Navigating Tech Stack Turbulence: Strategies for Restaurant Operators

With over 1000 technology companies that support restaurant operations, it can be daunting to keep them all straight, (even within one’s own tech stack!) We know that when you seek help, you want it to work. But what happens when the help falls short of your expectations?

Imagine, for a moment, a well-known company that you admire. Think of what they are known for, what they do really, really well. I love to use Apple as an example for this exercise. Arguably one of the most well-known, iconic brands that exists today. They have plenty of things that they do well, but you know what stinks? Apple Maps. It’s an after-thought, something they had to build to compete, but it falls well below the high bar they hold themselves to for, say, the iPhone.

When we think about restaurant tech utilities, they inevitably have a support product. We, at Science On Call , (lovingly) see them like Apple Maps. For many vendors, support for their products are an after-thought, and exist out of necessity.?

Here’s where we see support as an afterthought show up in your operations from some common buckets of vendors:

1. Point-of-Sale (POS) Systems: POS systems are critical for restaurant operations, but they can sometimes be complicated to set up and maintain (note - check out our other article on making your POS switch not suck!). On top of that daunting complexity, poor customer support can disrupt service and lead to massive team frustration. What we also find, is that there is a lack of documentation across an individual organization, so instead of starting at the solution (what Science does), your team is always stuck at classic questions like “where are you calling from?” or “Press 1 for English, or 2 for Espanol.”?Your vendors should know your team, they should know where you are calling from, and lordy they should pick up your calls quickly! Restaurant team members can’t afford to be walking around behind the counter with their phones to their ears when there’s a line of customers.
2. Inventory Management Software: Managing inventory is crucial for controlling costs and ensuring efficient operations. However, if inventory management software is difficult to use or prone to errors, it can lead to inaccurate stock levels and ordering issues. When evaluating the right vendor for you, it’s important to ask key questions; one of which should be about their support and what happens when $h!t hits the fan?
3. Employee Scheduling Tools: Scheduling software helps streamline staffing and optimize labor costs. But if the software is unreliable or lacks features necessary for efficient scheduling, it can result in understaffing, overstaffing, or scheduling conflicts. Especially in a turbulent labor market, you want to ensure any support system that manages employees has the highest bar in terms of performance.?
4. Online Ordering Platforms: We know them, we love to order from them, and restaurants rely on these platforms to drive a significant % of their business. However, if these platforms experience downtime or technical issues, it can disrupt service and impact customer satisfaction; especially important as this is a main source of new customer discovery for many operators.
5. Support: It's frustrating when you're left waiting or dealing with subpar support (be it tech, appliance repair or 3rd party.) But even though it's not ideal, it's better than nothing, right? Even worse is when they swoop in, just to mess things up to the point where your team can’t figure out what they did. It’s ok to question their motives, too. Are they waiting for your call because they want to sell you hardware or more software? Upgrade you to a product you may not need? Sometimes, it's worth exploring alternative solutions or seeking out additional resources to supplement your internal or external help desk. The best tech support partner is platform-agnostic, staffed with experts, focused on restaurants, and are there to HELP you, not sell you more stuff.

These utilities and services are essential for restaurant operations, but they may fall short in providing adequate support or functionality, leading to frustration and inefficiencies for restaurant operators. Much like the Apple example at the beginning, Science on Call is our iPhone, we’re fixers. We don’t care which vendor is broken, we only care about getting it working properly (and documenting it so we can start with the solution first if it happens again!) Nobody is getting paid to point fingers: shrewd operators invest in getting their problems solved and making sure they don’t keep occurring.

We’d love to hear your thoughts on where you see improvements that can be made - hell, let’s turn this comments section into a straight-up wish list!

(also - no shade to anyone at Apple on the maps product… we swear, the only beef we have is served up wet and hot at Al's Beef)

#RestaurantTech #UtilityChallenges #ChaosControl #RestaurantOperators #ScienceClub