The restaurant industry has undergone a digital transformation.
Accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, this transformation is now here to stay, but not because it’s trendy. Going digital is a survival tactic. With record labor shortages, restaurant operators need technology to assist with the day-to-day tasks that employees would otherwise handle. When it comes to digitizing restaurant operations, there’s front-of-house technology (customer-facing tech such as kiosks) and back-of-house technology (employee management, supply chain, etc.). Olo, a leading open SaaS platform for restaurants that enables hospitality at every guest touchpoint, powers both.
“We see ourselves as the engine of hospitality for the restaurant. We bring our portfolio of products, along with integrations to over 300 partners, together as an easy-to-manage restaurant tech stack,” remarked Sean Marrero, Director of Partner Ecosystem at Olo.
For guest ordering, there are a number of digital methods Olo streamlines: online ordering through a website or app, marketplace orders, on-premise ordering through kiosks or QR codes ordering, and phone ordering. While phone ordering might seem old school to some, they are anything but with Olo’s integration with kea, the cashier in the cloud. Kea picks up the phone when people call the restaurant, takes to-go orders, and sends them to the Olo’s ecommerce platform inside the restaurant. Leveraging both AI and operators, kea ensures every call gets answered, each order gets processed, and every guest concern gets addressed.
Olo and kea both share the common goal of enabling hospitality and scale through digitization. While some may assume that it’s not hospitable to have a robot take your order, it’s quite the opposite. When restaurants have technology handling orders on all touch-points, they increase the accuracy of orders and encourage employees in the restaurant to focus on the guest experience. For example, one of Olo and kea’s restaurant brands – Newk’s Eatery – had employees attest to how helpful kea is during rush hour. Instead of answering the phone and putting either the guest on the phone or the guest in front of them on hold, they can focus on attending to the guests inside the restaurant. Plus, returning guests who call in will be recognized by kea’s AI, will be addressed by their first name, and be offered to repeat their past order – that’s more personal than most cashiers can be during rush hour. Rather than training tons of new employees to deploy this level of hospitality, having the Olo + kea integration enables hospitality at scale.
“We see ourselves as the engine of hospitality for the restaurant. We bring our portfolio of products, along with integrations to over 300 partners, together as an easy-to-manage restaurant tech stack,” remarked Sean Marrero, Director of Partner Ecosystem at Olo.
Now over 600 restaurant brands use Olo to grow their digital ordering and delivery programs, do more with less, and make every guest feel like a regular. If you’re interested in scaling your restaurant’s order capacity capabilities while and enabling hospitality, request a demo.
