When you hear the idea of AI in restaurants, you are right to think of human-like robots serving swiftly around the tables. But though this is not an unrealistic prediction, many restaurants make use of Artificial Intelligence in their workplace to streamline their operations and improve their guests’ experiences in different ways. In this article, we will discuss how restaurants can use Intelligent Video Analytics (IVA) to improve their efficiency.

Smarter Staffing and Scheduling

Staffing your restaurant and scheduling employees is one of the key factors of restaurant management. With IVA, you can monitor the customer count in your restaurant in a timely manner. Based on this real-time data, you can always maintain the staff and customer ratio by moving the staff to where they are needed the most.

Likewise, based on historical customer density data gathered by AI systems, you can plan the work schedule of your employees to meet the changing demand throughout the day.

As you can see, restaurants can track customer density to determine any trends or patterns and use this data to adjust their staffing for instant changes or long-term trends.

Better Restaurant Hygiene

Especially after the Covid-19 pandemic, a high level of hygiene is a top priority for restaurants. Video Analytics allow restaurants to monitor their hygiene level and cleaning activities to maintain high levels of cleanliness.

For example, rather than the traditional way of cleaning restrooms at regular intervals, AI-based software can count the people using the restrooms and alert the staff to clean them after a predefined usage. This process keeps the restrooms clean all the time and allows restaurants to spend less on cleaning supplies as the restrooms will be cleaned only when needed.

Also, IVA can detect how long it takes to clean a table after a customer has left and also send alerts to managers if it takes more time than defined by managers.

Last but not least, you can always ensure that employees abide by the hygiene rules such as wearing a mask, hairnet, or gloves, and maintain hygiene in the kitchen or in any part of your restaurant, increasing customer satisfaction and hygiene level.

Improved Speed of Service

The speed of service in a restaurant is no less important than the taste of food for customers. Hence, managers have to spend equal effort on improving the speed of service in a restaurant.

AI-Based Video Analytics help restaurants in several ways to improve service speed without compromising quality. For example, during rush hours, by means of digital boards, AI-based software can advertise the items with less preparation times to reduce waiting times for customers. Also, it can count the customers waiting in line to place their orders and may send an instant notification to managers to open an additional server for order taking. This action reduces the waiting time for customers and prevents customers from leaving the restaurant resulting from long waiting times.

Improved Customer Experience

With IVA, you can always have the expected waiting time information for your new customers. Anyone knows how important it is to be honest with your customers. With real-time expected waiting time information, you can tell your incoming customers the current expected waiting time as soon as they arrive at your restaurant and may offer discounted deals or gifts to them as compensation for their long waiting time.

Also, AI-based software can monitor the counters constantly and may send mobile alerts to managers if there is a vacant counter that should be serving the customers.

The clearest indicator of the satisfaction of your customer from your service is their happiness. IVA can monitor the emotions of your customers constantly and allow you to take the necessary steps to make sure that they leave your restaurant happy.

Personalized Marketing

Another area in which restaurants can use Artificial Intelligence is digital marketing. Rather than displaying the same advertisement on digital boards regardless of the audience, AI-based video analytics allow restaurants to detect the demographic attributes of onlookers such as age, gender, race, etc., and display a relevant advertisement for them.

Improved Drive-Thru Experience

Many famous Quick Service Restaurants (QSR) use IVA extensively to improve their Drive Thru services and benefit from up to almost 30 seconds decrease in waiting time per customer.

You can achieve the same improvement for example by identifying the customers who have placed their order online by analyzing their license plates as soon as they hit the Drive Thru, and notifying staff that the customer is ready to pick up the order, rather than waiting until the customer reaches the counter and asking for the order.

Another benefit of identifying customers in Drive Thru is to show personalized advertising to customers based on their purchase history and increase the upsell rate.

Also, AI-based software can monitor the number of vehicles in DriveThru and alert managers to open an additional lane when the number exceeds the capacity of the current open counters.

Higher Security and Safety

Traditional manual monitoring is prone to error and can be impacted by commonplace factors such as screen fatigue. AI-based software automates safety and security tasks and detects violations by using existing CCTV cameras. Also, it can send instant alerts to authorities to prevent any incidents before they occur.

In addition, theft is also one of the major concerns for a restaurant. However, IVA analytics may constantly monitor the counters and prevent any reducing cash mismanagement and theft.

Discover Cordatus

IVA might seem an intimidating subject to many restaurants especially when the managers have limited knowledge in that area. But the AI is in the restaurant industry and will remain there in the future. Restaurants that want to stay ahead of the competition should embrace the benefits of AI. At this point, Cordatus is here to provide you with all aspects of Artificial Intelligence for your restaurant. You can use Cordatus to benefit from all of the advantages described above in no time. Just register and enter the charming world of AI. Check the website of Cordatus for more information.

We hope you enjoyed our post on AI in restaurants. But we’d love to hear from you: Did you like our blog? How could we make it better? Are there any other topics you’d like to see included here? Also, we are expecting you to join the Cordatus AI Platform and enter the amazing world of AI in just seconds.