Benefits Of Outsourcing Data Entry Services For Your Restaurant

The outsourcing industry has touched almost all business scenarios – finance and insurance, hotels and restaurants, healthcare and hospitals to name just a few. Each industry has its own special goals and objectives and the outsourcing agencies need to offer services that will be relevant to them.

One of the sectors that have in recent times hitched itself to the outsourcing bandwagon is the hospitality industry and its benefits are slowly gaining in importance. But before you take a decision in this regard, it will be significant to understand the need for outsourcing data entry services for a restaurant.

The primary advantage is that data entry is always a non-core area and processing it in-house eats into such precious resources as skilled manpower and capital to set up a suitable infrastructure. By focusing on core activities you get more time to devote to adding value to client servicing.

Also, the savings in costs can be better utilized to offer products and services at competitive rates thereby increasing market share. For restaurants where the objective begins and ends with optimized customer service there can be nothing more helpful to you than outsourcing data entry.

As a restaurant owner or manager, there are core areas that you should concentrate on if you want to grow your business exponentially and best utilize the experience of outsourcing agencies to reach your goals. Maximize the power of prevailing digital environment. The boom in mobile phones and other Internet-enabled devices has seen a huge growth in online business.

Restaurants also have cornered a large slice of this e-commerce cake as more and more people prefer to order food online and make prior reservations for dine-in. In fact in the USA alone ordering food online has seen a quantum leap of almost 300% and about 69% of customers are doing it through mobile apps. If you are not in keeping with this trend you are losing out on business opportunities. So what can you do about it?

• Have digitized menus for the online segment – When you opt to outsource restaurant data entry this should be your first concern. Having an online menu is more of a necessity today than a luxury. Outsourcing agencies through top of the line menu data entry services will ensure that your menus are always kept updated regardless of the size of the business – ranging from international restaurant chains to small stand-alone establishments – and the frequency of changes. The latter is especially crucial as any restaurant business depends largely on the variety that is offered to gourmets.

• Beating the competition with value-added services – The more unique your services are, the higher will be the traffic to your restaurant. Ordinary menu cards are passé, digital ones are in. Keep up with the latest trend of having menus on electronic equipment. Outsource restaurant data entry of menus and have them entered on iPads or similar gadgets with persuasive photographs and a small description of the items on offer. Apart from the exclusivity of the presentation over conventional menu cards, this will add a touch of class to your restaurant.

Now that you know the benefits of outsourcing data entry for your restaurant, what are the things that should be kept in mind while zeroing in on an agency? Check what services they have to offer which should include at the bare minimum –

• Comprehensive menu design and formatting services – This will include designing the menu both in electronic and paper form, constant updating of the menus and ensuring 100% accuracy of both items and prices. Descriptions of items on offer and business and serving hours should be incorporated in the menus both in the in-house and online variations.

• Devising multiple solutions – The outsourcing agency should be able to offer multiple solutions segregating cuisine categories, weekly or daily specials, and main meals. They should be able to work from any type of inputs provided by you such as PDFs, fax and scanned copies. The output to be sent directly to your system should be as per your convenience and maybe Excel, CSV, or XML.

• Periodical reports of operating efficiencies – Periodical reports of operating efficiencies of key parameters for running a restaurant should be sent to you so that you can focus more on optimizing your core activities.

Also Read: Why Would Companies Opt to Outsource Data Entry Services?

By deciding to outsource restaurant data entry you will have more time on your hands to always be in sync with ways and means to maximize customer satisfaction.