Restaurants Send More Customer Calls to Voice Bots Amid Staffing Shortages

That is particularly helpful in a time when 65% of restaurant operators say they don’t have enough employees to support customer demand, according to a survey conducted by the National Restaurant Association between July 14 and Aug. 5.

Outsourcing calls to artificial intelligence may have other benefits, as well. Bots, the executives say, always stick to the upselling script, let multiple customers place orders at the same time, and use systems that make it easier for companies to store and analyze customer data than the phone, pen and paper-ledger method. Another bonus, according to some backers: Bots are more likely to deliver service with an aural smile.

“If you call up in the middle of a Friday night rush, all the training in the world isn’t going to put that person who answers the phone in a calm state,” said

Aaron Nilsson,

the chief information officer of Jet’s America Inc., which does business as Jet’s Pizza and is testing an AI phone bot. “That computer voice never waivers.”

Some industry analysts are skeptical about the voice-enabled artificial intelligence that drives these bots, which can be glitchy and inaccurate. And not every restaurant manager thinks customers are ready to embrace all aspects of voice-activated technology just yet, especially when it comes to placing some orders.

“If you’ve got a special need—maybe a peanut allergy or have other food sensitivities—you’re going to want to talk to somebody to get that comfort,” said

Greg Levin,

chief executive and president of California-based

BJ’s Restaurants Inc.

Still, BJ’s this month began testing an automated phone system that tells customers how long the wait for a table is at their local restaurant and lets them put their names on a waiting list without having to speak to a staff member. The system will spare employees from continually relaying the same information over the phone, Mr. Levin said.

McDonald’s Corp.

is one of a number of fast-food chains trying out automated voice recognition at drive-throughs. Chief Executive

Chris Kempczinski

in June 2021 said a test running in 10 restaurants in Illinois found the technology got customer orders right 85% of the time, adding that a wider national rollout—and the menu, promotion and dialect permutations it would involve processing—is still years away. A spokeswoman for the company said it didn’t have an update on the test or comparative accuracy of human-placed orders.

Applebee’s, which is owned by

Dine Brands Global Inc.,

now lets customers at around half of its locations place orders for takeout on an automated line, while Ohio-based Marco’s Franchising LLC—the company behind Marco’s Pizza—in March began a 50-store pilot of an artificial intelligence system that talks to customers and translates the audio conversation into text orders for staff in the restaurant.

The restaurant industry is investing heavily in software that aims to make life easier for staff and managers after decades of little interest in automation, according to restaurant consultant

Aaron Allen.

The sector has always struggled to hire and retain staff, but the labor shortage sparked by the pandemic pushed more companies to go searching for new, automated ways of doing business via the hiring and acquisition of third-party firms and the creation of proprietary technology, Mr. Allen said. Technology such as voice-activated bots has also become more sophisticated and cheaper, making automation more appealing, he added.

That also has changed things for customers, who are increasingly finding themselves taking a more hands-on role when they go out to eat, Mr. Allen said. Customers visiting table-service restaurants, for instance, can now procure their own menus, order, pay and tip through their smartphones, while visitors to fast-food restaurants can do so through a few taps of a kiosk.

“The industry pulled one over on consumers, so to speak, in that they made us all cashiers,” he said. “Once they realized that could save those labor dollars, they started to look for other ways of combining automation and convenience engineering with ways to get tech-enabled productivity gains.”

Around 40% of Jet’s Pizza customers currently place orders over the phone, rather than online or via its text-to-order service, and Mr. Nilsson, the chief information officer, said he would like that percentage to get much lower. Online ordering lets the company entice customers with high-resolution photos of hot Detroit-style pies, encourages customers to add more items to their basket, collects order data and removes order-taking from the staff of Jet’s restaurants, he said.

Jet’s is testing its pizza-ordering phone bot in 130 of its 400 restaurants. The company isn’t mandating the technology among restaurant managers and isn’t making customers who phone in use the system, Mr. Nilsson said, noting that customers can still opt to be put through to the staff of their local restaurant.

The software, developed by restaurant-technology company HungerRush, can detect if a customer sounds annoyed, confused or like they are unable to get the bot to understand them, and will automatically put them through to their chosen restaurant, he added.

So far, around 35% of phone-in customers who have been given the option choose to place their order with the bot, which reads back orders, suggests additional menu items and texts customers their receipt, Mr. Nilsson said. The company hopes the phone bot will encourage some customers to migrate from ordering directly over the phone, to using the text-to-order service, to finally placing orders online, he said.

“I know that some people are never going to stop calling,” Mr. Nilsson said, “but I would like the primary experience for the majority to be digital.”

Write to Katie Deighton at [email protected]