July 23, 2025 • 18 mins
The self-service kiosk industry is exploding from $12 billion to $21 billion by 2027, and Don McCoole from Infi USA reveals how restaurants are seeing 40% sales increases through AI-powered upselling. From food trucks to major chains, kiosks are solving labor shortages, boosting average tickets by 20-30%, and delivering ROI in just 4-5 days. Discover why Gen Z prefers kiosks, how one location doubled tips from 8% to 14%, and the game-changing technology that's transforming customer engagement across QSR, fast-casual, and beyond.
This episode brought to you by: INFI — Self-ordering made simple.
👉 Visit infi.us to schedule a demo and see how INFI can work for your business.
http://bit.ly/infi-FCN
#RestaurantTech #SelfServiceKiosks #FastCasual
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Capital & Advisory: Are you a fast-casual restaurant startup or a technology innovator in the food service industry? Don't miss out on the opportunity to tap into decades of expertise. Reach out to Savor Capital & Advisory now to explore how their seasoned professionals can propel your business forward. Discover if you're eligible to leverage our unparalleled knowledge in food service branding and technology and take your venture to new heights.
Don't wait – amplify your voice or supercharge your startup's growth today with Savor's ecosystem of industry-leading platforms and advisory services. Visit https://www.savor.fm/capital-advisory
Get Your Podcast Now! Are you a hospitality or restaurant industry leader looking to amplify your voice and establish yourself as a thought leader? Look no further than SavorFM, the premier podcast platform designed exclusively for hospitality visionaries like you. Take the next step in your industry leadership journey – visit https://www.savor.fm/
Capital & Advisory: Are you a fast-casual restaurant startup or a technology innovator in the food service industry? Don't miss out on the opportunity to tap into decades of expertise. Reach out to Savor Capital & Advisory now to explore how their seasoned professionals can propel your business forward. Discover if you're eligible to leverage our unparalleled knowledge in food service branding and technology and take your venture to new heights.
Don't wait – amplify your voice or supercharge your startup's growth today with Savor's ecosystem of industry-leading platforms and advisory services. Visit https://www.savor.fm/capital-advisory
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
All right, guys, So we wanted to dive in a
little deeper on self service and the technology that really
lives behind this massive craze in the sector. Of course,
cheras a resident expert here I think, so she's going
to get into a lot of detail. And joining us
today is Don McCool who's coming in as the VP
of sales, coming from a company called INFI Don, welcome
(00:42):
into the show. How are you.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
I'm great. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
Yeah, yeah, thanks for stopping in. So we're going to
learn a lot about self service in general. Obviously, Shera.
You guys have a whole site dedicated to this, so
give me the rundown I will.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
Yeah. Yeah, we have a whole site called keils market
please where we geek out over all this technology with
all of you guys. But you know, we just covered
on Fast Casual that the industry and self service is
supposed to hit like over twenty one billion dollars by
twenty twenty seven. I think it's twelve right now, so
that's quite a bit of a big growth jump. So Don,
(01:17):
how are you seeing that translate with your clients? I mean,
are you getting people that you've smaller clients that you've
never had before that they're interested in it, or just
more projects. What's it look like?
Speaker 4 (01:28):
It's more verticals, medical, clinics, automotive services. It used to
just be QSR Fast Casual, but now with all the
addition of these other verticals, we're really starting to see
a broader.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
Adoption across the different markets.
Speaker 4 (01:44):
Another way we're seeing it is that there's a deeper
penetration into the existing core the QSR Fast Casual. QSRs
that had one location with one Kiosk are now adding
another or two more Kiosks to that same location. And
then the last one to me is channel partnerships. So
many ISOs and resellers out there want our Kiosk or
(02:07):
want a sell service solution that they can either white
label or bundle with their current offering. That that's creating
rapid growth in and of itself.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
Is that coming from like POS companies or are you
seeing this more in retail services or build out companies?
Where where is that growth coming from?
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Pos? Resellers?
Speaker 4 (02:25):
A lot of the times people that are specialized in
setting it up and making sure the entire tech stack
works for their customer, and then also ISOs. We see
a lot of it from ISOs too, especially on the
on the clover isoside.
Speaker 3 (02:37):
So you mentioned that you're seeing a lot of restaurants
that had one kiosk and one location and they're now
branching out. So can you talk about the costs of
that in the ROI. I mean, they're not cheap machines,
but can you get into you know, if you roll
this out in your restaurant, are you getting your money
back in six months, a year? You know, three weeks?
