
Voice Ordering: A New Off Premise Ordering Option for Guests
Voice ordering is projected to revolutionize the restaurant digital ordering landscape in the next five years -- taking convenience to a whole new level.
Cailey LindbergAuthor
“Hey Alexa - I want to order a pizza.”
Restaurant voice ordering is the newest customer engagement channel available to restaurants. If you thought online ordering was big, voice ordering will rock your world. Though still in its infancy, voice ordering via at-home smart speakers like Amazon’s Alexa and Google Home has introduced restaurant patrons with an even more convenient, on-demand ordering experience than we previously thought possible.
Once the technology has reached its full potential, voice ordering will bring convenience to a whole new level: Diners will have the ability to see (and hear) menu items through Google Home or Alexa.
While personal assistant voice shopping is starting to take off, restaurant voice ordering is still a relatively untapped technology. Right now, only the country’s biggest chains, such as Domino’s, Denny’s, Dunkin’, and Pizza Hut, are taking advantage of this technology. While 74.2 million Americans use smart speakers every month and 62% of speaker owners have bought items through voice commerce, only 7.9% of people use smart speakers for food and beverage shopping, according to Mastercard’s presentation at the 2019 National Restaurant Association Show in Chicago.
Restaurant Marketing Plan
Create a marketing plan that'll drive repeat business with this customizable marketing playbook template and interactive calendar.
Voice Ordering: The Next Frontier in Restaurant Ordering Technology
Voice ordering has great potential within the restaurant industry, even though some of the kinks are still being worked out.
The Obstacles of Voice Ordering: Discoverability and Retention
Sean Johnson is an adjunct Lecturer of Marketing at Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and VC at Chicago Consulting Company Digital Intent. He has some thoughts on the drawbacks of voice ordering. According to Johnson, two reasons more diners are not using restaurant voice ordering is the retention and discoverability of the technology itself.
Johnson says voice ordering has less discoverability than traditional phone apps because a habit loop of advertisements is missing. Since Alexa is unable to constantly ping you with ads, it’s difficult to generate repeat users.
“If you think about the user experience of voice,” Johnson says, “it doesn’t lend itself to ordering from a typical menu, which has 50-100 items on it. Listing all of those items would be incredibly tedious, and memorizing the menu isn’t an option.”
It’s still easier for consumers to place an order from a Facebook messenger app while looking at a menu. And until digital consumer behavior changes, the restaurant industry will not change, explains Li-ran Navon, founder and CEO of Say2eat, a restaurant delivery service leading the convenience revolution (and they’re a Toast partner).
The company knows quite a bit about the future of online ordering, as their product allows restaurants to use social media, messaging, and voice to communicate directly with guests, collect data, and make the experience easy and fun for all. The company’s mission is to deliver the ultimate restaurant guest experience for the digital era.