Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc. president and chief operating officer Monty Moran recently offered an insightful peek into a trial of hand-held, wireless point-of-sale terminals to take orders from waiting guests and speed them through the line.
The Denver-based, 775-plus-unit chain’s COO described the technology as a “real challenge for us” and conceded, “We’ve been unable to effectively use [it on] a consistent basis in more than some of our top-volume stores.” His remarks came during a conference call on the fast-casual company’s second-quarter results.
According to a transcript, Moran said Chipotle is using hand-held POS at about 50 of the chain’s top sales units. The idea behind such devices is that they can augment counter terminals so that a greater number of orders can be entered during peak periods, thereby reducing lines that might decrease guest satisfaction or scare off potential incremental customers.
The learning curve for using handelds is "much steeper than we had anticipated," the Chipotle president acknowledged. "In essence, we're trying to take our highest volume restaurants during their highest volume hour and inject a completely new technique into a place that has throughput down to a science,” Moran said, before adding, “To be successful in that, you need to take one of your top-performing employees out of the service line to work the handheld.”
Persistence has its rewards, however, Moran indicated. He told analysts and others on the call, “Managers, who have really stuck with this, have literally been able to set new sales and volume records and new throughput records that they tell us that would not have been feasible without the handheld. So that keeps us very interested in continuing to work with this [type of] POS.”
Boston Globe columnist Ellen Goodman...in a recent rant against the rise of self-service service, mentioned that she "succumbed" without complaint "when an upscale seafood restaurant expected me to swipe my credit card through a handheld computer as if I were in a supermarket."
The tone of her piece suggested that no more would she go gentle into that good card-swiping night.
Goodman's citation of a tableside card swipe as an example of business disingenuously transferring labor to consumers struck me as off base. Nation's Restaurant News has reported on several operators using wireless, hand-held terminals so that guests may maintain possession of their payment cards at all times, thereby reducing their concerns about the possibility of card fraud by unscrupulous foodservice employees.
Yes, some restaurateurs also cite the increased efficiency of a mobile card reader that keeps servers in their stations as opposed to marching to and fro from one or more stationary terminals. And such technology can give guests more control over their dining experience when it its time to leave, some contend. In most cases, however, the primary stated motivation for pay-at-table devices seems to be the elimination of customer anxiety about card fraud or the theft of personal or financial information.
The latter is something with which I am now familiar, thanks to a recent letter from my credit union. It was not good news, and it officially welcomed me to a growing club of consumers who have had personal and financial information stolen.
According to credit union management, someone had stolen a computer data back-up tape containing my Social Security number and account information, as well as similar records for many other people. The positive news, if any, is that the data on the tape were encrypted. Still, I’ll be scanning credit reports for a while just to be sure that someone is not attempting to buy flat-screen TVs and PlayStation IIIs on my dime.
My confidence in the data protection practices of others in control of my sensitive personal information is dented, but not broken. Still, me and an increasing number of consumers are sensitized to how restaurant companies, retailers and institutions are handling our personal data – something all of those organizations should keep in mind when reviewing card handling and data network protection practices and communication.
