The quick-serve industry, as its name suggests, is a business built on speed. Restaurants are constantly trying to shave seconds off everything from food preparation to drive-thru time. Analysts are always crunching the numbers to see where the process can get even a nanosecond faster, and managers train their employees to be as efficient as possible. But even with the fastest kitchen equipment and the speediest personnel, there could still be something keeping your restaurant in the slow lane.
“There are streets and then there’s the highway, and broadband is the highway,” says Sal Cinquegrani, a spokesperson for New Edge Networks, a broadband internet provider with 800 switches throughout the country.
The broadband to which he is referring is a high-speed internet connection that is quickly replacing traditional phone-line dial-up connections as the preferred way to access the web. Where dial-ups have to dial into a server every time a user gets online, broadband connections are always on and can relay more information at three times the speed.
“The speed difference is huge,” explains Cinquegrani. He says a quick-serve that uses a low-speed dial-up POS terminal to accept credit cards and check payments would typically need about 12 to 15 seconds for the transaction, which would involve dialing up an 800 number to send the information on the card to a payment processor and then on to a bank. By switching to broadband, however, that time can be cut down to two or three seconds.
“And two to three seconds versus twelve makes a big difference when you’ve got a line of customers waiting at the cash register,” he says.
The most basic application of broadband is communication between multiple locations. That’s why Sbarro CIO Rich Guariglia says his chain of Italian quick-serves decided to make the switch from dial-up.
“When you have 500 stores all across the U.S., you want to make sure you have good communication,” he says. “Each location needs to feel like it’s part of a corporation, not just an isolated store.”
Guariglia says with their old dial-up connection, Sbarro managers would often have to stay late after work to receive e-mail from other locations. Even through the day, he says, some of the larger files would clog up the line and take forever to download, wasting manager’s valuable time.
“They shouldn’t be sitting at the e-mail all day; they need to get in and get out,” he says. “Dial-up was so unreliable, so much work.
Broadband capabilities are also allowing quick-serves to use the internet in ways that were not possible with a dial-up connection. Used in conjunction with other software, this technology allows for things like real-time inventory, instant sales polling of multiple restaurant locations, automated time tracking of hourly workers, and much more.
One example is the AlohaEnterprise.com system from Radiant Hospitality Systems, which allows owners or managers to keep track of reporting at multiple locations from any web browser. It can even help identify and prevent employee theft.
“We can zero in on a specific cash register at a specific time of day,” says Jon Rice, vice president of marketing for Chuck E. Cheese’s, a chain of more than 400 restaurants that uses AlohaEnterprise.com with a broadband connection. “By pressing a key, we can track it down to an individual employee if need be. This is a reporting tool with tremendous functionality to accentuate the advantage of broadband.”
Broadband is also a surprisingly affordable technology, another incentive for quick-serves to make the switch from dial-up.
“It costs a lot less than people expect,” explains Cinquegrani. “People using dial-up probably have two or three phone lines—one for a fax, regular phone, and dedicated computer line. By converting to broadband, they can eliminate some of those lines. The cost proposition to a quick-serve is very simple: They can get three times the speed for about the same price as two dial-up lines.”
And broadband isn’t just for the huge chains with hundreds of locations. As the technology has grown, the price is going down to make it affordable for even the smallest chains.
“Broadband is essentially helping to level the competitive playing field for small chains,” Cinquegrani says. “As few as two or three locations can now link together and offer some of the same types of things as larger chains.”
One of those things is electronic gift cards. Previously, these valuable selling tools were impossible for chains with only a few locations to offer because the equipment needed to recognize them at multiple locations was out of a small chain’s price range. With broadband, however, that technology is within their reach.
“It can be the difference between being a viable competitor or losing out to the big guys,” Cinquegrani says.
Using the electronic gift cards also has the benefit of speeding up individual transactions, says Ken Pohl, senior product manager for Radiant Systems, Inc.
“Using [broadband] for credit cards is even faster than cash because you don’t have to worry about change,” he says.
In the end, an initial switch to broadband can bring two things to the quick-serve table: better, more detailed information and speed. But as the technology advances, the possibilities, too, will expand.
“What quick-serve restaurants are doing with broadband is limited only by the imagination,” Cinquegrani says.
“There are unlimited applications,” agrees Rice. “And as we get smarter, we’re going to find ways to utilize this technology to enhance the way we do business. As newer technology becomes available, restaurant companies like Chuck E. Cheese’s are going to use it to get a competitive advantage.”
So how long will it be before everybody is jumping on the broadband wagon? Cinquegrani says the rush has already begun.
“Quick-serves are clamoring for broadband connectivity more so than businesses in other industries,” he says. “But they’re still trying to adopt, and though it’s easy to migrate from dial-up to broadband, there’s still some uncertainty that delays the decision. People are soon going to realize that they want to do these things faster and more efficiently, though, and then take up is going to be very strong.”
Is it time to take your chain into the fast lane?
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