Day Two: Tuesday, September 17
Preparing For Tomorrow: The Future is Here
On our second day of Future Restaurants, we will explore topics related to preparing yourself and your business for whatever the future may hold. We will go beyond theorizing and offer actionable insights into the tactics and technologies that will keep you ahead of the pack.
7:40 am - 8:30 am Women In Restaurants Private Breakfast
Meet other female restaurant executives and cultivate new professional relationships at our private breakfast! This session provides a unique networking and idea-sharing opportunity. Open to restaurant executives only.
8:00 am - 8:30 am Registration And Continental Breakfast
8:30 am - 8:35 am Welcome Remarks & Icebreaker
8:35 am - 8:50 am Chairperson’s Opening Remarks
8:50 am - 9:15 am Keynote Fireside Chat: Personalization Through Automation: How To Do Mass-Personalization
Personalization and automation might seem to be at odds with one another because personalization implies customizing an experience at an individual level and automation brings to mind a nonpersonalized process. However, automation and machine learning can be used to drive truly personalized customer experiences and brand engagement opportunities. TGI Fridays exemplifies this approach in their customer communications. The brand got its start as a singles bar and is returning to those roots in a new push towards 1:1 personalized brand communications. Join us as Chief Experience Officer Sherif Mityas explores:
- Harnessing the power of artificial intelligence to identify customer behavior patterns
- Dividing customers into segments based on defined metrics for their behavior patterns, preferences, locations, gender, etc.
- Developing a set of clearly identified and purposed procedures to customize experiences for different segments
- Conserving time, energy and money by personalizing digital and on-locations experiences for segmented groups rather than individual consumers
9:15 am - 9:40 am Harnessing The Power Of Ongoing Training To Bolster Job Satisfaction & Retention
As innovation in the restaurant space is increasing, the need for continued employed training is critical. However, ceasing training a few months after onboarding a new employee creates a missed opportunity for both employers and their employees. This session will explore:
- Designing a digital curriculum for employees that allows them to reference their training materials without having to keep track of paper binders and booklets
- Utilizing video-based trainings that are watched in the kitchens rather than classrooms to allow employees to practice new techniques as they learn them
- Keeping employees in the know about new menu items, location openings, company news and other industry happenings to bolster their engagement
- Using direct input from employees to cater ongoing trainings to the types of skills and disciplines they are most interested in
9:40 am - 10:10 am Keynote Panel: If You Can’t Take The Heat, Get Out Of The Kitchen: The Future Restaurants Rising Stars Panel
Industry innovation is oftentimes driven by new kids on the block, who must use new concepts, ideas, and technologies to rise above the rest of the pack. This tendency towards innovative thinking invariably elevates customer expectations for all dining experiences, thus driving innovation throughout the rest of the industry. This Rising Stars Panel will feature a few of the Restaurant Industry’s movers and shakers who will share their insights on:
- Defining innovation in the restaurant space and harnessing the power of innovative thinking to drive better, more efficient restaurant experiences
- Growing and expanding as a new company through constant re-invention of ideas and concepts
- Reconsidering the customer journey in restaurants to find new opportunities for problem-solving, personalization, and elevated experiences
- Harnessing the power of innovative thinking and design to create truly customer-centric experiences that are uniquely personalized to today’s customer
10:10 am - 10:55 am Morning Refreshment & Networking Break
Join us for coffee and conversations during this morning’s networking break! It’s a great time to refuel before heading into the rest of the day’s keynote sessions.
10:55 am - 11:00 am Bite Sized Advice Help Huddle: What Is The Optimal Level Of Personalization In Communications With Restaurant Guests?
Learn how to improve upon your personalization strategies with diners during this interactive roundtable. This 5 minute mini-session is done in your seat / roundtable.
