Restaurant Data Collection Explained
Restaurant Data Collection is vital for stakeholders to make informed decisions by gathering key operational insights. It includes capturing customer preferences, sales figures, employee performance, menu success, and more. Analyzing this data helps identify areas for improvement, streamline operations, enhance customer satisfaction, and boost profitability.
This guide explores restaurant data collection, emphasizing its importance and strategies for actionable insights.
What is Restaurant Data Collection?
Restaurant Data Collection refers to the process of gathering, organizing, and analyzing data related to restaurant operations. It includes both quantitative and qualitative data, such as sales figures, customer feedback, employee performance metrics, and more. The goal is to gain a comprehensive understanding of the business’s strengths and weaknesses and identify growth opportunities.
Importance of Restaurant Data Collection
Effective restaurant data collection is essential for any business to thrive in today’s competitive market. Here are some of the key reasons why:
Decision-making
Data-driven decision-making enables restaurant owners and managers to make informed decisions based on facts rather than assumptions or gut feelings.
Identify trends and patterns
By collecting and analyzing data, businesses can identify trends and patterns that can help them make strategic decisions. For example, if a particular menu item is consistently popular among customers, the restaurant can consider adding it as a permanent item.
Improve operations
Data collection helps to identify areas for improvement in restaurant operations. For instance, by analyzing sales figures and customer feedback, businesses can identify which dishes are not selling well and make necessary changes to the menu.
Understand customer preferences
Data collection can provide insights into customer preferences, such as preferred dining times, dietary restrictions, and favorite menu items. This information can help restaurants tailor their offerings to meet the demands of their target audience.
Measure success
By tracking key performance indicators (KPIs) such as revenue, profit margins, and customer retention rates, businesses can measure their success and make adjustments as needed to achieve growth.
Stay ahead of the competition
With data collection, restaurants can keep track of their competitors’ offerings, pricing, and promotions. This information can help them stay competitive and even gain a competitive advantage in the market.
How Does Tastewise Do It?
At the beginning of each week, we start collecting data about every restaurant and every dish (or menu item) across our geographical data sets.
During this process, we document millions of dishes and aggregated data points about restaurant locations across multiple platforms – among them the four primary delivery platforms in the United States (Grubhub, Doordash, UberEats, and Postmates) and three delivery platforms in the United Kingdom (UberEats, Deliveroo, and JustEat).
After completing this process, we blend in social media data about the restaurant, so you can know not only what is happening on the menu itself, but also what are people saying about the restaurant location – all in real-time.
But… How Can We Know What’s Connected to What?
In other words, how do we keep track of what happens across different platforms within a specific location, and “connect the dots”? If a restaurant works with two different delivery platforms, how do we connect between the two?
This is where Tastewise’s AI capabilities come in handy. Using data-science magic, we can tell every restaurant how many delivery platforms they work with, all of the social media data profiles available around the restaurant, and all of the contact details where you can reach out to the restaurant (including email, LinkedIn, phone number(s) and more).
As mentioned, all this data is aggregated, so you can follow up all in one place. Even cooler than that – we use data science to cluster chain locations under the same page so you know all about what’s going on there – but that might be for a different blogpost 🙂
How Do You Know What Changes Over Time?
Next, Tastewise uses aggregated data about restaurants in the all-in-one format to record changes in every restaurant every week. In this process (or in the dev lingo: “job”), the week’s data is put as a new layer on top of the previous week’s data, so we know what exactly changed in every location across the US and the UK.
Comparing the week’s data with the one before, Tastewise can tell you which restaurant added what items to its menu, what changes we’ve seen in pricing, and which restaurants started (or stopped) partnering with delivery platforms. Tastewise also tracks which restaurants open and close, so you can always tap into new business opportunities.
How Do I Know Where to Start?
Not to worry – luckily, we got you covered! Using the Tastewise filters, you can adjust according to your category, location, audience, etc. and play around to make sure you get only what you need: a list of restaurants that will help you grow your business.
Targeting Italian restaurants that are single locations in Los Angeles? No problem. Looking for restaurants in Manchester that still don’t have delivery partners but do have an Instagram page? You got it. Need to reach out to high-end restaurants that started partnering with a delivery platform in the last two weeks? It’s all there.
Mix-and-match what’s best for you, and save the preset so you can come back and continue making data-driven decisions – all in the palm of your hand, in real time.
Ready to Use the Tastewise Solution for Foodservice?
Contact us at Tastewise to learn more about how our data-driven solutions can help your restaurant business thrive.
From menu optimization to trend forecasting, we provide valuable insights and actionable recommendations based on real-time industry data.
Let us help you make informed decisions and stay ahead of the competition in the ever-changing foodservice landscape. Contact us today.