Learn how this Popular Miami Restaurant improved customer satisfaction and increased sales by implementing Slang.ai’s phone concierge service to help streamline reservations, answer FAQs, and eliminate hold times.

The Challenge

Operating one of Miami’s premier upscale full-service restaurants that specializes in Latin American flavors and local ocean ingredients means standards for customer experience are set very high. The restaurant has a reputation to maintain with 53k followers on Instagram and a 4.4-star rating with 4k+ reviews on the industry's most popular online reservation platform. Every contact point with a guest requires careful consideration, and by thinking through the entire customer journey, the restaurant realized it wanted to begin this process before the customer even stepped through the door. As a full-service restaurant offering daily lunch and dinner, with brunch on the weekend, their phone rings steadily all day long. The restaurant also offers event spaces for private and semi-private dining, corporate gatherings, and wedding celebrations. Because of their ideal location and proximity to beautiful views, these spaces created a high demand. The restaurant manages reservations using one of the countries leading online reservation platforms, but people were still calling to confirm, adjust, or cancel reservations.  Having someone on staff dedicated to answering the phone isn’t ideal because they need to focus on customers in the building, and continuously putting people on hold to handle constant phone calls inevitably led to dropped calls. 

Dropped calls = lost revenue and unhappy customers. 

The restaurant needed a phone answering system that could handle the volume of calls, assist with taking reservations, and free up in-house employees inside the restaurant to give customers the attention they deserve.

The Goal

The restaurant knew calling guests expected the best in customer service. To meet those expectations, they needed a fully customizable phone answering system to help them stay on brand and fulfill customers’ needs.

This forwarded thinking restaurant operators set out to:

• Manage reservations
• Answer FAQs quickly and easily
• Eliminate customer hold times
• Free up staff

The restaurant wanted to help customers as quickly and efficiently as possible but still offer the same high level of customer service they were known for. 

Manage Reservations

Most calls to the restaurant are for reservations, which is true in any full-service restaurant that takes bookings. 

Between lunch, dinner, brunch, and the event spaces, the restaurant was getting hit with a lot of calls. Many of these calls, like confirmations, adjustments, or cancellations, could have easily been handled by the online reservation platform, but guests wanted a phone verification. Slang.ai can give customers verifications because it connects with some of the industry's most popular online reservation systems. When guests call, Slang.ai listens to how it can help with a reservation and automatically handles the request. For example, if a guest is running late, and depending on the settings, Slang.ai can update this on the reservation. The guest keeps their reservation, and the restaurant retains the revenue.

Slang.ai offers customers the convenience of making reservations or adjustments at any time, as the AI system is available 24/7. Guests can skip waiting for the restaurant to open to confirm any modifications.

Answer FAQs

Another large part of calls made to the restaurant concerned common questions like:

• What are your hours?
• Are you open?
• What’s your address?

The time it took to answer these questions added up throughout the day, distracting employees from guests inside the building. By partnering with Slang.ai, the restaurant created custom responses to questions that are unique to their restaurant. This was especially important because they wanted customers to experience an easy phone conversation without getting frustrated by generic responses or a numbered menu. Using Slang.ai meant that customers could speak as they would to an actual person and get nuanced, accurate information to their questions. In addition to quick answers, customers have the option of receiving branded text, giving additional information that guests will find helpful.

For example, if a guest asks for their address, they’ll receive a text with that info, but below the address, the restaurant can add additional information about parking, like where to find extra parking spaces if the main lot is full. These branded texts are fully customizable and can include promotions, specials, events, or anything the restaurant wants to share with its customers.

Slang.ai’s 24/7 availability means that customers can call and ask questions whenever they come to mind, not just when the store operates. 

Eliminate Customer Hold Times

Being a trendy restaurant in Miami meant the phone was ringing off the hook. The only way to handle this was to put customers on hold and take calls in the order in which they came. The restaurant wanted to move past this because they saw the massive amount of business being left on the table, as many customers would simply hang up if they waited more than 60 seconds. With Slang.ai managing the phones, the restaurant can handle even the busiest days of the year without putting customers on hold. By eliminating hold times, customers would never hesitate to call the restaurant, knowing they’d get the help they needed every time. 

Free Up Staff Time

The staff was spending a significant amount of time answering repetitive phone calls, which became problematic as they had to balance greeting guests walking through the door while also managing the ringing phone.

At best, guests found it annoying, but at worst, they felt it was outright rude, especially if the call required immediate attention, and the in-person customers were unintentionally ignored.

Using Slang.ai would do two things for the restaurant.

1. Allow staff to focus on the in-person customers.
2. Save labor on staff answering calls.

Eliminating the need for staff to handle repetitive phone calls would allow the restaurant to provide customers with undivided attention, resulting in a better customer experience, and utilize the extra labor hours gained to improve overall operational efficiency.

The Results

The Miami-based full-service restaurant rolled out operations with Slang.ai in February of 2022 and has reached all of its goals and more. Pulling data from close to 11,000 calls, the restaurant’s real-time analytics revealed that customers loved using Slang.ai. Customers are asked at the end of their call if the AI concierge was helpful, and the Satisfaction Score was an impressive 92%. 

Because of the restaurant's popularity and renowned event spaces, the most significant data comes from reservations. 83% of the calls to the restaurant concerned either making, changing, or canceling reservations.

• 70% called to make a reservation
• 10% were to change or modify a reservation
• 6% were for large parties or private dining reservations

With Slang.ai’s ability to categorize each and every call, the data showed that in 90 days, 70% of calls were related to making reservations. This translates to approximately 7,700 reservations in just 3 months. The average check size for a 2 top at this full-service restaurant is $185. If each reservation averaged 2 people, total revenue would come to $1.4 million. It’s easy to see how using Slang.ai can be profitable for both the restaurant and its guests.