11:00 am - 11:30 am Keynote Panel Discussion: Are You Better Off On Your Own? Assessing Your Options For Delivery
Studies show that revenue from food delivery will reach $75 billion by 2020 and is predicted to present 40% of total delivery revenue. Restaurants are eager to get a piece of that pie, but there are many options to consider when deciding whether to develop your own delivery process or outsource delivery to one or more third party delivery providers.. In this interactive session, our panelists will debate and discuss:
- Understanding which categories of food are best suited for delivery and how to assess whether or not your restaurant’s product can “survive the drive”
- Evaluating your options for delivery including having one or many third party partners
- Defining the level of personalization, customer service, speed, and quality that customers can expect from your food when it is delivered
- Determining which delivery option will be the most cost-effective and customer-centric for your business
11:30 am - 11:50 am Keynote Presentation: Self-Ordering Made Easy: How To Unify Restaurant Digital Touchpoints To Wow Customers And Enhance Operations
From kiosk to kitchen, Future Restaurants connect consumer mobile, kiosks, POS, and kitchen automation on a unified platform, streamlining operations and delighting customers. Learn from the industry leader how the self-ordering revolution is driving increased sales, lower costs, fewer mistakes, and better customer experiences.
Learning objectives:
- Why Android solutions are exploding in popularity
- How a unified architecture enhances customer experiences and keeps your IT team happy
- Considerations for how to make self-order easy to deploy and adopt
11:50 am - 12:15 pm Keynote Town Hall: Best Practices For Streamlining Restaurant Operations For Enhanced Customer Experience
At the heart of all change initiatives is a need for streamlined, consolidated and optimized operations. Technological updates, changes to workforce management, and even physical reconfigurations in your restaurant can be difficult if not possible to implement unless your operations are in order. This open-mic town hall session will answer your burning questions around:
- Synthesizing your operating systems to bring your POS, CRM, and workforce management processes under one roof to eliminate confusion driven by system incompatibility
- Selecting the right technology partner for streamlining and ensuring compatibility between all elements of your restaurant’s operations systems
- Utilizing historical data on your customers as well as your workforce to accurately anticipate and plan for changes in all areas of your restaurant’s planned operations
- Using clearly defined and streamlined operations procedures and systems to drive better and more efficient customer experiences both in-restaurant and digitally
12:15 pm - 1:15 pm Lunch For All Attendees
12:15 pm - 1:15 pm Private Lunch
Track A: Loyalty And Customer Engagement
1:15 pm - 1:25 pm Chairperson’s Opening Remarks
Track A: Loyalty And Customer Engagement
1:25 pm - 1:55 pm Case Study Remix: Phone Eats First: Serving Up Instagrammable Food Experiences95% of Americans are now carrying smartphones, almost all of which are equipped with high resolution cameras and can be logged into several social media sharing platforms at once. As such, restaurants are no longer just places to dine in or grab & go, but also venues for capturing and sharing brand experiences. Incase you missed Bar Louie’s Martini Month promotion or haven’t heard about the Summer Night Series, come hear from the CEO himself about creating instagram-worthy dining experiences.
- Curating food presentation as well as restaurant fixtures, signage, and décor to encourage photography and social media sharing
- Creating a taggable electronic location, establishing hashtags, and providing free and fast WiFi
- Designing ‘wow’ food moments that will increase foot traffic, incentivize specific ordering behaviors, and capitalize on the free social media publicity that food posting can provide you with
Track A: Loyalty And Customer Engagement
1:55 pm - 2:25 pm Panel Discussion: Driving Loyalty Through Thoughtful & Personalized Brand ExperiencesPersonalized and thoughtful brand experiences are the new normal for diners both in-location and through digital touch-points, but too much personalization can make customers feel uncomfortable and possibly even violate their trust. So how do you increase loyalty without getting “too” close for comfort? And is personalization even needed to drive loyalty? This session will evaluate different methods and degrees of personalization and instruct you on methods for:
- How to identify and expand upon the initiatives and brand communications that are currently driving loyalty at you restaurant
- Testing different personalization strategies to identify which is the most effective to increase revenues
- Thinking about weather, time of day, relevant current events and other public information to cater to unspoken customer needs in a noninvasive manner
- Demonstrating transparency in your personalization efforts to illustrate how and why you are personalizing a customer’s experience
