Zuppler Adds AI-Powered Upselling

Zuppler, a global software and services company focused on empowering solutions for the food services industry, introudced its AI-powered marketing services as part of the Menu Anywhere online ordering platform.

Also new: the automated abandon cart notification and order experience enhancements to its online ordering platform.

Smart Upsell is an AI-based tool that generates real-time recommendations based on what customers have added to their online cart. It also allows restaurants to upsell specific items, which can be especially useful for the introduction of new menu items to customers.

Zuppler uses machine learning algorithms to evaluate all the orders from customers and then generates recommendations based on what items are frequently ordered together. Recommendations constantly improve as the restaurant receives more orders, which helps the food provider increase transaction averages.

Logical Additions

For example, when a customer orders a sandwich, the system will query the historical order database, which indicates 200 people ordered chips together with sandwiches and would recommend chips as the suggested item. If a customer adds chips to the cart, the system would then check what items are ordered together with chips and sandwiches to provide the next suggestion. These suggestions are intelligent, continually improving and based on the merchant’s historical order data.

As customer continue to embrace online ordering and off premises dining, suggestive selling is an essential tool in the restaurant toolkit. Outback Steakhouse recently redesigned its mobile app,  making the app “more logical and easier to use” including the suggestions of commonly ordered side dishes with entrees.

Online ordering is table stakes.  When it comes to food delivery, 75% of guests prefer to order directly from a restaurant, according to HT's tenth annual Customer Engagement Technology Study, Powering Hospitality's Recovery. 

“Consumer adoption of online food ordering has grown exponentially in the past 24 months, and as a result, more consumers are visiting the websites of restaurants looking to order food for pickup and delivery,” states Shiva Srinivasan, CEO of Zuppler. “The challenge for restaurants is that fewer than 5% of visitors to online menus will complete their transaction online, or a loss of 95% of potential transactions. Zuppler continues to address this challenge and aggregated data shows a 13.3% higher ticket average for restaurants that use our upsell functionality.” 

Visit this article – Smart Upsell – to view how recommendations will appear in the menu.