(02:58):
How does that look?
Speaker 2 (02:59):
Okay?
Speaker 4 (03:00):
So the way I sell it is sort of a
tripod if you will, Okay, there's three reasons for getting it.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
One to help improve your front of house labor costs.
Speaker 4 (03:09):
Another one is to increase throughput, and the third one
is to increase average ticket value. Now, depending on what
kind of pain the person is feeling will determine how
quickly they get their money back. If it's just about
average ticket value, and we already know that kiosks are
gonna increase average ticket value twenty to thirty percent. Just
based off of that alone, you can pay. You can
get your ROI each month or break even point on
(03:31):
our kiosk within four or.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
Five days easily. Okay.
Speaker 4 (03:35):
Yes, the the ROI on these things can go into
the thousands, and they're amazing.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
Another way is on the increased throughput.
Speaker 4 (03:42):
If if there's a line at the cash register, seventy
what is the stat seventy percent of people will leave
the restaurant if their line is six people or more.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
Okay, And then yes, that's a that's an interesting point
because there's a lot of data out there that is
talking about that right there. Lost sales. Wow, I didn't
think about that. That's a huge other than just upselling.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (04:10):
Yeah, And I really want to hit on the labor
here too, because the fact is it's getting harder and
harder to find people to work those jobs, and then
the people you do find are you have to pay
them more and more all the time.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
Okay.
Speaker 4 (04:23):
So now with the Kiosk, you actually are helping replace
some of that employee potential and you can actually reallocate
your current staff to higher value guest interactions. And to me,
that's the most important thing when it comes to building
customer loyalty. They had to have had a good experience
when they were there.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
Right, are you seeing the customer I mean I'm sorry.
Are you seeing the employees of the restaurants like embracing them.
Are they like, oh my gosh, more technology, or they
like it because it's less hands on for them.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
It's fifty to fifty. Some people don't like it.
Speaker 4 (04:54):
Some people believe it's going to affect their tips negatively,
even though we do have data that shows tipping on
the kiosk is traditionally higher than tipping at the cash register.
Some people just don't want to do. Oh yeah, we
have a good customer of ours out in Hawaii. They're
at the countertips average eight percent. On the kiosk, it
averages fourteen percent.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
That's amazing.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
Okay, yeah, I'm showing some of the stuff from your
website here, which is kind of cool around the QSR sector. Obviously,
you know our show Fast Casual Nation. This is a
growing sector as well around especially when you look at
what you're talking about here, just around customer engagement and loyalty.
That's a big part of the industry. When you focus
(05:34):
on that, explain some of the use cases of how
that works.
Speaker 4 (05:39):
On customer engagement and loyalty specifically, Yeah, yeah, yeah, you
walk up to the kiosk as soon as you tap
on it, the first you pick dine in or to go.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
If you pick dine in the.
Speaker 4 (05:49):
First thing or to go, the first thing it's going
to ask you is to put in your phone number
to either enroll in the loyalty program or put it
in there so you can take advantage of any discounts
that you're being offered in the loyalty program. That interaction
right there can save customers a significant amount of money.
So many of them want to when was the last
time the employee at the cash register asked for your
(06:09):
phone number to sign you up for that? Work happens
all the time in retail stores, right because they're taking
exactly but it does not happen in QSRs.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
Interesting, So there are obviously several kiosk companies out here,
and so what is your advice to some restaurant operators
who are like, maybe I will get in the kiosk,
but I have no idea where to start, because you know,
I've got fifty people hitting me up for it. Maybe
two or three things that they should look for in
a deployer for the tech.
Speaker 4 (06:41):
One number one, and it's it's hard to prove this
right at the beginning, but we hit it hard during
our sales process.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
Is the customer support.
Speaker 4 (06:49):
Not only are we going to provide training to the staff, okay,
we're going to help them get guests to adopt it,
and we're going to be engaged post deployment to make
sure that everybody's satisfied, the customers and the guests. We
call it our ambassador program.
Speaker 3 (07:06):
So how do you help them get the guests to
be comfortable with it?
Speaker 2 (07:09):
We stand in there for exisiting there.
Speaker 4 (07:12):
A good one is when I was acting as the
Kiosk Ambassador and people were coming in, I was asking them, Hey,
it was like, hey, would you mind ordering off the Kiosks.
