SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 09, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- eatsa, the revolutionary technology provider and restaurant brand, today announced its newest offering that furthers its mission to delight and empower both customers and operators: the Spotlight Pickup System. The solution addresses operational challenges facing restaurants and retailers as consumer expectations continue to grow for fast, seamless and delightful experiences powered by digital ordering and third-party delivery services. The Spotlight Pickup System is an engaging, easy-to-use order pickup solution that simplifies and streamlines the pickup process for customers, restaurant staff and delivery service providers, orchestrating operations with a guided and personalized experience. eatsa has selected three lighthouse project partners for initial Spotlight Pickup System deployments including fast-casual, build-your-own mac & cheese restaurant, MAC’D in San Francisco; gourmet-salad-to-go restaurant, Evergreens in Seattle; and the steamed buns and rice bowl concept, Wow Bao in Chicago, coming next month.
“Third-party delivery is often the biggest growth opportunity for restaurant operators, but with the lack of organization around how to best manage customers and delivery personnel who are taking food to go, it’s frequently fraught with confusion and delays for customers and chaos for operators,” said Tim Young, CEO of eatsa. “Our Spotlight Pickup System alleviates this problem with a combination of automation and personalization as well as offering an engaging and fun way for brands to simplify the experience and guide their guests efficiently through the pickup process. We are thrilled to bring this product to restaurants to address this important challenge.”
The Spotlight Pickup System, an alternative to eatsa’s cutting-edge Cubby Pickup System, simplifies a crucial organizational challenge facing operators: how to increase off-premise order volume while alleviating overcrowding and bottlenecks often caused by mobile ordering and third-party delivery. Upon arriving at the restaurant, each customer or delivery driver checks the digital Status Board to quickly understand the status of their order, and are then guided to their pickup ‘Spot’ where the customer’s name is clearly highlighted on the front display.
The Spotlight Pickup System has a modular design that’s quick to install and easy to customize in order to fit into existing restaurant layouts without construction or downtime. It includes an array of automated surfaces called 'Spots,' each equipped with product sensors, a toplight for status indication and a front display for customized digital messaging. The System seamlessly integrates with ordering and order management solutions to orchestrate the handoff process, eliminating confusion, reducing errors, and providing unprecedented levels of operational and consumer data and analytics.
The Spotlight Pickup System is part of the full eatsa platform – a complete, end-to-end technology suite for restaurant operations that integrates the entire process from digital ordering channels to pick up – which offers a flexible, integrated, scalable, data-driven technology solution to support rapid growth through operational improvements and exceptional guest experiences. The System complements eatsa’s Omnichannel Intelligent Queue Software which integrates multiple order channels – including in-store kiosk and POS, mobile, third-party delivery and web – eliminating the need for manual queue handling from multiple third-party delivery tablets, and providing optimized order management with accurate order availability times. Working together, the Spotlight Pickup System and Omnichannel Intelligent Queue Software create a new operational model designed specifically for digital orders.
“Our customers value quick and efficient service, and the Spotlight Pickup System optimizes the pickup process, reducing confusion over order status and where to go,” said Antony Bello, Co-Founder of MAC’D in San Francisco. “When considering eatsa’s technology, it was critical for us to have the ability to customize it to fit both our space needs in the restaurant and our brand standards for how we communicate with our guests. We were able to install the Spotlight Pickup System overnight and it fits seamlessly into our restaurant design. The added benefit is it’s very fun and engaging for our customers. I’ve seen many smiles as they easily find their order and are able to go about their busy day.”
“Like so many restaurant operators, we have seen a big increase in the number of pickup orders at our restaurants and perfecting operations for these new digital orders has been a challenge. We’re excited that the Spotlight Pickup System is solving this important operational challenge,” said Tom Small, Chief Operating Officer of Evergreens in Seattle. “We are looking forward to being able to clearly communicate to our customers the status of their digital order from the moment it’s placed and guide them to their pickup Spot in store without having to interact with our cashiers. We think our customers are going to love this new innovative pickup experience.”
About eatsa
eatsa is ushering restaurants into the digital era by empowering more efficient operations and elevated customer experiences. In 2015, eatsa revolutionized the fast casual experience and operational model when it introduced its own concept in San Francisco. Now, eatsa’s integrated technology suite is enabling other restaurants to dramatically increase customer throughput while reducing customer wait times, with a fully connected, data-driven system for ordering, fulfillment, and pickup. This allows operators to leverage sophisticated, customer-level data which enables personalized menu features, triggered marketing, and rewards programs to increase revenue and drive brand loyalty.
Media Contact:
press@eatsa.com
Photos accompanying this announcement are available at:
http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/99ade55f-233a-408b-9991-7ead8cd5c36c
http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/d807ba70-7745-4dad-aee0-985ebf3bda21