News Briefs

Hi Auto, a provider of drive-thru voice AI technology, released the Voice AI Marketer Toolkit, a comprehensive set of tools for quick service restaurants (QSRs) looking to capitalize on customer conversations to increase engagement and loyalty. These marketing tools include menu optimization, A/B or multivariate testing, and customized natural voices to help brands unlock the superpower of direct conversation with their customers.

Traditional marketing campaigns are limited to one-way communications across multiple platforms, such as digital advertising, social media, events, and visual promotions at brick-and-mortar locations. Due to the high staff turnover rate at QSRs, employees often work under intense pressure, making it difficult to promote the brand's values consistently. As a result, millions of drive-thru customers interact with random employees and experience inconsistent levels of service. This can be true for both regular and first-time customers.

Recognizing that voice AI automation can shift the current paradigm; Hi Auto developed a new marketing channel that allows restaurants to design and optimize customer conversations while highlighting brand value, promotions, events, special menu offerings, and more. The toolkit drives marketing and sales goals while building brand affinity and creating an elevated, consistent customer experience.

Key features of Hi Auto's “Voice AI Marketer Toolkit” include:

Dynamic Upsell Customization: Hi Auto's platform customizes product suggestions considering multiple factors influencing customer experiences, such as time, location, weather, script, language, and voice.

Multivariate Experimentation: The toolkit allows marketers to test a small control group of stores with similar performance by changing the conversation parameters, such as the number of upsells during a specific daypart. Based on the results, marketing teams can adjust the script to be deployed across all chains.

Natural and Cloned Voices: Hi Auto's voice AI enables QSRs to incorporate natural and even customized voice options into their drive-thru experience, providing customers with a more personalized and differentiated ordering experience. This ultimately enhances customer engagement and helps build brand affinity.

"Hi Auto's voice AI allows us to humanize the customer experience by customizing the drive-thru voice with our dialect and incorporating common phrases and slang that our customers can appreciate," said Leann Smith, Head of Marketing at Burger King New Zealand. "This collaboration enhanced labor efficiency and significantly improved order consistency and upselling conversions."

"While the operational benefits of voice AI justify the system's adoption, there is so much more value to unlock for sales and marketing teams," said Roy Baharav, CEO of Hi Auto. "That's why we are investing in the “Voice AI Marketer Toolkit” to provide organizations with the tools they need to realize the full potential of their drive-thru sales channel. Being the only company to date deploying drive-thru voice AI at scale allows us to identify the opportunities and develop the right capabilities for our customers to maximize their ROI.”

These capabilities are currently deployed in hundreds of drive-thru locations globally. For more information about Hi Auto and its drive-thru tailored voice AI platform, please visit Hi Auto.

PopID and Steak n Shake announced today that all Steak n Shake locations in the United States now accept PopID Check In (to review favorite orders and loyalty points) and PopPay for checkout. With more than 300 locations, Steak n Shake is the first national restaurant brand in the United States to adopt biometric check-in and checkout nationwide. PopID’s biometric check-in feature makes kiosk ordering faster, easier, and more personalized.

The implementation of PopID in every Steak n Shake location was accomplished rapidly and at low cost through a partnership between PopID and ACRELEC, a leading supplier of kiosk-ordering hardware and drive-through products. Cameras were shipped to every restaurant for attachment to the existing ACRELEC kiosks. “As explained in our recent publication, ACRELEC believes that our integrated biometric solution provides various benefits to restaurant operators related to throughput, ticket size, and loyalty engagement,” says Bruno Lo-Re, President of ACRELEC America.

“We are thrilled about our partnership with PopID and to be on the edge of biometric technology for the benefit of our customers. Our guests now have the option to use biometrics for a faster and more seamless experience,” says Sardar Biglari, Chairman of Biglari Holdings, the parent company of Steak n Shake.

Now that biometrics are enabled for all ordering and payment inside Steak n Shake restaurants, PopID and Steak n Shake will begin implementing biometric check-in and checkout at the restaurant’s drive-through units. “Similar to the kiosks, biometric check in can increase loyalty participation and revenue at the drive thru while also reducing payment processing costs,” says John Miller, CEO of PopID and Chairman of Cali Group. “Additionally, biometric payment at the order confirmation screen enables staff members to work on tasks other than taking payments by card and phone at the order pick-up window.”

Stayntouch, a provider of cloud hotel property management systems (PMS) and guest-centric technology, announced a new partnership with Woby, a self-order and pay web app that simultaneously connects with existing POS and PMS platforms. Stayntouch now integrates with Woby’s customizable web app, allowing for real-time POS and PMS synchronization.

