Kiosks that have the ability to take a customer’s order are beginning to become ubiquitous across the quick-service industry. Part of the reason for that is because of the ongoing labor challenges that continue to disrupt day-to-day operations. But kiosks aren’t replacing employees—they are simply giving team members one less task to do.
In fact, Karl Goodhew, chief Technology officer at BurgerFi, a 111-unit chain, wants to make one thing perfectly clear: BurgerFi didn’t add self-service kiosks in order to replace employees. The brand viewed kiosks as a great way to double down on its efforts to support its team members, offer an exemplary customer-service experience, and grow revenue.
“Across the industry, labor struggles have led to training challenges, and it’s hard to achieve that level of hospitality that you strive for,” Goodhew says. “But kiosks haven’t resulted in fewer employees in our store. They have simply allowed us to deploy team members into other areas of hospitality.”
The advantages of adding kiosks into the mix can be partially broken down by a series of statistics: During a four-store pilot program using Samsung Self-Service Kiosks, driven by GRUBBRR’s proprietary software platform, BurgerFi saw some eye-popping results. The kiosks increased average ticket size by 18.5 percent, with 52 percent of diners opting into an AI-driven upsell. The kiosks accounted for 75 percent of total orders placed in the store.
The numbers are impressive, and they’ve led to BurgerFi rolling out the kiosks throughout their stores nationwide. But the numbers are only the start of it, Goodhew says—the kiosks have been a huge boost of morale for team members, who now receive more tips than ever before despite largely not having to take orders as they once did. Order accuracy is up to nearly 100 percent, and the brand and its diners seem to equally appreciate the fact that if a menu item is no longer available, the software allows for real-time updates to the menu.
“I can’t tell you enough about the emotional impact it has had on our team members,” Goodhew says. “It’s not exactly mentally stimulating to take orders all day. But if the kiosk is there to do it for you and the team member is suddenly available to answer any questions, or provide interactions that revolve around hospitality—whether that’s suggesting a new menu item, or explaining something new that we’re selling—suddenly that’s a bit more rewarding.”
Whereas larger brands have invested in developing the hardware and software to implement kiosks brand-wide, smaller and medium-sized brands do not always have the resources to make that happen. GRUBBRR and Samsung’s partnership was designed to offer brands an affordable way to enjoy the labor-saving, revenue-increasing benefits of self-service kiosks—the units check in at just $2,500 per.
“BurgerFi is a known innovator when it comes to new technologies,” says Sam Zietz, CEO of GRUBBRR. “They sought out GRUBBRR to modernize their restaurant brand in order to keep up with consumer demands for self-ordering technology, and to adapt to the labor shortage. BurgerFi had experimented with other kiosk providers but ultimately settled on GRUBBRR and Samsung because together we offer a best-in-class hardware and software solution—Not to mention it is a fraction of the price of other kiosk solutions, which are cobbled together of disparate parts.”
Goodhew notes that one of the things he’s been most impressed with is GRUBBRR’s dedication to helping customize the interface to fit his and his team’s needs. All of that adds up to what Zietz reports to be an ROI that’s achieved after just a few months of implementing the kiosks.
“Honestly, I might not want [Zietz] to hear this,” Goodhew says, chuckling. “At $2,500 per unit and $200 for the software for each… the value that we are getting is off the charts high.”
For more information on GRUBBRR’s kiosks, visit the company’s website.
