In today’s restaurant business, phones are an important and a vital part of a restaurant’s day-to-day operations and are also crucial for its customer service. Phones play an important role when speaking to customers, preparing takeout orders, booking table reservations for them, answering customer questions, and communicating with staff members internally.
For these reasons, selecting a business phone system is the most critical decision for restaurant owners and decision-makers. Whether the restaurant is part of a national or international chain, locally owned, or even a franchise setup, a VoIP Office communication provider is the best business phone solution for the restaurant’s needs. It offers the right solution in today’s fast-paced work environments that require multi-tasking and communication throughout the day and sometimes throughout the night.
VoIP Benefits for Restaurants
There exist many benefits to the selection of VoIP over traditional landline phones, as it offers a unified communication system that makes it easier to manage multiple responsibilities along with providing efficient customer service. A few benefits of VoIP for restaurants include,
Saving Expenses
Presently, the restaurant industry is truly competitive. All restaurant businesses are focused on increasing their revenue as much as possible, which will promote their ever-growing business. Restaurants have lots of up & running costs right from the start of the restaurant business.
Be it the starting costs for purchasing appliances for the restaurant, interior design of the restaurant, or various other costs, the owner of the restaurant is kept on their toes. Apart from that, the kitchen in restaurants should have a supply of food and various other required products for everyday use. Then, the staff salary must be paid, and much more.
VoIP systems help owners reduce their phone bills by almost 50% compared to traditional landlines. VoIP voice quality is crystal clear nowadays, and it is a win-win situation.
Call-Routing
Call routings are automated, as most restaurants require “all hands-on deck” during their peak working hours. Sometimes, however, the restaurants will have only one host on duty, and that same person must handle inbound calls, too.
VoIP systems could be of help here as they have the right feature: “auto attendant.” This feature has an interactive AI voice that will greet the callers and direct them to the relevant extensions, be it a specific party or even a department. This auto attendant feature can be calibrated to answer commonly asked questions like what’s on the menu, restaurant working hours, waiting time, and more.
All-In-One Pos System
VoIP makes integration with POS systems easy, as it easily integrates with the software and business tools compatible with them. With the enhancement of VoIP technology, many restaurants can connect their VoIP phone systems with their POS systems.
It helps the staff to enter details of customers, their reservation particulars, and any takeout orders, along with messages from customers, their comments, and concerns. Even during peak restaurant hours, when the staff is super busy, VoIP will make it easy to track customer details, which helps with quicker and better customer service.
Connectivity Through Mobile
There are times when the restaurant supervisors and managers are on weekly off, and some situations arise where they have to be contacted. With the help of the VoIP system, the restaurant manager never has to worry about being unreachable whenever the staff has emergencies.
The restaurant business number can easily be connected to devices like smartphones, laptops, desktops, or even tablets, which helps resolve issues and maintain good customer service right from home. The monthly premiums and hardware costs incurred for traditional landlines are drastically reduced when a cloud-based VoIP system is used.
Benefits Of Multiple Locations
Most of the present-era restaurants are either franchises or chains of restaurants at multiple locations. Due to this, restaurant owners will need help in starting a new business phone system in various places where they begin their restaurants.
Since VoIP is based on cloud systems, it will easily connect VoIP phone lines located at multiple locations with one another, wherein relevant information can be exchanged quickly and competently. The customer needs to call their VoIP provider for new phone lines whenever they start a restaurant at a new location.
VoIP Features Required For Restaurants
Depending upon the requirements of the restaurants, VoIP subscription plans come with a lot of additional features. When contacting VoIP providers, the restaurant owners may need clarification as they will be offered a long list of feature options. Given below are the essential features that restaurant owners should consider,
Virtual Reception
The virtual receptionist in the VoIP cloud system, known as an auto-attendant, automatically answers all incoming calls, even when the restaurant is closed. During peak busy times at restaurants, it becomes practically difficult for the host to answer every incoming call.
But with the help of the VoIP phone systems feature, “auto attendant,” each call can be efficiently managed in a professional, timely, and friendly manner. The virtual receptionist helps the callers find the right extension and saves them time by answering their questions correctly and efficiently. If the call is in a waiting period, it tells the caller how much time is remaining to answer their call.
Phone Recording
Many large chains or franchise restaurants specify the way staff should conduct themselves during a customer call. The built-in call recording feature of VoIP will allow supervisors and managers of the restaurant to ensure that each calling customer is talking to the best customer service.
Recorded phone calls also help in training new employees by setting a good example of how to speak with all callers.
Call Forwarding
There are situations where a customer’s or caller’s question cannot be answered by in-house restaurant staff. In these cases, the restaurant host will have to redirect calls to a decision maker or manager who might or might not be at that restaurant on that day.
The feature “call forwarding” allows all restaurant stakeholders to connect their business extensions to any devices they are using, even personal ones, whether at the restaurant or outside. With a touch of a button, callers’ phone calls will be redirected to the correct person, who will answer their calls on time.
Mobile Dashboard
Since VoIP cloud systems work through an internet network, any personnel can easily connect VoIP phone lines to a variety of devices. VoIP phone lines have an easy-to-use interface dashboard that organizes communication processes efficiently and can easily be installed on any device that connects to the internet.
VoIP allows convenient communication through various devices like computers, tablets, and mobile devices.
Voicemail To Email
Restaurant managers must be aware of customers’ questions and concerns, even when they are not in the restaurant. The VoIP voicemail to email feature will help reproduce each customer’s phone call/voicemail and send it to the relevant person in charge so that all issues can be efficiently addressed promptly.
VoIP Suppliers for Restaurants
Presently, there are many VoIP providers for restaurants, and this will make it challenging to select the best one. Many factors include price, features, how compatible the software is with the existing system, and more. A few VoIP providers that restaurants may consider are,
- VoIP Office
- Ooma
- Clarity Voice
- Call Rail
- Jive Voice
Conclusion
VoIP phone systems for restaurants are a part of telephone transmission that helps restaurants handle all incoming and outgoing calls more efficiently and effectively. VoIP solution providers are cloud-based and hosted by third parties. They can help restaurants reduce costs, improve customer service, increase efficiency, and increase the productivity of employees by offering various features like routing incoming calls, auto-attendants, voicemail-to-email transcription, and integrations with the POS system.
It has software, hardware, phones, and other features required to take orders, manage reservations, make co-related deliveries, facilitate smooth communication among staff members, and handle customer-related inquiries.