One of the biggest challenges for restaurants is ensuring consistent execution across all of their locations. So how do you ensure that your processes and procedures are being followed? 

Leverage managed video to verify employees are following operational procedures such as:

• Validate opening and closing time
• Back door access
• Cash handling

Validate Opening and Closing Time

Opening and closing hours at a restaurant are very important. If handled right, they set the pace for smooth operations. Punctual opening and closing time are important and must be followed by managers and employees.

MVaaS Moment – Leveraging managed video you can ensure your restaurant opens and closes at correct times by doing a simple motion search on the front door at the time the restaurant is scheduled to be opened and validate. Validate closing time  was followed with motion search to ensure no one entered establishment after closing hours.

Back Door Access

The back door facilitates necessary logistics of any operation – i.e. trash removal and vendor receiving. Being the backdoor, relatively out of sight, it is often a susceptible portal to crime. Managing the back door with the appropriate policies and procedures, aided by technology, you can help to protect yourself against potential issues.

An effective backdoor policy should include:

• Times when the back door should not be opened at all – i.e. after dark or during peak hours
• Trash runs after dark should go through the lobby doors. The final trash run should occur before doors are locked at closing.
• When (perhaps always) the backdoor is to be locked.
• Who possesses the keys to the backdoor.
• Backdoor should never be propped open.Any request to enter through the backdoor, for example, by a vendor, should be made  at the front counter

Reports to Use:

What to Look For:

• Is the target demographic using the coupon? If the coupon redemption rate is high, but the target demographic is not using the coupon, you may have inadvertently attracted existing customers who would have paid full price.
• Does your people count increase during the promotion period?
• If the promotion was designed to attract new customers, did the first time customer report show an increase?
• Do employees know how to properly redeem the coupon? I.e. If the coupon is for a BOGO offer, are employees ringing up both items and using the coupon to discount the total versus only scanning one item or using an open comp to discount the total?

How Frequently to Use the Reports:

Always run the reports on the second day of the promotion for the previous day so you can identify any unexpected redemption patterns and critical operational issues that will impact the promotion’s success. Depending on the length of the promotion, you should look at the reports daily or weekly until the promotion has finished.

Bonus Video Tips:

While these areas are not directly tied to a report, you can use video to address other store-level issues that can impact the effectiveness of promotions and coupons.

• Are the operations team and store employees informed of the promotion?
• Has a proper promotion code been entered in the POS system? Are employees using this code?
• Is there enough product in store to meet anticipated demand? If you see an untargeted demographic using the coupon, make sure to inform operations of any shift in demand forecasts.

Want more exception reporting tips?

Check out the Become an Exception Reporting Hero Guide to take your exception reports to the next level.

Reports for advanced checkout fraud build on basic loss prevention reports, such as voids and deletes, to identify complex checkout fraud that may otherwise go unnoticed.

Reports to Use:

What to Look For:

• Does the employee shut the register drawer after each transaction? Employees may keep the drawer open to make change for transactions without entering them into the POS.
• Is the employee entering items into the POS to find out the subtotal before deleting the items? Some employees will repeatedly use the same ticket to ring up multiple transactions “off the books.”
• Is the discount warranted, i.e. does the customer have a coupon? Is a customer present for the discount? Or does the employee wait for the customer to walk away before applying the discount?
• Does the customer receive a beverage even though one was not entered into the POS?
• Did the customer pay for a drink, but the employee pockets the amount of the drink rather than entering it into the POS?

How Frequently to Use the Reports:

Use these reports with the same frequency as you use basic loss prevention reports. If you are using a number of loss prevention reports, consider ways to manage the workload, such as alternating reports every other week or dividing reports among the team.

Bonus Video Tips:

While these areas are not directly tied to a report, you can use video to address other issues that can impact the success of a loss prevention program.

• Is the cash in the register in the correct order, i.e. $1 bills in the farthest right slot, $5 in the next slot, and so on? Sometimes employees will build a “bank” in the register to keep the money they are skimming separate. At the end of their shift they will pocket the bank.
• Are employees using their cell phones at the register? This is another way for employees to tally their skimming amount.

Want more exception reporting tips?

Check out the Become an Exception Reporting Hero Guide to take your exception reports to the next level.

