data helps your business with detailed analysis and identify the areas of improvement. When you spot the improvement areas, you can make a strategic action plan to overcome the hurdles.

Sales predictions:

One of the most important benefits of big data is you can have more accurate predictions about sales. Because it records the previous transactions, analyzes them, and helps your business to plan efficiently. Accurate sales predictions help your business to be ready for any upcoming challenges. Big data assists you to understand the peak time and ensure the availability of the stocks and employees.

Trend predictions:

It is essential for restaurant owners to track the trends because they can change over time. Big data tracks the latest trends and listens to your audience on various channels. It helps you to adapt to the new trends and keep your business ready. Because if something is trending in the market, people will buy it for sure, and hence if your business; knows the trends in advance, you will make more revenue.

Cost reduction:

Implementation of big data strategies will help you to get high ROI in the long run. Big data assists you reduce the number of employees, food wastage, and errors that cost your finances. Cost reduction in your restaurant operations will increase your profit margin.

The issues with Big Data deployment:

Big data opens new possibilities for your business by being a catalyst to improve sales. But big data is a vast concept and has the following fewer limitations:

Big data needs additional investment:

Big data is a powerful and efficient system; that has a lot of potential for business, but it comes to you with a price. Implementation of big data will be a challenge for restaurant business owners; who are struggling to meet their daily expenses.

Big data needs staff training:

Big data is a complex topic that requires trained staff to operate the system efficiently. Your kitchen and back end team will not require training on big data, but your sales and marketing team will need the training to use the system.

Big data is not efficient for small chain restaurants:

Big data is not helpful for small chain restaurant owners with basic menus and a limited number of guests. The invention of big data was; with the purpose to help large-scale organizations because it delivers the best results when used for multiple outlets and franchises.

Conclusion:

Restaurant management is becoming more competitive and intricate because the guest demands are increasing. Big data is one of the most effective ways to boost the sales and revenue of your restaurant. Big Data is a comprehensive solution to collect, process, and manage large amounts of data.