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CALABASAS, CALIF. --With average unit volumes hovering at about $10.3 million,
The Cheesecake Factory Inc. would appear to have little need for customer
relationship management tools. However, the chain of high-volume casual
dinner-house restaurants, based here, nevertheless is deploying such technology.
Among the most visible of the chain's emerging CRM aids is the ProHost for the
Windows "front desk" wait-list and table-management system. If the comments of
company leaders are any indication, the pending integration of the ProHost
application and the chain's new POSitouch point-of-sale system is among the most
anticipated IT developments m the near term.
"As high volume as we are, we have guests who are incredibly loyal," said Sheila
Overton, the chain's senior director of information systems. "So it is amazing
to be able to have [customer] information and to return that loyalty" through
improved service, discounts or other tokens of appreciation.
Cheesecake Factory has ProHost installed at nine restaurants, including outlets
in San Francisco; Houston; and Kansas City; Mo. The product uses computing power
and graphical displays to manage table waits more efficiently and runs on
Windows terminals and handheld devices connected by wireless networks.
With a no-reservation policy and waits of up to four hours, Cheesecake Factory
for a long time has had an interest in tools with the potential to speed up
table turns, managers said. Front-desk employees at most of the chain's
restaurants still use grease-pencil boards and paper-based notes to manage the
wait.
ProHost has had a DOS-based product for some- time, but Cheesecake Factory
wasn't sold on the system until it saw the graphical interface, features and
functions of the latest version, ProHost for Windows 2000/XP Professional, chief
information officer Rick Smith explained.
The ability of ProHost to support multiple data-entry terminals was an important
consideration for Cheesecake Factory, because many of its large restaurants have
multiple entrances, some spread over two levels. That functionality was also
important, Smith said, because some units regularly create multiple lines to
accommodate the crush of would-be diners who want to get on the wait list.
Cheesecake Factory founder and chief executive David Overton has said of his
chain's employees: "We have always prided ourselves on seating people incredibly
fast. Our goal is when the last spoon goes down from the busser, the host is on
the way with the next party." Added Overton, "Right now we're fast, but we can
get faster."
The ProHost system used by Cheesecake Factory stores and cycles through names on
the wait list. It prints out for guests tickets with estimated table wait times
based on preprogrammed averages. And it enables employees who seat guests to
notify the front desk immediately if they spy a party leaving a table or a
busser completing his or her task.
Those capabilities -- along with the graphical and easy-to-discern presentation
of table status -- are making table management at some restaurants "more
efficient," Smith said.
Both David and Sheila Overton envision a future day when ProHost might
contribute dynamic wait estimates and additional actionable data related to
labor flow and other aspects of guest experience, such as the time between the
clearing of the dessert dishes and the presentation of the check. But before
that can happen, they pointed out, ProHost developers must create a database
that can interface with the chain's POSitouch system.
"We're working with both vendors," Smith said, pointing to a tentative fall
completion date for the integration of ProHost and POSitouch.
David Overton noted that it "will really take a year or more for us to start
building that [service] database" once integration is accomplished. |
