The restaurant of the future in action

The next-generation customer is technologically savvy, connected, and expecting concierge-level service around every corner. For a restaurant, investing in digital enhancements that are tightly coordinated and work in concert, will help to create the restaurant of the future that appeals to all of the senses of this hyper-connected mentality.

Restaurant brands who succeed in this transformation will understand their customers, capitalize on digital technology options and analytics, and seize upon the opportunity to engage customers in a highly personalized way. Doing this well can have tremendous impacts in driving increased dining frequency, check size, customer conversion, and loyalty.

Creating a restaurant’s “digital DNA” requires a view broader than the four walls of the restaurant location. The next-generation customer relationship spans five stages of interaction—the “5Es” that begin and end far away from the restaurant itself: Entice, enter, engage, exit, and extend.

By bringing responsive, integrated digital experiences to each of these phases of interaction, a restaurant can build deeper relationships with more customers. It’s the value and nature of these relationships, not just the applications driving them, that can help flip the switch that transforms a traditional restaurant into the restaurant of the future.

View the archived Dbriefs webcast, The restaurant of the future: Leveraging technology for competitive advantage, to learn more.

The “5Es” in practice: Walk through the next-generation customer journey

Entice

People like being creative in the kitchen. A ”build-your-own” fast-casual restaurant that gives customers that same opportunity by letting them key in their customized order at the ingredient level for the kitchen to prepare on-demand, can enhance their enjoyment.

Enter

A third-party food delivery service remembers your previous order and automatically suggests it when you log in. For another dimension of convenience, the app then shows you the nearest restaurants and wait times.

Engage

What do you do when you have more than six cars in the drive-through? Send servers outside to take customers' orders directly on tablets. Then, do one better by using location awareness technology to sense a regular customer’s arrival—instead of “what would you like to order,” the greeting is “would you like your usual order?” A customer who has switched from burgers to salads may hear updated options. A customer on a faraway vacation may receive the same personalized greeting she’s used to at home.

Exit

When is robotics friendly? When it makes things speedy and personalized. A new restaurant chain offers tablets where customers can quickly customize their orders. Behind the scenes, robots place the orders into individual containers whose digital screens display the customers’ names. It’s not hard to imagine a system like this adding value by remembering customers’ previous orders and dietary restrictions and suggesting new options and “upsell” options based upon them.

Extend

Customer feedback is important. How can you make it easier for them to give it? Text three short survey questions as an automatic follow-up to each order. Quick, multiple-choice queries about speed, quality, freshness, and the ever-popular “would you recommend us to your friends” are easy to answer and show your customers you’re listening.

Next generation guest experience: What did customers say?

Our methodology

In 2016, Deloitte surveyed 3,000 Millennial and approximately 1,500 general population high-frequency (2+ visits per week) guests who visited Quick Service Restaurant, Fast Casual, and Casual Dining locations. In a separate part of the same fact-finding process, we carried out over 20 interviews with restaurant industry executives to discuss their organizations’ current and desired levels of digital technology strategy, adoption, and plans ahead. Finally, we hosted a roundtable discussion of restaurant industry at Deloitte University in Westlake, Texas.

In the news

Why restaurants want you to order food on your phone
Chicago Tribune | September 13, 2016

Deloitte: 70 percent of consumers want restaurant apps to engage with them on a personal level
Hospitality Technology | September 12, 2016

Creating the next-generation customer experience for restaurant companies
Restaurant News | September 8, 2016

Study: 3 restaurant priorities that pay off big
Fast Casual | September 8, 2016

Deloitte Survey: Creating the next-generation customer experience for restaurant companies
PR Newswire | September 7, 2016