Add a smart speaker to your restaurant

There’s a good chance that an Amazon Alexa or Google Home device is on the wish list of someone you know.

In 2019 alone, about 30 million smart speakers were sold in Spain alone, sales are believed to increase up to 60% during this year, 2020.

As of now, the use of Alexa for dining out is more focused on consumer experiences at home. A quick glance at Alexa skills related to restaurants shows an emphasis on discovery, information and ordering: Find a nearby restaurant, order a burger, etc.

In a previous article we commented on the opportunities of making a voice order to restaurants by customers, today we focus on operational use within the kitchen, bar or room of the hospitality establishment.

But is there an opportunity for Alexa and Google Home inside your restaurant?

Of course, just imagine the almost 170 thousand restaurants in Spain and their respective customers, generating requests daily without much of them studying, taking advantage or using it.

As a fun thought experiment, let’s look at some potential uses for Alexa in restaurants:

• An interactive table alert. Instead of a dumb, inert buzz that flickers and vibrates when your table is ready, modify an Echo Dot to be the messenger. Instead of annoying the diner, customers could ask Alexa for the wait time and receive an alert when they can sit down. If you wanted to be really adventurous, in the right environment, you could even play interactive trivia games to keep people entertained.
• Order received. With its touchscreen, an Echo Show would be a great way to display menu items, explain more about ingredients, and highlight popular dishes. You can also enable orders and payments for a more streamlined experience.

In a cruel and horrible world, one can imagine restaurants offering cheaper food if customers allow ads to be displayed while eating (please don’t).

• Behind the bar. Alexa could be used to quickly order ingredients, equipment, or other sundries that, of course, Amazon could fulfill that day. It could also be used to alert employees to their break times and inform them of any news or specials.
• Communication back home. By collecting real-time data within a restaurant, Alexa could already at the customer’s home provide better and more informed decisions in real time about where and when to eat at a particular establishment.

Some real-world limitations for this type of smart speaker deployment in hospitality

There is a fairly small needle to thread in terms of the types of restaurant voice control that will work. Too loud and voice control is useless and you can’t hear Alexa speaking. Too quiet and the voice control is annoying for everyone else.

It’s hard to imagine restaurants buying and modifying Echo devices or writing their own “skills”. However, large companies already prepare a version of Alexa on their platforms to embed them in custom devices that are sold for use in restaurants.

We are still in the early stages of voice assistants and how far they will go in our lives. But as they get better, restaurant owners may not want to wait until the holidays to take over.

Have you seen using Alexa or Google Home in interesting ways within restaurants? Or do you have a wild idea about how they could be used? Leave a comment below and let us know what you think.