Restaurant Industry Still Grappling with Labor Shortages, Customers are Noticing

The restaurant and hospitality industry added 33,100 jobs in May, according to the National Restaurant Association. While this is a welcomed improvement compared to previous months this year, it’s still roughly 450,000 jobs short of the more than 12.3 million job positions in February 2020. The truth is the restaurant workforce has simply not bounced back to pre-pandemic levels, and the staffing shortage continues to be a significant pain point for restaurant owners. In fact, HungerRush’s recent Labor Survey reveals the staffing shortage is not only having an impact on current workers but has also become visibly apparent to dining customers, directly impacting the customer experience.

How Restaurant Labor Shortage Is Negatively Impacting Customer Experience

Now more than ever before, restaurant customers have a variety of options. Diners can choose from carry-out, delivery, curbside pick up and dine-in options all from a restaurant’s website or a third-party app. Whatever suits their needs and regardless of what avenue they choose, they expect to have a seamless, exceptional customer experience. As the industry continues to grapple with the increasing costs of labor and operations, coupled with the ongoing labor shortage, it’s clear to consumers that many restaurants are not delivering on that expectation.

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The top three pain points that customers are seeing due to the labor shortage are: longer wait times to receive food (33%), diminished customer experience due to overstressed staff (32%), and longer wait times just to place an order (17%). In fact, 51% of consumers surveyed feel that independent restaurants have been impacted the most by not having enough staff to take orders, cook food, and handle deliveries. Followed by major chains (36%) and mid-sized regional restaurants (14%). The positions in which consumers feel most restaurants are understaffed include servers, cooks and counter staff – which consists of drive-thru, phone, and cashiers. Consumers are not only feeling the impact that the labor shortage has had on their favorite restaurant’s staff but also the impact on their own dining experience. In many cases, restaurants are turning off, or throttling back online ordering at peak meal times to have thin staff levels better cope with on-premise customers, which causes frustration for online customers, not to mention a loss in restaurant revenue. If restaurants are not quick to mend these pain points, it will lead to a deteriorating guest experience, eventually deterring them from returning.

We Know The Problem, Now What Is The Solution?

What we are seeing right now post-pandemic is still a strong desire to order delivery and carryout. There’s no indication that this additional order volume will be going away or diminishing any time soon. From a restaurant guest perspective, there is plenty of competition out there and a poor experience can send a customer calling or walking up to another restaurant. In addition to the long wait times and dropped calls by frustrated consumers, in-store staff is often interrupted in the phone ordering process or sometimes take the order down incorrectly as a result of the pressure to deal with the high volume of calls and fewer labor resources. For instance, when customers call a restaurant to place an order and can tell based on loud background noise that it is hectic, it impacts their overall experience. 57% of consumers aren’t confident that a busy store will take their order correctly if they need to personalize or modify regular menu items.

Restaurant owners are now having to juggle how to meet the demands of both their dine-in customers and the increasing digital orders. Being short-staffed means a backlog in phone orders. According to HungerRush’s survey, 91% of consumers said the maximum amount of time they are willing to wait on hold to place an order is 3 minutes or less. 25% and 19% expect to place an order in less than 2 minutes and 1 minute respectively, demonstrating just how critical speed to order is to today’s consumers.

Looking at creative ways to combat this, well-known pizza franchise Jet’s Pizza found the solution when it launched an AI-powered phone bot (OrderAI) at all of its locations to help automate online and phone orders. This helped the chain eliminate the customers’ perception of an overwhelmed staff struggling to multitask, eliminated hold times, and ultimately guest experience and customer satisfaction improved significantly. Customers showcased they are willing to test out the new solution as well. In fact, 72% of consumers said they would opt to use an automated phone bot to place an order depending on the situation.

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Restaurant owners and managers should also pay attention to the needs of their employees to prevent burnout and departures from the restaurant industry, while also keeping morale up. Restaurant managers should take the necessary steps to improve their hiring practices by creating a positive work environment. When employees are saying they are feeling overwhelmed by constantly ringing phone calls and single-handedly serving your on-premise customers, you should identify the root of the problem and provide a solution in a timely manner. But that shouldn’t be at the expense of diminishing either your order volumes or guest experience. Making impactful changes based on your employee’s feedback and allowing them to feel heard, and marrying that with technology that can assist in reducing the labor burden will directly result in an improvement in the guest experience when they see, or hear the wait staff and cooks are happy and not overwhelmed or overstressed.

Ultimately, you don’t want to let the labor shortage keep you from serving your customers and your staff the way they deserve to be served. By leveraging the power of technology to automate your processes and increase efficiency, you can still provide the phenomenal experience and atmosphere that makes the restaurant industry unique and diverse.

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