With Stayntouch PMS, hotels can streamline operations, automate tasks, and provide a seamless digital guest welcome experience with mobile check-in. Woby complements this by offering a self-order and pay platform that seamlessly connects with both the hotel PMS and POS, streamlining the in-stay dining experience from ordering to payments to room service and delivery. By connecting Stayntouch PMS with Woby, hotels will benefit from: 

• A flexible and full-featured cloud PMS, that can deliver a frictionless mobile welcome and departure experience for guests, while integrating with best-of-breed mobile POS platforms.
• Real-time synchronization between the PMS, POS, and accounting software, allowing guests to connect to a single QR code to order what they want, pay how they want, and have room charges validated automatically.
• A fully customizable look and workflow to fit seamlessly with any hotel branding design or operational needs. 
• A dedicated integration connector that sets up integrations in minutes instead of months, and streamlines third-party connections. 

Ruud Hontelé, the managing partner of Woby, said: "Woby stands out as the pioneering self-order and pay app that seamlessly integrates Stayntouch with your POS system. Say goodbye to the hassles and pain points associated with digital menus, ordering, payments and logistics processes. Enhance the guest experience significantly while also reducing costs for your business."

Priya Rajamani, the vice president of implementation and support for Stayntouch, said: “We are excited to partner with Woby, a platform that empowers hotels to provide guests with a completely mobile-first dining experience. By seamlessly integrating our cloud PMS with Woby's self-ordering and payment platform, hotels can deliver a more personalized and fully mobile guest check-in and dining experience, enhancing the on-property experience. This collaboration ensures real-time synchronization, enhanced operational efficiency and elevated guest satisfaction.”

Restaurant365 announced a $175 million funding round led by long-term partner ICONIQ Growth with participation from current investors, including KKR and L Catterton. The funding comes on the heels of 12 consecutive quarters exceeding sales targets, which drives confidence in future growth potential. 

“Restaurant365’s growth is a testament to their ability to create powerful solutions that bolster operations, improve margins and empower the workforce at restaurant companies of all sizes,” said Will Griffith, Founding Partner of ICONIQ Growth. “We’re honored to participate in this incredible opportunity to help the restaurant industry succeed in a way that once seemed impossible.”

Proceeds from the round will be invested in expanding enterprise features and growing the workforce and payroll product suite to continue supporting the world’s largest, most notable hospitality brands. Funds will also strengthen the company’s balance sheet to facilitate future acquisitions and support continued organic growth.

“We’re grateful our investors continue to value the business and its upward trajectory as demonstrated by this most recent vote of confidence,” said Restaurant365 CEO and Co-founder Tony Smith. “We take that trust from them seriously as well as the trust placed in us by our customers and the industry at large. We will continue our relentless pursuit of developing products that add value in new ways to this great industry.”

This latest round follows Restaurant365’s acquisition of ExpandShare, an AI-powered learning management system built to deliver and track impactful restaurant training content.

In addition to adding employee training to its offerings, Restaurant365 expanded its all-in-one platform over the past year with tip automation, task management, restaurant intelligence dashboards, and Capture AI, which brings the power of machine learning to invoice management.

Cantaloupe Inc., a provider of end-to-end technology solutions for self-service commerce, is making its debut at the upcoming National Restaurant Association Show in Chicago. Cantaloupe will be showcasing its self-service and mobile-first applications for stadiums, entertainment venues and hotels.

Cantaloupe is a global technology leader with more than 30 years of experience in powering self-service commerce. Cantaloupe’s mission is to revolutionize the way businesses engage with consumers by offering a comprehensive suite of solutions, including innovative kiosk and POS systems, as well as enterprise cloud software designed for a wide range of industries. With Cantaloupe’s end-to-end platform, businesses can drive engagement, increase sales revenue, and optimize operations, delivering exceptional experiences for both businesses and consumers.

“Cantaloupe’s solutions are specifically designed to cater to the growing demand for self-service and mobile-first experiences,” said Elyssa Steiner, chief marketing officer of Cantaloupe, Inc. “Our emphasis on convenience, efficiency and enhanced customer experiences really set Cantaloupe apart from traditional solutions and elevates guest and fan experiences into seamless journeys for shopping, ordering and paying.”

Attendees of the National Restaurant Association Show are invited to visit Cantaloupe's booth 6672 in the North Building of McCormick Place to experience Cantaloupe’s  technologies, including AI powered smart camera technology, which enables seamless and secure transactions. Cantaloupe's solutions eliminate the need for traditional checkout lines, providing customers with a hassle-free retail, food and beverage experience that includes convenience, speed, and flexibility in their transactions.