Leveraging video of actual store situations gives new hires an understanding of corporate policies. For example, give new hires immediate feedback. Show them video of what they are doing right so that they continue this behavior, and show them where they have opportunity for improvement.

MVaaS Moment: A MVaaS solution can easily give managers remote access to store-level operations to support training. Best practices, such as how an employee properly deals with an angry customer, can be easily shared and used for training purposes.

Videos have the added benefit of standardizing and streamlining training. Best practices can be recorded and shared within the entire organization. Using video, organizations can identify the best, and worst, examples of workplace behavior. This can include: opening and closing procedures, employee appearance, customer interaction, safety and security, loss prevention, food prep, product, packaging and more.

Leveraging MVaaS, training departments can archive video into categories to be accessed at anytime by a controlled group of users. Think of it as an online content delivery system of best practices to any member of your organization.

Join us for an interactive webinar and detailed look into how Qdoba expanded video usage beyond security and loss prevention to impact departments across the organization including marketing, R&D, operations and HR.

Scott Henry of Qdoba Restaurant Group will provide insight into how Qdoba  is using MVaaS to drive profitability and grow sales while reducing loss. This webcast will provide are using MVaaS to deliver actionable information that can quickly and easily be distributed across the organization.

Learn how to use video strategically across the organization to:

• Drive sales conversion
• Proactively identify and stop in-store operating issues
• Gain marketing insight
• Increase the productivity of loss prevention personnel

Register Today: http://info.envysion.com/QdobaUseCaseWebinar

Reports to Use:

What to Look For:

• Is the new SKU slowing down operations or line time?
• Which demographic groups are purchasing the new SKU? Do those groups match your target demographics or is the new SKU cannibalizing existing sales?
• What is the most popular time of day for the new SKU? 
• Are employees preparing the new SKU correctly?
  • In retail, this means employees understand any specific packaging/checkout requirements – i.e. Do they need to remove an EAS tag? Is an ID required for purchase? 
  • In restaurants, this means employees know the correct portion size, recipe, presentation, etc.

How Frequently to Use the Reports:

Depending on the sales volume of the new SKU, you may want to review these reports more or less frequently. During new SKU testing, you should initially look at the reports daily. Once the item is officially launched chain-wide, a good starting point is to review the reports at least once a week to ensure it is performing as predicted by the test market. If there are no surprises, after a few weeks, you may be able to step down to monthly reports for maintenance. After the item becomes a regular part of your inventory, you can gradually stop using the repot.

Bonus Video Tips:

While these areas are not directly tied to a report, you can use video to address other store-level issues that can impact the success of a product launch.

Restaurant

• Can employees adequately prepare for the new item during standard opening hours or do they need more time? If additional prep time is needed (i.e. for a braised item) how does this affect your staffing plan?
• Does the kitchen layout and stations facilitate efficient assembly of the item?

Retail

•  Are employees stocking the item in the correct aisle?
• Are all store merchandising displays set up on time and correctly?
• Do stores have enough room on shelves and in the stock room for the new SKU?

Want more exception reporting tips?

Check out the Become an Exception Reporting Hero Guide to take your exception reports to the next level.

It’s no secret that a customer can get food anywhere, and the fact that they choose your restaurant is a victory in itself, which is why it has to be a good experience.

Customers will be loyal to you if they trust that they will have a consistent experience each and every time they visit you.  Table touches, wait times and consistency in the delivery of high quality food can all influence customer loyalty. 

You know the customer experience you are aiming for, and you can use managed video to see if those things essential to the customer experience are being met. If not, you can proactively make adjustments to ensure that they are.

Managed video can be an effective tool to observe your restaurants operations to access customer service and consistency. You can study how the customers move through your restaurant. 

MVaaS Moment: Leverage managed video to assess the customer experience, i.e. were your employees friendly to the customer? Monitor your customers’ facial expressions while eating their food. Are they finishing their plate? Improve your customer service and consistency based on these observations.

What to look for:

• Wait and line times
• Cleanliness
• Customer and employee behavior
• Returned food

The beauty of an easy-to-use, readily accessible system, is that you can be proactive. You can make real-time adjustments when you find issues. Further, it’s necessary to have tools and reports in place to identify training issues that degrade your brand, such as an employee that takes above average time to take orders.