I'll I'll buy your coffee today for you. Things of
that nature, just to get people used to it.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
Awesome.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
Yeah, you guys, you have a lot of brands listed
here both you know from some of these brands we've
had on the show. I'm just looking at their soul
Taco's in there, and you look at the growth around
this sector wise, is there a size that is perfect
for deploying this kind of technology or does this work
(07:47):
pretty much with anybody?
Speaker 4 (07:49):
With anybody. We have a significant amount of food truck customers.
You know, single location driving around. Our weather resistant kiosk
is great for that use case. And then of course
you know star Bucks and other places that are thousands
of stores have them also USR casual convention like.
Speaker 3 (08:07):
A food truck situation. Do you have like a big
kios that they set out there or is it just
a little one that goes in the window or.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
How does that work?
Speaker 4 (08:15):
Multiple multiple choices, so they could use one of our
normally indoor models and carry back and forth. I recommend
they get the weather resistant one and that can be
understand and they can bring that out. My personal recommendation
is get the weather resistant one and mount it to
your truck.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
That to me, that's the best way to do it.
There's a little locks back there that.
Speaker 4 (08:34):
You can engage during the day, and when you're done
with it, you can and unlock them and pop it
off and put it inside the truck so it's safe
for the night.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
Sounds cool.
Speaker 3 (08:42):
So we talked about the benefits that they obviously add
with labor and customer service. But I know there's also
a data collection component how you can capture that data,
So can you talk about that.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (08:58):
The first part, of course is the loyalty program. Right,
if we're getting their name and their number there.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
That's great.
Speaker 4 (09:02):
But if they choose to skip that later on in
the process when they pay, we ask them how they
want their receipt. What we want them to do is
pick text messaging, right, because then again they'll put in
their first name, they'll put in their phone number. Now
you have a database of customers that came to your
restaurant that you can text message market. The other part
is the loyalty but once again where we can gather
their email address and then make.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
That part of the restaurant's current outreach.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
You guys are connected already, so you're integrated. I'm looking
at the list we just showed it on screen here.
But for those on the audio side of the podcast,
Square Clover, Light Speed, Toast, NCR, Challie Revel, looks like
you're getting into all the major point of sales systems
out there. When you look at the use case, especially
(09:47):
from a POS side in terms of deploying, is how
easy is it for you to launch an infy system
You plug it right into my toast POS.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
What would be.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
The timeline I guess for me as an operation to
say okay, I want to do it and how long
does it take to get it done excellently.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
So let's say it's a Monday, you signed the contract.
Speaker 4 (10:07):
By Wednesday, the Kiosk will ship out to your location,
take anywhere from five to seven days to get there.
The implementation manager during that time will schedule the first meeting,
the first implementation meeting, and our goal is to have
three with the customer to make sure it's set up correctly.
But within ten to twelve days you could have the
Kiosk out there and actually have it running.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
How much of a training you know Q is there?
Once you've got it in store, you've got to get
your staff kind of prepped for not only building around it,
because you know it's it itself is going to probably
require some awareness of what's going on. Is there anything
you have to do as an operator to kind of
be ready for the equipment coming in?
Speaker 4 (10:49):
Yeah, it depends on what kind of installation you want
to do. We do have the ability to do what
called white glove installation, and of course that costs extra
because we'll have somebody go out on site and actually
it together through the wiring, etc. Most of our customers
choose to put it together themselves. For I've done it
enough times now that when I go to a convention
and I have to put one together, I can have
(11:10):
it up and running in five minutes, a brand new
person doing it. It's eight screws for the kiosk itself
if it's floor standing, and then three for the payment terminal,
a couple of plugs.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
And you're ready to go. Usually it takes about thirty
minutes for a regular floor standing.
Speaker 4 (11:23):
Obviously, well mounted would take a little bit longer because
now you have to measure, drill, all that kind of
good stuff.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
But after that, you turn it on and it's ready
to go.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
Yeah, I'm looking at these mounting solutions. I'll bring this
up on screen. This is kind of interesting because when
you think about because I think with drive through, you know,
they've kind of weather hardened a lot of that equipment outside.
Now when you've got kiosks that are potential, I can
especially in the food truck. That one is intriguing to me.
(11:55):
How is the display technology done? Is this something that's
going to be able to handle, you know, like direct sunlight,
all that kind of thing that you know, because I'm
looking at that, you said you could mount these right
to the truck on the outside.
Speaker 4 (12:07):
These ones you could, but these are our indoor kiosks.
I'll find you a picture of our weather resistant one.