Some of the products Cantaloupe will be showcasing include its CHEQ point-of-sale (POS) platform, a mobile-first payment solution. CHEQ’s full end-to-end payment platform features mobile ordering (right from seats), mobile pick-up points (“CHEQ Points”) and innovative express kiosks (“CHEQ Zones”) to increase ordering efficiencies and decrease line wait times. CHEQ also offers its unique social gifting marketplace functionality, allowing guests, friends and family to send food and beverages to those attending a game or concert in real time, from anywhere in the world.

Cantaloupe’s booth at the National Restaurant Association Show will be highlighting:

• CHEQ POS Kiosks: available in attended or self-checkout mode, making ordering seamless across multiple revenue centers and empowering fans to self-service for reduced wait times.
• CHEQ Handheld: providing in-stadium vendors or those with on-the-go payment needs at festivals and events, the ability to accept payments anywhere, perfect for selling merchandise, food and beverages.
• CHEQ Mobile App: enables fans or event-goers the ability to order food and beverages from anywhere in the venue, with flexible pick-up or in-seat delivery options.
• Cantaloupe Smart Café: (Pictured) a fully locked cooler that enables true grab and go self-service with AI powered smart camera technology to charge the consumers card for the exact items they take out of the smart fridge.
• Cantaloupe Micro Markets for Hotel Pantries: a one-stop shop for cabinetry, coolers and self-checkout kiosks with the Cantaloupe Go MiniX cashless acceptance kiosk, that simply leverages existing pantry space and converts it into a self-service mini-market in hotel lobbies, creating less burden on employees to manage checking in guests and ringing up pantry products and instead, creates a fully grab-and-go experience.

To learn more about Cantaloupe, visit cantaloupe.com. 

Pudu Robotics, a global leader in service robotics, today announced the official debut of the upgraded PUDU SH1 Smart Upright Scrubber Dryer at Interclean 2024. The latest version of PUDU SH1 features extensive enhancements to deliver an altogether new product, boasting substantial design and cleaning capabilities improvements.

The PUDU SH1 is a testament to innovation, capable of multidimensional cleaning that extends beyond floors to tabletops, vertical glass surfaces, and challenging areas like corners and spaces beneath low furniture. Innovative design features of the PUDU SH1 allow for easy and efficient separation of air, liquid and debris waste, ensuring a convenient disposal process that prevents drain blockages and damage to the vacuum motor. With a 27kg down pressure, a 350rpm brush and 20KPa suction power, the SH1 excels at removing stubborn stains such as oil spills, dust deposits, and air-dried dirt, ensuring pristine conditions in diverse environments.

In response to the urgent need for sustainable and efficient cleaning solutions, PUDU SH1 sets a new standard for environmental responsibility. The SH1's advanced lithium battery technology and energy-efficient brushless motors significantly reduce the machine's ecological footprint, adhering to strict ROHS standards. By optimizing resource utilization, the SH1 saves up to 80% on water and cleaning agents compared to traditional mopping methods, and cuts cleaning time by a remarkable 70%. These features not only support eco-friendly practices but also translate into operational savings for businesses.

"Pudu Robotics is dedicated to empowering businesses to refine their services and heighten operational efficiency with our products designed to collaborate with human teams," said Felix Zhang, founder and CEO of Pudu Robotics. "This innovative product not only enhances cleaning performance but also embodies our commitment to sustainable product design and smart technology integration in cleaning workflows."

The SH1 boasts removable parts, which can be easily replaced and repaired to extend the use of the machine. Further product features include:

• Multidimensional Cleaning Capabilities: PUDU SH1 is equipped with a suite of accessories for cleaning floors, tabletops, vertical glass, corners, and under low furniture.
• Enhanced Cleaning Performance: The machine has high-efficiency cleaning with high pressure, rotational speed and suction power, as well as an innovative wastewater tank designed for effective air-liquid-debris waste separation.
• Touch Screen Interface: A user-friendly touch screen allows for easy management, including the selection of cleaning modes, displays of battery and water levels, and the generation of intelligent reports.
• Exceptional Stubborn Stain Removal: The machine is able to clean varied stains, including oil spills, dust deposits, and air-dried dirt, ensuring pristine conditions in various environments.
• Intelligent Detection for Safety: With intelligent diagnostics of core components, the PUDU SH1 ensures safe operation and simplifies maintenance.
• Air-Liquid-Debris Separation: PUDU SH1's wastewater tank features a layered design that facilitates the efficient separation of air, liquid and debris for easy disposal.