Top 5 Restaurant Management Apps to Boost Productivity
Open Table, GrubHub, DoorDash—there are numerous apps designed either to sit people at tables or to get great food from restaurant kitchens to customers at home or work. These apps can save time, personnel costs, and increase a restaurant’s customer base.
But what about apps for use inside the restaurant? There is a growing number of restaurant management apps that can be used to supplement your management and point of sale package and improve efficiencies in the back of the house. We’ve highlighted some of the best apps for
1. Keep Track of Your Best Tweets with HootSuite
HootSuite is a great way to manage all of your restaurant’s social platforms, saving on personnel time. This pioneering software provides a single browser-based dashboard that works across more than 35 popular platforms like Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube so that you can launch campaigns across all of them at once. It also provides analytics to track the success of your campaigns.
2. Review Trackers: Improve Customer Relations
Review Trackers helps you monitor your company’s reviews from over 100 sources such as TripAdvisor and Google, using a single dashboard. You can correspond directly with customers to build and improve relationships, and get more bodies through the door. Review Trackers claim a 400% improvement in reviews!
Review Trackers also provides analytics to compare reviews at different locations, so you can keep up with how your franchises are doing and how locations compare against one another.
3. Let TimeForge Manage Your Scheduling and Payroll
All managers know what a headache it is to keep track of the Jenga puzzle of employee schedules. Schedules that don’t work can lead to high employee turnover, as well as paying employees for hours not worked, so an app that organizes the house calendar is a must. TimeForge is a robust labor management tool that lets users track time on their laptops as well as mobile devices.
TimeForge allows managers to create schedules, monitor employee attendance, and even track meal periods and breaks.
It can even take care of hiring and paying employees with its applicant tracking & onboarding and payroll systems. Advanced features include document management, leave management, and sales forecasting. It integrates with numerous POS platforms, including Flyght.
4. Stay Connected to your Customers with FlyghtVoice
FlyghtVoice is a cloud-based VoIP phone system for small businesses, including a free calling app for both iOS and Android and unlimited minutes in all plans, making it much more affordable than our competitors.
FlyghtVoice has several useful features such as toll-free numbers, virtual receptionists, call transfer, voicemail, call forwarding, call logs, free number transfers, and more. The app gives users remote access to their work phones so that managers and other employees don’t have to use their personal cell numbers for work, and most importantly it costs less than traditional telephone service.
5. Blue Cart: Keep Inventory Full and Eliminate Food Waste
With Blue Cart’s desktop and mobile platform made specifically for restaurants (they also have apps for suppliers and sales reps), you can ditch the clipboard and do your ordering and inventory tracking right on your smartphone. You can use it with local suppliers or national chains that are already in their system—and add any suppliers you choose.
Blue Cart can track inventory and create orders for multiple locations. It sends low inventory alerts so that you can immediately resupply. It also has a very robust metrics system that claims to reduce food waste by 50%, reduce order errors by 82%, and save users money and time per order: $2.00 and 30 minutes, respectively.
It boasts numerous integrations, including with QuickBooks, Sage, Xero, NetSuite, Canopy, Stripe, and Produce Pro. Blue Cart makes communication between suppliers and buyers instantaneous so that negotiations and discounts can be done in real time.
The app itself is flexibly priced, as users choose only the features they want. It is used by national chains such as Jimmy Johns, as well as numerous mom and pop establishments.
Utilizing some or all of these productivity-boosting apps will allow restaurant owners to stay organized and on top of back of the house management, giving them more time to focus on things like menu planning and guest service.
[click_to_tweet tweet=”These productivity-boosting apps allow restaurant owners to stay organized and have more time to focus on things like menu planning and guest service. @hootsuite @reviewtrackers @truno_tech @bluecarthq” quote=”These productivity-boosting apps allow restaurant owners to stay organized and have more time to focus on things like menu planning and guest service. @hootsuite @reviewtrackers @truno_tech @bluecarthq.”]
