Best restaurant online ordering system? Conversational AI! Or how to make pizza ordering easy with AI.

According to Morgan Stanley’s research, 47% of restaurant customers prefer to call the restaurant directly to make an order. Phone ordering isn’t declining at the expected rate and phone call automation is one of the biggest reasons why.

Voice ordering for restaurants is on the rise. Food chains are adopting artificial intelligence as means to cut operational costs, free their staff, and boost customer experience rates. Pizza restaurants are no exception. Domino’s was the first large pizza chain to take advantage of AI and automated telephone order taking for pizza.

In this post, we will take a look at why restaurants use AI to automate delivery and takeout orders. We will also go through a tutorial on creating your own conversational AI pizza ordering app.

Why you should use an automated restaurant ordering system

Automation redefines customer experience, decreases costs, and increases efficiency. Some restaurants use delivery bots, others use restaurant online ordering systems (app, website). Others use a combination for the best CX. Taking orders is a fraction of restaurant operations. Yet when you take into account that without automating this part you would have to hire someone to be by the phone to take orders and incur costs. Making your existing staff take phone orders prevents them from giving undivided attention to the customers. It also distracts them from other essential tasks.

A restaurant might decide to resort to third-party food ordering services. Yet statistics show that the preferred method is having your own automated phone ordering system. Why? The answer is quite simple. The survey conducted by Preoday showed that 68% of food and drink professionals pay commission to their restaurant ordering system supplier. Most customers who want to support a restaurant itself rather than a tech supplier order food directly from the restaurant.

Nowadays, people prefer to order food delivery versus dining in a restaurant. Even more so during the pandemic. Let’s look at some numbers that show how customers think when it comes to ordering food.

70% of customers call the restaurant directly when making an order, rather than use third-party platforms, as per Hospitality Technology, since “consumers want restaurants to take their money, not technology suppliers”, as per Upserve, once a week 60% of customers order delivery or takeout, 20% of the customers say they spend more money when ordering delivery, as per Restaurant Business Online.

Since dining in is the least preferred option, Domino’s decided to use AI to automate the restaurant ordering system. The pizza chain created a virtual assistant that incorporates voice recognition. It integrates with nearly every platform available, be it Google Home, Amazon Alexa, smartwatches, and even Ford Sync! Domino’s customers can now literally ask their car to order pizza for them just by giving a simple voice command.

Now, if Domino’s can create a voice AI pizza ordering assistant, why can’t you? It’s time to create a simple pizza ordering app with Dasha conversational AI as a Service.

Summing it up

Numbers don’t lie, people prefer ordering food to be delivered to their doorstep or walk to the restaurant to pick the food up themselves, and dine in the comfort of their own home. With this pizza ordering conversational AI app you can automate the ordering process for your pizza restaurant.