It looks like that screen, but just the screen that
there's no base to it. And it has a brightness
of two thousand knits, which is as far as I know,
the brightest in the market. So while if there is
direct sunlight on it, you you still might have to
(12:27):
shade your eyes to see it, but you can see
that the screen is on even with.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
Some things turning on it directly. Very very cool.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
I love the tech. It seems like it's advanced up
so much, you know, and I think with self service,
this market is growing so fast where we're seeing more
and more people. Do you find that there are certain
demographics that like attach and actually want to use the kiosk?
I mean because if you go to you know, self
checkout lanes, there's like a demo that you can kind
(12:56):
of follow in the whole foods or the different grocery stores.
Who goes where.
Speaker 4 (13:02):
Yep, gen Z teenagers, those are the ones that are
most likely to go to the kiosk.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
Half the time.
Speaker 4 (13:09):
They have their earbuds in and they don't want to
talk to anybody anyway. They're doing something already. Gen Xers
like myself are probably split fifty to fifty. When I
walk into a restaurant or a QSR, if there's a kiosk,
that's where I'm going and that's where you go.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
That's the way I am. My parents, on the other hand,
they will never use a kiosk. They're just not built
like that and they don't.
Speaker 3 (13:27):
Want right, So let's talk about AI because I feel
like we can't do any tech without AI.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
Are you guys using any of that?
Speaker 3 (13:36):
If we can't do any tech tech talk without talking
about AI, are you guys using that for like recommended
product recommendations?
Speaker 4 (13:44):
So earlier we were talking about the increase in average
ticket value. That's where that's due to the cross selling
and up selling. Right, Well, now we are starting to
use AI driven up selling and cross selling. So it's
it's gathering all the data from all the behavior. And
it gets even more specific is if the person is
logged into the loyalty program, because now it knows who
(14:05):
they are and it's giving the suggestions based off of probability,
which is to me amazing. We have a customer out
and actually the same customer with the tips and white,
he increased his average ticket value by forty percent just
by up selling or cross selling little sides of rice
to go with the meals forty percent increase in average
(14:27):
ticket value due to rice alone.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
How crazy is that? Now? Imagine what this AI can
do with.
Speaker 4 (14:34):
All the information it's gathered and displaying it to the
customers as they're using the kiosk.
Speaker 3 (14:39):
Yeah, you can get to do it. Real can get
an employee to ask you what fries with that? They're
definitely not going to ask you what rice with that?
So that's great.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
Well, I think as AI gets in probably with brands.
You know, what we're seeing, at least with all the
companies we've been talking to, is that you know, it's
learning as you know consumers are using it, so it's
getting smarter in your own data set, which is really
powerful because it starts to kind of understand what works,
what doesn't work, all those kind of components. Is there
(15:09):
any relevance to smart ai where it looks at your
menu mix, it looks at your sales, and then it says, okay,
this is actually a more profitable up sell, and it's
probably equally interesting to the guest. Are you seeing any
of that kind of technology yet.
Speaker 4 (15:27):
Not on the menu optimization side. What I'm seeing more
and more is this evolution from it being a transactional
tool into sort of a customer engagement or a customer
experience platform. As the AI gets better, it's going to
start walking people more and more through their own custom
tailored journey from beginning to end. And I think that
(15:50):
you're going to see operators that sort of master that
they're going to turn their self serve options into a
brand differ differentiator in and of itself and create a
true competitive creditive advantage for themselves. I'm sure there is
menu optimization out there, I just haven't seen it.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
Yeah, well it's coming, man. I'm telling you. The amount
of AI integration that we're seeing, at least on our
show is one everybody's starting to use tech. I think
we're seeing more and more use case of self service.
I think probably even more so now with third party
because a lot of people are going in for first
(16:26):
party order. This was something I talked about on another
podcast today. Is that first party meaning you place the
order online, then you go in and pick it up,
so you have these pickup kiosks that are now playing
into this whole self service component. I think there's a
lot of opportunity here, for sure.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
There's a lot of opportunity here.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
Where can people find you? Specifically? Obviously infe dot us
is your website, but if they're trying to reach out
to you, guys, what's the best way to do it?
Speaker 4 (16:57):
Come to our website and select get a demo up
there on the top.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
Right there, you go, get a demo, you guys can
do it. Make sure and tell them that you heard
it over here on Fast Casual Nation. Don it's been
good having you on the show breaking down some of this.
We got to get you back on to talk about
kind of the future of where this trend is going
around self service, because this is going to be a topic.