Attend Envysion’s MVaaS User Summit to gain best practices, how-tos and practical training on video to ELEVATE your use of video driven business intelligence across the organization. If you still aren’t convinced, consider the top 5 reasons why you don’t want to miss this year’s Summit focused fully on the end-user.

1. Great Value- Learn from customer deep-dive sessions, provide product feedback, share best practices in user group roundtables, gain solutions to long-standing challenges and pages of notes that can all be taken back and immediately implemented.
2. Customer Relationships- This is your chance to build a customer community… start new relationships and nurture existing relationships. Get access to the leading thinkers and forward thinking companies that are leveraging video cross-functionally.
3. Product Roadmap- Envysion’s platform and services are always growing and developing and the Summit is best way to learn about enhancements and suggest future ones. Provide feedback to improve our product and understand new developments coming down the line.
4. Skills to Succeed- Acquire skills to success and grow your technical understanding of the Envysion platform. Listen to end-users share their real life used cases with video and return to your company energized and armed with new profit saving and innovative techniques.
5. Business Value- Achieve greater business value by learning how to maximizes, sales, marketing and loss prevention efforts. Meet with product and program experts at the breakout session and enhance your business in motion. Discover where video is going and ELEVATE your organizations use of video across the organization. 

Take a look at what last year’s attendees had to say:

• “The Summit is an amazing experience! The collaboration is excellent, the breakout sessions are interesting and informative, and the best practices always inspiring. I come back from the conference with new ideas, tips and tricks to improve my business.”-Lou Burke, El Pollo Loco

• “I would definitely attend again, I learned so much. It was great to meet with other peers and understand what they’re doing with loss prevention and learn from their successes and failures. I want to bring people from loss prevention, marketing, an IT next year as it was very valuable.” –Jillian Hirsch, WKS Restaurant Corporation
• “I thought it was all worthwhile. So glad that I came.”-Anita Denboske, Active Communications

Report to Use:

What to Look For:

•  Locations with below average traffic:
  • Is the store opening on time?
  • Are the window displays set up properly?
  • Is the store clean?
  • Are long lines scaring away potential customers?
  •  Locations with below average conversion rates:
    • Is the staff to customer ratio adequate to help customers find what they are looking for?
    • Are long lines scaring away potential customers?
    • Are employees actively greeting and engaging customers versus texting friends in the back office?
    • Locations with below average basket size (average dollar amount per sale):
      • Are employees making up sell and cross sell recommendations based on the customer’s purchases?
      • Are employees informing each customer of the current promotions focused on increasing basket size? I.e. Get a free gift when you spend a $50 on makeup. The combo meal comes with a side and a drink for just $2 more. 

How Frequently to Use the Report:

A good guideline is to review this report weekly, looking at each of the three sales factors (traffic count, conversion percent and basket size) separately. The goal is to identify specific days or stores that rank below average for any of the factors, then use video to dig deeper into the root causes for the under performance. For example, spot audit video from throughout low performing days to look for patterns by day of week, sale promotion or when a specific employee is working.

Bonus Video Tips:

While these areas are not directly tied to a report, you can use video to address other store-level issues that can impact conversion rate and basket size.

• Are point of purchase and end cap displays fully stocked and set up correctly to entice customers?

Want more exception reporting tips?

Check out the Become an Exception Reporting Hero Guide to take your exception reports to the next level.

MVaaS Moment – Track inventory and review issues through video such as consistency count, unrecorded sales, improper employee meals and employee snacking.

Effective inventory control and tracking methods plays a vital role in the smooth and efficient running of your restaurant. Tighten up your operations with a structured inventory system which includes:

• Calculate your daily food costs to gauge whether you are carrying the right amount of inventory.
• Improve your inventory schedule and ensure it is consistent.
• Keep tabs on potential abuses, i.e. employee snacking and improper employee meals.
• Utilize a Managed Video as a Service (MVaaS) system and compare video to identify issues when discrepancies in inventory are spotted. 

Validate that Inventory Control Policies are being followed with video.

By utilizing a Managed Video as a Service (MVaaS) system restaurant owners and operators can track inventory from vendor delivery to customer purchase. By comparing video of deliveries and food preparation to sales, an operator can:

• Identify issues, such as more food ordered than needed
• Spot improper employee meals or wasteful food preparation
• Ensure Inventory Control Policies are being followed

Correcting these issues will reduce unnecessary waste and ultimately lower overall food costs.