As anyone who regularly orders food for work will tell you, finding a reliable restaurant to order from and choosing an appropriate order to feed a crowd can be a lot of pressure. Many people end up relying on the same old standbys or spending way too much time searching online for something inspiring. Now imagine if you could use an artificial intelligence (AI) tool to recall in a few seconds some of the recent catered meals people in your area have received, complete with restaurant ratings, to help inform your next order?
At ezCater, we are committed to providing our customers with a simple, streamlined way to order food for their workplace. And with the emergence of AI technology and machine learning, we’ve been exploring ways to make our platform even stronger. We understand that trying to find the best workplace food options for a variety of eaters who may have completely different preferences and dietary needs can sometimes be daunting, which is why we’ve always worked hard to ensure all or our customers’ journeys are as seamless as possible.
In fact, keeping up with customer expectations is a must. According to Salesforce research, 73% of customers expect better personalization as technology advances, and 65% of customers expect companies to adapt to their changing needs and preferences. To that, ezCater says, “challenge accepted!”
Here’s a peek at some of the AI solutions that ezCater is working on behind the scenes to reinvent how modern workplaces order food for work.
Removing the guesswork: Smart Ordering is here
Smart Ordering simplifies the time-consuming and high-stakes experience of ordering food for the workplace. Now, ordering food for a team meeting of 20 or a weekly lunch for 300 can be done in just minutes.
How it works: Once a customer chooses a restaurant to order catering from, Smart Ordering leverages ezCater’s nearly two decades of proprietary catering order data to generate menu recommendations based on headcount, at different price points. Using a blend of AI and internal machine learning models, the system is able to translate a few simple inputs from the customer into a precise, actionable order.
For example, if a customer indicates that they need lunch for 50 people, Smart Ordering can accurately predict per-person food amounts and make menu recommendations at various price points, all based on millions of successful workplace orders.
What’s next? Start-to-finish restaurant discovery and ordering, powered by AI
Smart Ordering has already changed the game for ordering. Next, ezCater is working with Salesforce to develop an AI-powered solution that mirrors ezCater’s human concierge service and supports customers through the entire ordering cycle, from helping find and select their restaurant to placing their order.
I had the opportunity to discuss where our ordering experience is headed at Dreamforce, Salesforce’s largest annual conference. With Salesforce’s AI-powered solution Agentforce, our customers will soon be able to enjoy an unprecedented level of beyond helpful customer service.
The Agentforce technology will unlock the ability for our virtual concierge to aid customers through the process of selecting a restaurant to order from. Customers typically provide human agents with a number of unstructured phrases to describe what they’re looking for. They may use terms like “seasonal,” “healthy,” or “gourmet” that may not necessarily be captured in our menu data. Customers might also use terms such as “order me something similar to what I had last month.”
The AI-powered technology will then translate these unstructured inputs into useful responses, so that we can guide customers through the discovery phase and help them choose a restaurant based on their preferences. And from there, the AI-powered concierge will use the customer’s order history and ezCater proprietary data to calculate and build the fully formed order to meet their needs.
Of course, our humans will always be there to help if needed. In the event the customer is unable to resolve their needs, we can seamlessly shift the interaction over to one of ezCater’s live agents who can answer the call with a prompted instruction of where to begin the conversation, saving time for both the customer and the agent.
Being smart about smart technology
At ezCater, beyond helpful customer service has always been at the core of what we do, and that will never change. We believe that AI technology offers a unique opportunity to complement our human agents and deliver a more personalized, enhanced customer experience. As ezCater looks toward the future, we’ll continue to innovate, investing in customer-first technology that delivers the workplace food solutions our customers and partners have come to trust.