- Creating thoughtful, personalized brand experiences that drive loyalty and increase customer lifetime value
Track B: Third Party Delivery, Partners And Platforms
1:15 pm - 1:25 pm Chairperson’s Opening RemarksTrack B: Third Party Delivery, Partners And Platforms
1:25 pm - 1:55 pm Panel Discussion: Keeping A Handle On What’s Out Of Your Hands: Maintaining Service Standards With Third-Party Delivery PartnersEvery element of your customer’s experience will have an effect on how they perceive your brand, which is why third-party delivery presents such a big risk. Even if you do everything right in preparing your food and packaging it for delivery, you can still end up in a situation in which the product is delivered late, cold, or not at all. This session will focus on:
-Determining which types of packaging is optimal for maintaining temperature and quality control for your food while it is en-route
-Evaluating whether using ‘ghost kitchens’ that exclusively prepare food for delivery would be optimal
-Minimizing your accepted delivery range
- Deciding whether you should decline to deliver to difficult or otherwise inconvenient locations
-Assessing potential third-party delivery partners based on their standards and protocols for timely deliveries, dress code for delivery person, modes of delivery transportation, and transparency of guest feedback
-Delivering an amazing customer experience by controlling quality wherever you can and selecting trustworthy partners for delivery
Track B: Third Party Delivery, Partners And Platforms
1:55 pm - 2:25 pm Case Study Remix: You Can Grow Together: Fostering Innovation At FranchisesBy definition, franchising your company means establishing clearly defined brand standards and processes and tasking a franchisee with running your business to your exact specifications. However, the standardization of business processes effectively de-incentivizes franchisees from thinking outside the box. Even so, innovation and uniformity need not be totally at odds with one another when it comes to franchises. This session will explore techniques for keeping your business agile and innovative across all franchises and includes key takeaways for:
-Empowering franchisees to propose ideas for enhancing the customer journey and innovating on existing brand concepts
-Shouldering the costs of technological innovations and enhancements to mitigate risk for franchisees and encourage them to adapt to new technologies
-Offering extensive training and support to franchisees that are implementing new technology and innovations
-Developing a clearly defined process of working with franchisees to identify and incubate new ideas to allow for seamless innovation and shared growth
Campfire Chats For Restaurant Executives
1:15 pm - 1:55 pm Campfire Chat: Don’t Get Spooked: Harnessing The Power Of Ghost KitchensGhost kitchens (also known as invisible restaurants) can be loosely defined as restaurant locations that only offer delivery. As delivery becomes the fulfilment option of choice for many consumers ghost kitchens are on the rise, yet a lot of confusion remains about how best to utilize them. This session will provide insight into:
- Evaluating the power of a ghost kitchen to serve as a foothold and testing ground in a new market for your restaurant
- Aligning processes and standards between standard locations and ghost kitchens to ensure consistent food quality, packaging, and experience across all locations
- Minimizing your footprint and maximizing efficiency by eliminating seating areas and dedicating an entire space to food preparation and packaging
- Synthesizing communications between restaurant hubs and ghost kitchens to ensure an omnichannel experience as well as brand quality and consistency
2:25 pm - 3:05 pm Afternoon Refreshment Break & Restaurant Site Tour Overview/Assignments
Be sure to bring your business cards to our final afternoon refreshment break! It’s your final chance to make new connections and friends before we organize into groups for the Restaurant Site Tours.
Restaurant site tour registration will be held in the Innovation Lab. If you have signed up for one of our site tours, then please make your way there to check in with your site tour leader.
3:05 pm - 4:35 pm Restaurant Site Tour #1: Chi’Lantro
Join us for a tour of Chi’Lantro, Austin’s favorite Korean-Mexican restaurant and food truck minichain. This innovative company was started in 2010 with a food truck and a vision to inspire the way people eat and think about Korean BBQ. Chi’lantro’s Founder & Owner, Jae Kim, will lead a tour of the company’s downtown Austin outpost, during which you will learn more about the company’s wheels to walls journey and unique approach to customer experience. This tour is for restaurant attendees only.
3:05 pm - 4:35 pm Restaurant Site Tour #2: Fareground Food Hall
Join us at the place where culinary meets community and work meets play; the Fareground Food Hall at One Eleven. Austin's first food hall features cuisine from six local vendors and is part park, part marketplace. We will tour the indoor and outdoor areas of Fareground while our Tour Guide explores how the food hall business model works to meet and exceed the expectations of today's modern conusmer. This tour is for restaurant attendees only.