I think that we'll be coming up more and more
because a lot of the operators were talking to Man,
(17:23):
it seems like they bring it up every almost every episode.
Shaff It's crazy, absolutely huge opportunity. Thanks for coming on,
you bet, thanks for coming on. We really appreciate it.
Thank you, all right, see you soon, all right, Scher, So,
as we break into more tech talks around what's happening
in Fast Casual self service is a big part of this. Obviously,
(17:45):
what Ifie's doing here with.
Speaker 2 (17:48):
Which I thought was interesting.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
They had mobile acts. We didn't get a chance to
talk to me about that, but guys, you can learn
a lot bit more. Just go over to the infy
dot us a great place for you guys to dive in.
If you're trying to get more automation in your restaurant,
check it out. And if you're not subscribe to the podcast,
make sure and do that right now just down below.
If you're listening to us on the audio side of this,
(18:11):
very easy to do, and if you're over on YouTube,
just make sure you just hit like and subscribe and
we'll catch you soon right here on Fast Casual Nation.
All right, guys, So we wanted to dive in a
little deeper on self service and the technology that really
lives behind this massive craze in the sector. Of course,
cheras a resident expert here I think, so she's going
to get into a lot of detail. And joining us
today is Don McCool who's coming in as the VP
of sales, coming from a company called INFI Don, welcome
(00:42):
into the show. How are you.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
I'm great. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
Yeah, yeah, thanks for stopping in. So we're going to
learn a lot about self service in general. Obviously, Shera.
You guys have a whole site dedicated to this, so
give me the rundown I will.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
Yeah. Yeah, we have a whole site called keils market
please where we geek out over all this technology with
all of you guys. But you know, we just covered
on Fast Casual that the industry and self service is
supposed to hit like over twenty one billion dollars by
twenty twenty seven. I think it's twelve right now, so
that's quite a bit of a big growth jump. So Don,
(01:17):
how are you seeing that translate with your clients? I mean,
are you getting people that you've smaller clients that you've
never had before that they're interested in it, or just
more projects. What's it look like?
Speaker 4 (01:28):
It's more verticals, medical, clinics, automotive services. It used to
just be QSR Fast Casual, but now with all the
addition of these other verticals, we're really starting to see
a broader.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
Adoption across the different markets.
Speaker 4 (01:44):
Another way we're seeing it is that there's a deeper
penetration into the existing core the QSR Fast Casual. QSRs
that had one location with one Kiosk are now adding
another or two more Kiosks to that same location. And
then the last one to me is channel partnerships. So
many ISOs and resellers out there want our Kiosk or
(02:07):
want a sell service solution that they can either white
label or bundle with their current offering. That that's creating
rapid growth in and of itself.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
Is that coming from like POS companies or are you
seeing this more in retail services or build out companies?
Where where is that growth coming from?
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Pos? Resellers?
Speaker 4 (02:25):
A lot of the times people that are specialized in
setting it up and making sure the entire tech stack
works for their customer, and then also ISOs. We see
a lot of it from ISOs too, especially on the
on the clover isoside.
Speaker 3 (02:37):
So you mentioned that you're seeing a lot of restaurants
that had one kiosk and one location and they're now
branching out. So can you talk about the costs of
that in the ROI. I mean, they're not cheap machines,
but can you get into you know, if you roll
this out in your restaurant, are you getting your money
back in six months, a year? You know, three weeks?
(02:58):
How does that look?
Speaker 2 (02:59):
Okay?
Speaker 4 (03:00):
So the way I sell it is sort of a
tripod if you will, Okay, there's three reasons for getting it.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
One to help improve your front of house labor costs.
Speaker 4 (03:09):
Another one is to increase throughput, and the third one
is to increase average ticket value. Now, depending on what
kind of pain the person is feeling will determine how
quickly they get their money back. If it's just about
average ticket value, and we already know that kiosks are
gonna increase average ticket value twenty to thirty percent. Just
based off of that alone, you can pay. You can
get your ROI each month or break even point on
(03:31):
our kiosk within four or.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
Five days easily. Okay.
Speaker 4 (03:35):
Yes, the the ROI on these things can go into
the thousands, and they're amazing.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
Another way is on the increased throughput.
