Moe’s Southwest Grill See’s Clear Sailing

Casual dining restaurants, fast casual restaurants, and full-service restaurants are all competing now with the fast food drive-thru for customer takeout customers. If success does leave clues one clue that all food retailers must remember is ‘when the customer moves you must move with them’ according to Steven Johnson, Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions®.

Without incremental customer relevance chain restaurants capitulate customers, market share, and brand electricity according to Johnson.  Driving new electricity into a legacy brand with a partnership is a good move and will accelerate the marketing messaging for all companies involved according to Johnson. How is your company positioning to grow your brand, the top, and bottom line?

Johnson stated “that in my minds-eye the new electricity must be very efficient for the supply chain and includes such things as fresh foods, online ordering, delivery, plant based foods, sampling, toy’s, beer, developing brands,  grocerant positioning, fresh food messaging, autonomous delivery, cashier-less retail, plates, glasses, cash-less payments, digital hand-held marketing.

All food and beverage retailers to survive the next generation of retail must embrace the artificial intelligence revolution while simultaneously embracing fresh food and beverages that are portable, fresh, with differentiation that is familiar not different.  Does your retail path forward look more like yesterday than tomorrow? Why?

So, when Revel Systems, a cloud-based point of sale (POS) and complete business management platform, announced a new contract with fast casual restaurant brand, Moe’s Southwest Grill. Moe’s is rolling out the Revel Enterprise solution across the entire restaurant portfolio of more than 700 restaurants by the end of 2020.  The team at Foodservice Solutions® agreed that edifying an existing partnership can edify both brands while driving incremental customer relevance.

Consumers are simply ordering more and more via a mobile device.  Digital restaurant orders increased 63 percent¹ in March, restaurant technology that enables innovative ways for customers to order and pick up food is more important than ever. Revel Systems delivers the digital tools and technology necessary to help Moe’s deliver a better customer experience, including a variety of online ordering options, as well as a smooth and efficient order pickup experience.

Erik Hess, president, Moe’s Southwest Grill , stated “As we work through the challenging restaurant landscape, we understand the increasing importance of making everything easier for our customers and in-restaurant crew members,” …“Ensuring Moe’s has best-in-class technology in place that is scalable, flexible and includes advanced digital consumer capabilities is imperative to our success and ability to innovate. Revel’s platform has demonstrated that this is the best technology solution to roll out to our entire franchise system.”

We must note that this new contract marks the fourth engagement in which Revel has partnered with Focus Brands. The previous three engagements were with Auntie Anne’s, Cinnabon, and Carvel.

Greg Dukat, CEO, Revel Systems, stated “Revel has become the leading choice for large chains who want to move from legacy solutions to a cloud-based POS and we are very proud to partner with Moe’s Southwest Grill to fuel the success of their business,”  “Even during these very demanding times, major brands realize the need to move away from solutions that hamper their ability to meet rapidly changing consumer needs. We are working hand-in-hand with Moe’s to deploy our flexible solutions to help improve the customer experience, increase efficiency and drive down costs.”

Moe’s will leverage Revel’s open API to easily integrate with key Revel partners including Decision Logic for restaurant cost management. HonorBuilt, a trusted partner providing nationwide technology implementation services and 24/7 U.S. based support for quick service and fast casual restaurants, will deploy the Revel solution at all Moe’s locations. Moe's is leveraging Revel's FreedomPay commerce platform integration to support secure omni-payment transactions including P2PE and EMV contactless payments. How are you driving relevance today, in operations, in marketing, in research?

Are you looking for a new partnership to drive sales? Are you ready for some fresh ideations? Do your food marketing tactics look more like yesterday that tomorrow?  Visit GrocerantGuru.com for more information or contact: Steve@FoodserviceSolutions.us Remember success does leave clues and we just may have the clue you need to propel your continued success.

Microsoft Global Grocery Technology Platform Elevates Competitiveness

Microsoft excels at developing software technology platforms for business and Loblaw knows a good thing when they see it according to Steven Johnson, Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions®.  

Yes, Canada’s largest food and drug retailer is leveraging Microsoft’s cloud computing, data analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) technology to help power its digital transformation, with a focus on developing a more personalized experience for customers, while edifying its competitiveness according Johnson.

We must note that Loblaw joins the likes of the top five U.S. grocery retailers by sales — Walmart, The Kroger Co., Costco Wholesale Corp., Albertsons Cos. and Ahold Delhaize — as Microsoft cloud customers.

The Redmond, Wash.-based tech company unveiled sweeping partnerships with Kroger and Albertsons in January and with Walmart last July to use its Azure cloud platform to help drive their digital initiatives. Costco adopted Azure as its hybrid cloud platform in 2017. Other food and drug retailers using Azure include Walgreens Boots Alliance, which announced a partnership with Microsoft in January, and Giant Eagle.

Loblaw worked with Microsoft to integrate its AI technology into the retailer’s PC Optimum loyalty program to tailor deals and offers to members based on their online preferences.  David Markwell, senior vice president of information technology at Loblaw “We’ve partnered with Microsoft to create digital experiences that not only meet our customers’ expectations, but exceed them,”

Markwell continued “A key objective was to “democratize” customer data stored in siloes, a project that Loblaw and Microsoft were able to accomplish in 90 days.” “With the data already collected but separated into different customer experiences, it made sense to move it all to the cloud and to leverage AI tools to drive results,” Markwell (left) explained. “With AI, I see this democratization of knowledge and ability to make decisions being moved out into the business units.”

Using Azure to securely store and process data, Loblaw redesigned its customer data by disassembling the siloed information and then anonymizing and aggregating it to build a feature to customize offers to PC Optimum members at scale.

“It allowed us to cross-pollinate user experiences and deliver it to millions of people at once,” said Peter Danforth, vice president of loyalty program strategy and management for Loblaw. “What AI enables us to do is make a decision at a scale that was just impossible before.”

By using Microsoft’s cloud and AI solutions to redefine the customer experience, Loblaw was able to develop more personalized deals, making a stronger connection with its shoppers. According to Johnson Loblaw is looking a customer ahead.

“Predictive AI can help us to communicate on a one-to-one basis with each customer or provide relevant offerings to each customer,” said Jenny McConvey, director of targeting support and systems at Loblaw. Are you elevating you brands competitive footprint?

Are you looking for a new partnership to drive sales? Are you ready for some fresh ideations? Do your food marketing tactics look more like yesterday that tomorrow?  Visit www.FoodserviceSolutions.us for more information or contact: Steve@FoodserviceSolutions.us Remember success does leave clues and we just may have the clue you need to propel your continued success.