Restaurant order accuracy can have a significant impact on customer satisfaction scores. More than 10% of restaurant customers think and talk about order accuracy as part of the overall restaurant experience, and the sentiment is mostly negative.
While advancements like digital ordering have helped elevate accuracy scores, there’s still room for improvement, especially as order accuracy encompasses more than ensuring customers get the items they order.
As a major driver in customer experience (CX), order accuracy can directly affect KPIs like average customer spend + return cycle, which can in turn impact revenue. Here, we’ll look at the impact of order accuracy on customer satisfaction scores, and how focusing on accuracy can help restaurant brands drive business growth.
What does order accuracy really mean?
A missing item is not the only thing that can leave customers feeling dissatisfied with the restaurant experience. In fact, accuracy struggles also include:
- Receiving a wrong item
- Receiving items not prepared as ordered
- Missing ingredients
- Wrong ingredients
- Missing condiments or utensils
- Extra or unwanted ingredients
- Wrong price
Each of these elements has a different impact on customer satisfaction scores. For example, almost 60% of consumers are not likely to return to a location if they are charged the wrong price for an item. Almost 50% of customers are unlikely to return if an item is not prepared as ordered or if an order is missing requested condiments or utensils.
To combat these issues, restaurant brands are using a number of strategies to increase accuracy and create more loyal, repeat customers.
How are restaurant brands addressing order accuracy scores?
Many fast casual and quick service restaurant brands are addressing order accuracy by either deploying or optimizing digital ordering technology. For some brands, this means configuring a point-of-sale (POS) system for all order types, including carry-out and drive-thru. This also means considering more user-friendly or intuitive customer interfaces, like detailed item images + product-specific digital screens.
Back-of-house technology is also being upgraded. Some brands are rethinking their receipt and kitchen display system layouts to help reduce employee error, and some are using more predictive cooking models based on traffic volume patterns and time of day + day of week.
Aside from technology advancements, many restaurant brands are looking to frontline workers as a source for developing new accuracy improvement strategies. Frontline workers have an acute understanding of the tools + processes in place to help ensure order accuracy, and they’re well equipped to help identify inefficiencies.
Regardless of the strategy, the ability to gather, analyze, and leverage solicited and unsolicited feedback from customers and employees is key to prioritizing order accuracy and increasing OSAT scores.
A data-driven CX platform that offers real insights into customer satisfaction and sentiment can help surface specific gaps and opportunities to unlock better order accuracy scores.
SMG’s location-based approach to CX management can help brands measure order accuracy and customer satisfaction scores at specific stores or in specific regions. This not only helps brands better allocate time, money, and resources—it also makes it easier to craft custom action plans they can confidently track and evaluate.
Partnering with SMG on your CX management solution can help you do more than just hear what customers are saying about order accuracy—we can help you turn survey data into actionable steps to increase customer satisfaction and create positive business outcomes.
Read our new order accuracy report to learn more about how restaurants can improve their accuracy scores.
