The fact that restaurant managers are having to deal with a huge number of challenges and challenges is no longer news, but it is still something to worry about. So, if you haven’t done it before, now is the time to look for ways to maximize restaurant sales and optimize your performance with the resources you have .
High inflation makes controlling our costs as much as possible and adjusting prices and orders crucial for our survival. At the same time, we must make sure that we adapt our letters and menus without this meaning that customers have to pay more than they can, since the rise in prices is affecting us all and, therefore, they too they are tightening their belts.
The lack of personnel is already a well-known issue. So for now, we’ll just have to go ahead with the resources we have and try to optimize productivity as much as possible.
Although all these factors make our daily operations difficult, there is a restaurant management technique that will help you maximize your sales despite the challenges.
1. Apply Revenue Management in your restaurant
The concept of Revenue Management first emerged when the Saber system was developed for the airline industry. The hotel sector later adopted it and today it is a fundamental part of its operations.
In the hotel industry, Revenue Management (or yield management ) is commonly used with specialized technology to help operators make the most of their available beds. To do this, various techniques are used, such as differential pricing, cancellation options or promotions for times of lower influx.
Although this is relatively uncharted territory for the restaurant industry, the use of Revenue Management could be just as beneficial in maximizing restaurant sales and improving your bottom line . As Carmen Mallo, from REMS Hospitality, says, applying Revenue Management in restaurants could change the sector .
2. Increase restaurant sales thanks to a better distribution of tables
Have you analyzed the average cost per person ? Could you tell if a table for two people spends on average more money than a table for four people or more? If that were the case, and to maximize restaurant revenue, you would not want to book a table for large groups on the busiest day of the week. Rearranging your tables to suit demand (and doing it as many times as necessary) is a very good idea.
Another factor that must be taken into account in the Revenue Management of a restaurant is the shift , or what is the same, the frequency with which you fill your restaurant each day. A cover represents each time a seat is occupied, but the shift refers to how many times that happens per day . It is not the same to fill once a day than three times a day. Analyze what your low occupancy hours are and think about how you can fill those tables at different times to improve your RevPASH (“revenue per available seat hour”) . Your POS system should be able to provide you with the data you need to analyze daily, weekly and seasonal trends.
Carmen Mallo, an expert in Revenue Management at REMS Hospitality , explains that those responsible for restaurants should “start talking in shifts instead of covered; and in RevPASH instead of in sales, when comparing with the competition”.
At Flow Learning, we have teamed up with REMS Hospitality to create a new training module on Restaurant Revenue Management . This module will be available from August.
3. Reserve VS do not reserve
How many of your clients book and how many of them arrive without having done so? This may depend on your location and the nature of your business. If the majority of customers book, how many of them are carried out through third-party applications (which reduce your margins)?
Customers who arrive without a reservation can be seated and served more quickly than those who do reserve (with a specific arrival time). Although having some reservations in advance is good, they leave less room for flexibility. For this reason, check which hours attract the most customers without a reservation and adjust the reservations accordingly, accepting more reservations in the less crowded hours.
4. Improve forecasting to make restaurant productivity more efficient
Accurate forecasting is essential to optimizing your restaurant’s productivity. But for this you need reliable data based on sales history and technological tools that do the analysis work for you .
Forecasting is fundamental to optimizing different areas of your business, and one of the most important is shift planning and staffing needs. Even if you still have some unfilled jobs, it is imperative to maintain service standards with your own resources.
Ensuring that you have the right people in the right positions at the right time is a challenge. The lack of staff at the busiest times puts enormous pressure on the team, which affects the quality of service and customer satisfaction.
Overstaffing during the quieter hours in a restaurant will not only waste money, but your team will also lose motivation.
The key to restaurant productivity is shift planning technology . It can generate perfect shifts in seconds and help you keep costs down while making sure you have everything covered. Workforce by MAPAL has a market-leading shift optimization engine and takes into account aspects as diverse as labor regulations, contracted hours, variable remuneration and the preferences of your employees (to offer them a better work-life balance).
5. Control food costs and reduce waste
The cost of food is higher than ever and its supply is increasingly unpredictable. Although this situation is not in our hands, we can minimize the consequences by improving our inventory management systems in the kitchen .
Purchasing and supplier management
Keep all supplier, product, and pricing information in one place to improve supplier relationships and adjust your orders quickly and efficiently . Reduce the time your kitchen staff wastes on administrative tasks, making them easier thanks to a simple app that updates in real time. Integrate your POS with Easilys f&b to take advantage of its automatic stock management functions, so that your team can manage orders effortlessly. You will be able to optimize your costs and make sure that you order the exact quantities at the right time and at the best price for your business .
Control food costs and margins
This technological tool can make you save up to 10% on your purchases . Easilys f&b’s recipe and menu preparation functions allow you to manage ingredients and automatically calculate portions. In addition, the system also automatically calculates costs, margins, allergens and nutritional values in real time , ensuring that food safety standards are always met.
Everyone knows that quality animal protein is now more difficult to obtain, and also that it is more harmful to the environment. For this reason, many restaurants are increasing their plant-based offerings and reducing the amount of meat in their dishes . So, what they do is serve smaller portions of meat, but of higher quality.
Check your letter and menu
Some ingredients are becoming more expensive or more difficult to obtain, so we must adapt our menus to be able to offer quality dishes at reasonable prices . Buying local and seasonal products allows you to improve availability and costs. In addition, you will also meet consumer demand for healthier and more sustainable food options.
Another method to combat inflation is to charge more for certain dishes in order to keep the prices of the most popular dishes fixed.
Less waste, less costs
Do you have control over when customers tend to leave food on the plate? If you weigh the leftover dishes with kitchen waste management technology, it will be much easier for you to adjust the size of the portions both to meet the expectations of your customers, and to avoid wasting food and money in the trash. And by the way, you will make your business more sustainable .
6. Improve the skills of the team and make them fully aware of the product to increase sales
While optimizing your restaurant operations will improve productivity, your team can be instrumental in increasing the average spend customers spend. Invest in continuous training to ensure that they know the products and their latest developments in detail . In this way, it will be easier for them to increase sales and offer excellent service, which will undoubtedly build customer loyalty .
Our Flow Learning solution has an extensive library of short, interactive training modules to help your team acquire new skills. Your staff can access our innovative mobile app, MAPAL One, with a personal profile and a training program equipped with AI and adapted to their needs and job position . Our Service Suite, for example, will help them improve their knowledge in terms of wine pairing, draft beer, customer service, coffee and cocktail preparation, among others.