HOW RESTAURANTS ARE TAPPING TECHNOLOGY TO CULTIVATE THE CUSTOMER JOURNEY C-suite execs talk AI, kiosks and mining data. Fundamentally, it’s about making the human experience better. By Lisa Jennings
F orget the next shiny thing. With so many tech tools avail - able today, the driving force for operators is cultivating the customer journey. That was the theme of the lively C-Suite in the Hot Seat session at the FSTEC conference in Orlando. Oper - ators from six restaurant companies shared their quick-hit experiences with bringing new technologies to play in their brands with moderators Joe Guszkowski, senior editor of Restau - rant Business, and Joanna Fantozzi, senior editor of Nation’s Restaurant News. Problem solving is, of course, a factor in selecting any new technology. But the operators described the importance of focusing on how that technology might impact the guest experience. At Panera Bread, for example, Meenak -
shi Nagarajan, the chain’s senior vice president and chief digital officer, said the bakery café chain maps out the different customer journeys through each channel, from ordering in units, to ordering through delivery or on the app for rapid pickup. The brand is tapping AI—whether abso - lute, predictive or agentic—for different use cases, she said. “We start thinking about it from the start of the journey to fulfillment in the back,” she said. The decision is not whether or not to use AI, but how AI could be used to, say, write better emails when engaging with guests, for example, or to choose the right images for promotions. Tim Newton, chief technology officer for Long John Silver’s, is bringing in technology like kiosks, for example, to bring the 50-year-old brand to a new
generation. But that has not been with - out pushback from older guests who still want to interact with humans at the register. As the kiosks were being installed, guests were almost confrontational in opposition, Newton said. And staff members were worried about losing their jobs. But the technology has freed up staff members to devote more attention to third-party delivery, a growing chan - nel, and other guest-facing tasks. “Full transparency, it’s a slow adoption,” he said. “But we’re optimistic that if we can bring friction down in the ordering experience, make people more aware of menu, they’re going to engage with us better that way.” Long John Silver’s is also thinking about possibly bringing AI ordering into the drive thru, but it’s critical that
Balancing tech and hospitality Five Guys CIO Zerrick Pearson talks about why restaurants should use their brand identity as a north star as they imple - ment new technology in their restaurants.
10 | FSTEC 2025
Powered by FlippingBook