Speaker 4 (03:42):
If if there's a line at the cash register, seventy
what is the stat seventy percent of people will leave
the restaurant if their line is six people or more.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
Okay, And then yes, that's a that's an interesting point
because there's a lot of data out there that is
talking about that right there. Lost sales. Wow, I didn't
think about that. That's a huge other than just upselling.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (04:10):
Yeah, And I really want to hit on the labor
here too, because the fact is it's getting harder and
harder to find people to work those jobs, and then
the people you do find are you have to pay
them more and more all the time.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
Okay.
Speaker 4 (04:23):
So now with the Kiosk, you actually are helping replace
some of that employee potential and you can actually reallocate
your current staff to higher value guest interactions. And to me,
that's the most important thing when it comes to building
customer loyalty. They had to have had a good experience
when they were there.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
Right, are you seeing the customer I mean I'm sorry.
Are you seeing the employees of the restaurants like embracing them.
Are they like, oh my gosh, more technology, or they
like it because it's less hands on for them.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
It's fifty to fifty. Some people don't like it.
Speaker 4 (04:54):
Some people believe it's going to affect their tips negatively,
even though we do have data that shows tipping on
the kiosk is traditionally higher than tipping at the cash register.
Some people just don't want to do. Oh yeah, we
have a good customer of ours out in Hawaii. They're
at the countertips average eight percent. On the kiosk, it
averages fourteen percent.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
That's amazing.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
Okay, yeah, I'm showing some of the stuff from your
website here, which is kind of cool around the QSR sector. Obviously,
you know our show Fast Casual Nation. This is a
growing sector as well around especially when you look at
what you're talking about here, just around customer engagement and loyalty.
That's a big part of the industry. When you focus
(05:34):
on that, explain some of the use cases of how
that works.
Speaker 4 (05:39):
On customer engagement and loyalty specifically, Yeah, yeah, yeah, you
walk up to the kiosk as soon as you tap
on it, the first you pick dine in or to go.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
If you pick dine in the.
Speaker 4 (05:49):
First thing or to go, the first thing it's going
to ask you is to put in your phone number
to either enroll in the loyalty program or put it
in there so you can take advantage of any discounts
that you're being offered in the loyalty program. That interaction
right there can save customers a significant amount of money.
So many of them want to when was the last
time the employee at the cash register asked for your
(06:09):
phone number to sign you up for that? Work happens
all the time in retail stores, right because they're taking
exactly but it does not happen in QSRs.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
Interesting, So there are obviously several kiosk companies out here,
and so what is your advice to some restaurant operators
who are like, maybe I will get in the kiosk,
but I have no idea where to start, because you know,
I've got fifty people hitting me up for it. Maybe
two or three things that they should look for in
a deployer for the tech.
Speaker 4 (06:41):
One number one, and it's it's hard to prove this
right at the beginning, but we hit it hard during
our sales process.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
Is the customer support.
Speaker 4 (06:49):
Not only are we going to provide training to the staff, okay,
we're going to help them get guests to adopt it,
and we're going to be engaged post deployment to make
sure that everybody's satisfied, the customers and the guests. We
call it our ambassador program.
Speaker 3 (07:06):
So how do you help them get the guests to
be comfortable with it?
Speaker 2 (07:09):
We stand in there for exisiting there.
Speaker 4 (07:12):
A good one is when I was acting as the
Kiosk Ambassador and people were coming in, I was asking them, Hey,
it was like, hey, would you mind ordering off the Kiosks.
I'll I'll buy your coffee today for you. Things of
that nature, just to get people used to it.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
Awesome.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
Yeah, you guys, you have a lot of brands listed
here both you know from some of these brands we've
had on the show. I'm just looking at their soul
Taco's in there, and you look at the growth around
this sector wise, is there a size that is perfect
for deploying this kind of technology or does this work
(07:47):
pretty much with anybody?
Speaker 4 (07:49):
With anybody. We have a significant amount of food truck customers.
You know, single location driving around. Our weather resistant kiosk
is great for that use case. And then of course
you know star Bucks and other places that are thousands
of stores have them also USR casual convention like.
Speaker 3 (08:07):
A food truck situation. Do you have like a big
kios that they set out there or is it just
a little one that goes in the window or.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
How does that work?
Speaker 4 (08:15):
Multiple multiple choices, so they could use one of our
normally indoor models and carry back and forth. I recommend
they get the weather resistant one and that can be
understand and they can bring that out. My personal recommendation
is get the weather resistant one and mount it to
your truck.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
That to me, that's the best way to do it.
There's a little locks back there that.
