On-Line Ordering Delivers Increased Average Check
20 November 2020
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When Dan Cullen, Senior Director of Information Technology at Buca di Beppo took
on the challenge of implementing on-line ordering at the 91 restaurant company,
he wasn't sure what to expect. So, they started their pilot of SquirrelOne and orderTalk
in October 2007 with just five restaurants in the Minneapolis area, home of Buca
di Beppo's corporate office. "We wanted to start small and felt that with no promotion,
the order volume for the pilot would be fairly low," said Dan. "We are amazed to
see that the orders are coming at a much higher frequency than expected and with
a 40% higher ticket than a phone-in order. While this is a small sample, we are
very encouraged by the results so far."
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The IT group at Buca reviewed several products before deciding upon Dallas-based
orderTalk. Some of the features of the product that caught their attention were:
- Intelligent Up-Selling
- The system will review the customer's order at check-out, determine if there are
any categories from which the customer didn't order and then suggest menu items
from the most profitable unused category as an up-sell
- Group Ordering
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This facilitates coordination of a large order for the group convener by e-mailing
everyone in the group with choices and consolidating the final order and payment
- Controls Orders by Time Period
- Keeping in mind that take-out orders from the Internet are coming into an already
busy restaurant, orderTalk allows Buca to define how many orders per fifteen minute
increment will be accepted
Buca di Beppo is a long-time Squirrel customer with implementations of SquirrelOne
at all 91 locations. Squirrel Systems' Professional Services group worked with Buca's
Senior Web Developer Hanie Hartman and orderTalk to develop the integration required
for the two products to work together. SquirrelOne already has a gateway API that
allows any third party company requiring this kind of integration to interface directly
with SquirrelOne. Squirrel's Professional Services Group, with strong backing from
Squirrel Research & Development and Squirrel Support, facilitates integration of
this kind. "Our job is to help our customers achieve the integration they require
to manage and grow their business as seamlessly as possible," says Chris Pedersen,
Manager - Professional Services. "We're extremely pleased with the success of this
project and look forward to Buca achieving their objective of a full roll-out beginning
in early 2008."
With the soft launch of on-line ordering nearing its end, Buca is planning to release
an e-blast to 30,000 of their e-Club members immediately. The success of the pilot
project has created demand from other Buca operators. "This pilot surprised us,"
says Cullen. "It's almost too successful if that's possible. There is a huge push
now to accelerate the roll-out of our on-line ordering solution."
Going forward, Buca plans to expand this program to include not only their lunch
and dinner menus but also their catering menu. At the moment, they are only offering
Take-Out but Delivery will be a future option.
Visit Buca Di Beppo at
www.bucadibeppo.com
For information about Squirrel Systems go to
www.squirrelsystems.com
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