Guests come for the food, but return for the service. Computer vision platform Hellometer helps quick-service operators make sure timely service is always, well, coming right up.
Hellometer—the first AI machine learning drive-thru timer—helps operators grow revenue by monitoring and then reporting each guests’ service speed with the use of cameras to improve customer service times, says CEO Alex Popper. “While traditional timers are inaccurate, incomplete, or both, Hellometer looks at the entirety of the guests’ experience from the moment they pull into the lot.”
He explains that restaurants are seeing an average of a 47-second improvement per guest interaction after implementing Hellometer. “It tells operators where and when they have a problem, say breakfasts on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and helps identify the root causes, for example, failing to help guests navigate the orderboard,” Popper says.
Where before you were lucky if a customer wrote a complaint, operators can now have total visibility into their guests’ experience and service speed. The relationship between operators’ revenue and their speed is clear; according to operations research, quick serves typically experience about a 1 percent revenue jump for every seven-second improvement in service speed. The average quick-service restaurant, for example, makes $1.6 million in sales per year. With Hellometer’s 47-second improvement, the average restaurant would see more than $100,000 in additional revenue each year.
Hellometer saves operators more than a few dollars “right out of the gate,” Popper says, by sparing them the hefty expense of installing and maintaining vehicle loop timers, small wires buried in the ground to monitor orderboard and window times. The process requires digging up concrete to install, which can cost thousands of dollars. However, with Hellometer’s AI timer, operators only need to install a camera.
If you don’t operate a drive thru, no problem. Hellometer also works in the dining room and offers the same granular service speed metrics. “We track each guest from the moment they come through your door and report the entire service experience: how long they stand in line and how long they are spending in ordering, paying, food prep, and so on,” Popper says. It’s a drive-thru timer for your dining room, “which has always been a good idea; there just has never been the technology to reliably accomplish it.”
The cherry on top? Hellometer is also a fully featured video surveillance solution which provides HD video that can be viewed from anywhere. “For the price you are probably already paying for surveillance, Hellometer offers the world’s best drive-thru timer, the world’s only dining room timer, and a full security solution.” What’s more, Popper says that because Hellometer is priced at the cost of surveillance solutions typically used by quick-service restaurants, his customers often find that they actually save money by switching to Hellometer.
More than just faster service, one of the big differences Popper says he sees in his customers’ data is consistency. Once a brand adopts Hellometer “guests learn to associate expediency with your brand and know they’ll receive consistent fast service at any of your locations.”
To begin your two-month trial, visit hellometer.io/20.