Speaker 4 (08:34):
You can engage during the day, and when you're done
with it, you can and unlock them and pop it
off and put it inside the truck so it's safe
for the night.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
Sounds cool.
Speaker 3 (08:42):
So we talked about the benefits that they obviously add
with labor and customer service. But I know there's also
a data collection component how you can capture that data,
So can you talk about that.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (08:58):
The first part, of course is the loyalty program. Right,
if we're getting their name and their number there.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
That's great.
Speaker 4 (09:02):
But if they choose to skip that later on in
the process when they pay, we ask them how they
want their receipt. What we want them to do is
pick text messaging, right, because then again they'll put in
their first name, they'll put in their phone number. Now
you have a database of customers that came to your
restaurant that you can text message market. The other part
is the loyalty but once again where we can gather
their email address and then make.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
That part of the restaurant's current outreach.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
You guys are connected already, so you're integrated. I'm looking
at the list we just showed it on screen here.
But for those on the audio side of the podcast,
Square Clover, Light Speed, Toast, NCR, Challie Revel, looks like
you're getting into all the major point of sales systems
out there. When you look at the use case, especially
(09:47):
from a POS side in terms of deploying, is how
easy is it for you to launch an infy system
You plug it right into my toast POS.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
What would be.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
The timeline I guess for me as an operation to
say okay, I want to do it and how long
does it take to get it done excellently.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
So let's say it's a Monday, you signed the contract.
Speaker 4 (10:07):
By Wednesday, the Kiosk will ship out to your location,
take anywhere from five to seven days to get there.
The implementation manager during that time will schedule the first meeting,
the first implementation meeting, and our goal is to have
three with the customer to make sure it's set up correctly.
But within ten to twelve days you could have the
Kiosk out there and actually have it running.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
How much of a training you know Q is there?
Once you've got it in store, you've got to get
your staff kind of prepped for not only building around it,
because you know it's it itself is going to probably
require some awareness of what's going on. Is there anything
you have to do as an operator to kind of
be ready for the equipment coming in?
Speaker 4 (10:49):
Yeah, it depends on what kind of installation you want
to do. We do have the ability to do what
called white glove installation, and of course that costs extra
because we'll have somebody go out on site and actually
it together through the wiring, etc. Most of our customers
choose to put it together themselves. For I've done it
enough times now that when I go to a convention
and I have to put one together, I can have
(11:10):
it up and running in five minutes, a brand new
person doing it. It's eight screws for the kiosk itself
if it's floor standing, and then three for the payment terminal,
a couple of plugs.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
And you're ready to go. Usually it takes about thirty
minutes for a regular floor standing.
Speaker 4 (11:23):
Obviously, well mounted would take a little bit longer because
now you have to measure, drill, all that kind of
good stuff.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
But after that, you turn it on and it's ready
to go.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
Yeah, I'm looking at these mounting solutions. I'll bring this
up on screen. This is kind of interesting because when
you think about because I think with drive through, you know,
they've kind of weather hardened a lot of that equipment outside.
Now when you've got kiosks that are potential, I can
especially in the food truck. That one is intriguing to me.
(11:55):
How is the display technology done? Is this something that's
going to be able to handle, you know, like direct sunlight,
all that kind of thing that you know, because I'm
looking at that, you said you could mount these right
to the truck on the outside.
Speaker 4 (12:07):
These ones you could, but these are our indoor kiosks.
I'll find you a picture of our weather resistant one.
It looks like that screen, but just the screen that
there's no base to it. And it has a brightness
of two thousand knits, which is as far as I know,
the brightest in the market. So while if there is
direct sunlight on it, you you still might have to
(12:27):
shade your eyes to see it, but you can see
that the screen is on even with.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
Some things turning on it directly. Very very cool.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
I love the tech. It seems like it's advanced up
so much, you know, and I think with self service,
this market is growing so fast where we're seeing more
and more people. Do you find that there are certain
demographics that like attach and actually want to use the kiosk?
I mean because if you go to you know, self
checkout lanes, there's like a demo that you can kind
(12:56):
of follow in the whole foods or the different grocery stores.
Who goes where.
Speaker 4 (13:02):
Yep, gen Z teenagers, those are the ones that are
most likely to go to the kiosk.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
Half the time.
Speaker 4 (13:09):
They have their earbuds in and they don't want to
talk to anybody anyway. They're doing something already. Gen Xers
like myself are probably split fifty to fifty. When I
walk into a restaurant or a QSR, if there's a kiosk,
that's where I'm going and that's where you go.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
That's the way I am. My parents, on the other hand,
they will never use a kiosk. They're just not built
like that and they don't.
