Data analytics isn’t the most exciting part of the job. For many, it’s a time-consuming hassle. For those with innovative restaurant analytics software, it’s a breeze. Simple reporting software can give you a snapshot of the day, but restaurant analytics software can help you answer the big questions, such as:
1. What are the most popular entrées, appetizers, and desserts?
Restaurant analytics can give you an in-depth look at your bestsellers in different categories, and how profitable these dishes are. This can help you optimize your menus, pricing, and inventory to ensure your profits are high, your customers are happy, and your bestsellers are in stock.
Inversely, it can also help you see which items aren’t faring as well, and which items aren’t so profitable, so you can determine whether to run promotions or eliminate them from the menu.
2. What are the busiest days and times of the week?
By leveraging your restaurant analytics software, you can compare and contrast sales and determine which days and times are busiest, and which are slowest. You probably already know which days are your busy days. Analytics software can tell you just how busy you usually are on these days, and how foot traffic fluctuates from week to week, month to month, and year to year.
3. When/how should I schedule my staff?
By the same token, you can use your traffic data to more accurately forecast your labor needs and optimize your staff scheduling. Ensuring you are always appropriately staffed is critical. When you are understaffed, you risk compromising the customer experience. When you are overstaffed, you lose money paying for labor you don’t need.
4. Is menu modification necessary?
Customer preferences are always evolving, and your menu needs to evolve alongside them. Review your restaurant analytics to see how often modifiers are being used, and which sorts of modifiers are most common. This can clue you in on changing customer preferences.
Do guests frequently ask for meat substitutes? Healthier alternatives to the sides you currently offer? Perhaps it’s time to change some items on your menu, or add a new dish that aligns with these preferences. If your customers give special requests for how dishes are prepared more often than not, it may be an issue that should be addressed with kitchen staff.
5. Which location is the most profitable?
Powerful restaurant analytics software is especially important for multi-unit restaurant owners who may not have the time to drive to each location and manually analyze data for each one. Use mobile restaurant analytics software, which can let you view data from anywhere, and help you determine which of your locations is most profitable, and which isn’t doing as well. This can help you identify the cause of the difference, and what you need to do to make your other locations more competitive.
Leveraging data to your advantage
Simple reporting software can provide data, but it’s useless unless you know what to do with it. That’s where restaurant analytics comes in. It can help you review the data, identify bottlenecks, and guide you towards solutions that can help solve these issues. Reporting answers the “what” and analytics answers the “why,” so that you can not only view what is happening within your restaurant, but why it’s happening and what you can do about it.
Contact Focus POS to learn more about restaurant analytics and how you can make your restaurant more competitive and profitable.
