FEATURE

The Digital Influence in India’s Restaurant Business

The wave of digitalisation has greatly influenced many of our industries, and food service business is no exception to this trend. The digital wave has opened up many new possibilities for the food service business and has also induced our food service industry to become more sensitive to its consumer responses and preferences.

Of course, proliferation of foodtech companies with their online food ordering facility has revolutionsed the food service industry, and nowadays you do not need to step out of your homes to have the taste of eating out (though holistic eating out experience is a different matter, for which you need to visit restaurants to get a feel of the ambience, décor, concept, and service of the outlet concerned).

By Jhuma Biswas

After the lockdowns, the food delivery industry in India is recovering at a fast pace and online food ordering business is expected to grow further in our Covid inflicted times, in the near future. But the extensive role of digitalisation in food service business goes much beyond online food ordering.

Increased Accountability Nowadays thanks to online sites like Zomato, TripAdvisor and many other renowned online platforms, and also due to social media channels like Facebook, the power of guests has increased manifolds. In this digital age if a restaurant falters in terms of taste, ambience or hygiene, there is not only a high chance of getting quick adverse criticism but those adverse views can also go viral in digital platforms in quick time.

For example, if a restaurant’s washroom is found unclean or if its tablecloths are found dirty or if its waiters are unkempt, then the guests are not only likely to avoid giving the restaurant a repeat visit, but may also post their ire about the restaurant on the social media. And if the post goes viral, of which there is a decent possibility, then the restaurant is in for serious trouble, which can not only be restricted to plummeting of its image and revenues but may also extend to initiation of stringent legal action against it.

Especially, during these trying times when the world is grappling with a pandemic and restaurants across India are allowed to resume operations only with

stringent social distancing norms and other hygiene protocols in place, the faltering of restaurants or any other food service outlets in terms of hygiene can lead to its swift closure and inviting of legal actions, as news of such lapses can spread real fast in digital age.

Similarly, if a guest or a group of guests suffer from food contamination because of the restaurant staff’s lackadaisical attitude towards hygiene, then the guests’ Facebook posts regarding the same going viral can even lead to quick legal actions and eventual closure of the restaurant concerned.

Of course, a food service outlet which adheres to unhygienic practice deserves to be shut down and/or deserves to have legal actions slapped against it, but two decades or even one decade earlier such public outcry against those restaurants in India (even if they were operating in the organised food service industry of the country) who were seen flouting rules and norms of hygiene were not so quick.

In those days, many restaurants carried on with their unethical or unhygienic practices for years without any retribution from the law and public.

I agree today also many eating out joints in India’s unorganised segment of food service industry carry out unhygienic practices without care or concern but now with the mushrooming spread of social media it is becoming increasingly difficult for restaurants in the organised segment of India’s food service industry to disregard hygiene or behave with guests badly and still get away with it.

We can see that restaurants and other food service outlets are induced to be more accountable to guests’ needs and preferences in this digital age.

Marketing Impetus At the same time, restaurants which are going the extra mile to delight their guests can easily garner greater marketing mileage in a given period of time (say within six months) than they could have expected to get in the pre-digitalisation age within that same given period of time.

Through the widespread network of social media now restaurants or other food service outlets can build their image and/or enhance their business much more quickly than they could do a decade or two before. If they offer a lucrative discount or organise an attractive event regularly or introduce some innovative dishes, etc. then these initiatives can very quickly spread through social media to reach their actual

and potential customers.

Moreover, in this digital age, marketing of food service operations on social media platforms can pay rich dividends with very little costs. Succinctly, now food service outlets can transmit their image building or revenue enhancing endeavours through social media at a much quicker speed and at a much much lesser cost than they could do through traditional media.

We can see that digital revolution on the one hand has opened new floodgates of opportunities for food service business, but on the other hand, it has compelled food service business to be more accountable and watchful to hygiene and other needs and preferences of guests.

This digital age has come across as double-edged sword for the food services industry. If you do better than the guests’ expectations, the use of this sword can quickly take you to success, by cutting through competition, and if you do badly than the guests’ expectations, the same double-edged sword can cut down on your revenues very quickly.

Keeping a Tab on Guest Preferences Moreover, in this digital age, it would be wise of the restaurateur to keep a

history of her/his guests’ food & beverage preferences, feedback on what they liked or disliked in the restaurant, and what they would like to improve in the restaurant, on computer (the process can be initiated by letting the guests fill a short form where their F&B preferences and what they liked or disliked in the restaurant and what they would like to improve in the restaurant would be asked for).

This data base can be used to serve the repeat guests to the restaurants better. For example, if the F&B Manager is already informed about the repeat guests’ food & beverage preferences she/he can direct the waiter to gently suggest those preferences to repeat guests when they arrive at the outlet. This would help the guests to develop an emotional connect with the food service outlet, which can lead to improvement in revenues for the given outlet concerned in the long-run.

Similarly, if from the data base it is deciphered that more number of guests do not like a particular aspect in a restaurant that can be changed quickly. If more number of guests like a particular aspect of a restaurant that can be retained or even heightened, if feasible. Guests’ pragmatic suggestions to improve the restaurant can also be quickly adhered to through digital medium by maintaining a date base of those suggestions.

Succinctly, digital power can facilitate greater involvement of the guests, and this can be creatively explored upon to garner additional revenues for the restaurants and other food service outlets.

Harnessing digital power is becoming more and more crucial towards operational success of restaurants, for if as a restaurateur you don’t do it, be sure that your competitor would do it and you may end up missing the bus.

Advance Menu Planning Especially in the backdrop of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the role of digitisation in food service business has become more pronounced. Now eating out with contactless menus and paying through app are gaining currency across India, and is expected to become the norm in the organised segment of India’s food service industry very soon. But that is not enough in terms of exploring the huge potential of digital power in food service business.

Restaurants can also send the digital version of their menu through Whatsapp to their repeat customers, and when the repeat customers think of visiting the restaurant concerned, they can phone the Chef or the F&B Manager(their numbers can be provided to the repeat guests) of the given restaurant and order their dishes in advance. This would allow more scope for customisation and experimentation as the Chef and her/his team can give more food for thought to meet the guests’ customised

demands, which may go beyond the menu.

In some cases, the repeat guests can also specify not only the day but also the approximate time at they would visit the restaurant, provided there is no room for traffic jams and other untoward delays. This would save the waiting time of the repeat guests at the restaurant. Within five minutes of their arriving at the restaurant, the repeat guests can be served their preferred dishes, piping hot. In case they are getting delayed due to traffic or other reasons that too can be informed beforehand to the Chef or to the F&B Manager concerned.

This advance menu planning facility could be extended to potential guests of the restaurants too. For example, the restaurant’s website could have the userfriendly technical options for its potential guests or would be future guests to select the dishes they want to have at the given restaurant (let us name the restaurant as restaurant A) in advance.

The potential guests or would be future guests can copy those preferred items and paste them in a special Feedback section of the restaurant A’s website, which should be different from the usual Feedback section of the website. This would involve better preparedness for the concerned restaurant staff to meet the demands of the potential or would be future guests and thus the chances of not meeting their demand due to paucity of requisite ingredients and other operational factors would be largely diminished.

I am not ruling out the introduction of such initiatives already in our food service industry, but just putting forward that advance menu planning should get more momentum in India’s food service business in this digital age, especially in the backdrop of the pandemic’s danger constantly hanging over our heads like a Damocles’ Sword.

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