Speaker 3 (13:27):
Want right, So let's talk about AI because I feel
like we can't do any tech without AI.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
Are you guys using any of that?
Speaker 3 (13:36):
If we can't do any tech tech talk without talking
about AI, are you guys using that for like recommended
product recommendations?
Speaker 4 (13:44):
So earlier we were talking about the increase in average
ticket value. That's where that's due to the cross selling
and up selling. Right, Well, now we are starting to
use AI driven up selling and cross selling. So it's
it's gathering all the data from all the behavior. And
it gets even more specific is if the person is
logged into the loyalty program, because now it knows who
(14:05):
they are and it's giving the suggestions based off of probability,
which is to me amazing. We have a customer out
and actually the same customer with the tips and white,
he increased his average ticket value by forty percent just
by up selling or cross selling little sides of rice
to go with the meals forty percent increase in average
(14:27):
ticket value due to rice alone.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
How crazy is that? Now? Imagine what this AI can
do with.
Speaker 4 (14:34):
All the information it's gathered and displaying it to the
customers as they're using the kiosk.
Speaker 3 (14:39):
Yeah, you can get to do it. Real can get
an employee to ask you what fries with that? They're
definitely not going to ask you what rice with that?
So that's great.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
Well, I think as AI gets in probably with brands.
You know, what we're seeing, at least with all the
companies we've been talking to, is that you know, it's
learning as you know consumers are using it, so it's
getting smarter in your own data set, which is really
powerful because it starts to kind of understand what works,
what doesn't work, all those kind of components. Is there
(15:09):
any relevance to smart ai where it looks at your
menu mix, it looks at your sales, and then it says, okay,
this is actually a more profitable up sell, and it's
probably equally interesting to the guest. Are you seeing any
of that kind of technology yet.
Speaker 4 (15:27):
Not on the menu optimization side. What I'm seeing more
and more is this evolution from it being a transactional
tool into sort of a customer engagement or a customer
experience platform. As the AI gets better, it's going to
start walking people more and more through their own custom
tailored journey from beginning to end. And I think that
(15:50):
you're going to see operators that sort of master that
they're going to turn their self serve options into a
brand differ differentiator in and of itself and create a
true competitive creditive advantage for themselves. I'm sure there is
menu optimization out there, I just haven't seen it.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
Yeah, well it's coming, man. I'm telling you. The amount
of AI integration that we're seeing, at least on our
show is one everybody's starting to use tech. I think
we're seeing more and more use case of self service.
I think probably even more so now with third party
because a lot of people are going in for first
(16:26):
party order. This was something I talked about on another
podcast today. Is that first party meaning you place the
order online, then you go in and pick it up,
so you have these pickup kiosks that are now playing
into this whole self service component. I think there's a
lot of opportunity here, for sure.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
There's a lot of opportunity here.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
Where can people find you? Specifically? Obviously infe dot us
is your website, but if they're trying to reach out
to you, guys, what's the best way to do it?
Speaker 4 (16:57):
Come to our website and select get a demo up
there on the top.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
Right there, you go, get a demo, you guys can
do it. Make sure and tell them that you heard
it over here on Fast Casual Nation. Don it's been
good having you on the show breaking down some of this.
We got to get you back on to talk about
kind of the future of where this trend is going
around self service, because this is going to be a topic.
I think that we'll be coming up more and more
because a lot of the operators were talking to Man,
(17:23):
it seems like they bring it up every almost every episode.
Shaff It's crazy, absolutely huge opportunity. Thanks for coming on,
you bet, thanks for coming on. We really appreciate it.
Thank you, all right, see you soon, all right, Scher, So,
as we break into more tech talks around what's happening
in Fast Casual self service is a big part of this. Obviously,
(17:45):
what Ifie's doing here with.
Speaker 2 (17:48):
Which I thought was interesting.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
They had mobile acts. We didn't get a chance to
talk to me about that, but guys, you can learn
a lot bit more. Just go over to the infy
dot us a great place for you guys to dive in.
If you're trying to get more automation in your restaurant,
check it out. And if you're not subscribe to the podcast,
make sure and do that right now just down below.
If you're listening to us on the audio side of this,
(18:11):
very easy to do, and if you're over on YouTube,
just make sure you just hit like and subscribe and
we'll catch you soon right here on Fast Casual Nation.
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