5 Ways to Increase Revenue with Restaurant Analytics

If the past decade has proven anything, it’s that data is the key to success. And, for the restaurant industry, data has shown to be vital for understanding customer preferences, implementing better operational practices and adapting business offerings to the ever-evolving UK hospitality scene. 

Where does this data come from? Well every time an employee sends an order to the kitchen or closes a payment, they’re creating raw data. Even Yelp reviews to the local weather reports hold insights that can help you drive your restaurant’s success. And yet, while it may seem like these individual pieces of information don’t tell you much, when collated together and analysed they can be real eye-openers into what you’re doing right, or in some cases, where you’re going wrong, for your business margins. 

Restaurant analytics are combinations of this raw data, turned into easy-to-use insights that help you make better business decisions. Lightspeed’s ePOS system is armed with a range of restaurant analytic tools to give you and your business the crucial insights and data that can power your restaurant forward.

Read on to learn about five analytical elements you can consider and measure to boost traffic, revenue, and customer satisfaction.

Read on to learn about five analytical elements you can consider and measure to boost traffic, revenue, and customer satisfaction. 

1. Dive into sales and payment data
2. Improve your Inventory Management
3. Evaluate your staff performance 
4. Create smarter menus
5. Boost your marketing presence 

1. Dive into sales and payment data

Sales data encompasses a broad spectrum of restaurant analytics and is vital to understanding pain points and blockers that can potentially affect restaurant revenue. But, by focusing more specifically on payment data, you can gain valuable insights into transaction patterns, average ticket sizes, and customer payment methods. This data can help your business then understand spending behaviours, identify peak payment times, and manage cash flow effectively. 

Lightspeed’s Advanced Insights feature simplifies this process by generating detailed sales reports and turning data into actionable steps easily and efficiently. You can examine purchasing habits, optimise staffing based on revenue heat maps, and enhance menu items to boost profits—all seamlessly integrated with your ePOS system.

2. Improve your Inventory management

An effective inventory management platform provides you with data and insights that can directly impact revenue. It should bring restaurant owners and managers data from their kitchen inventory and stock levels and produce insights that can help align stock levels with demand, minimise waste and optimise procurement processes. 

With Lightspeed Inventory, you can control your kitchen’s produce in real-time, forecast demand accurately-preventing overstocking and stockouts that could lead to lost sales or excessive waste-and adjust purchasing strategies, as well as maintain an ideal balance between supply and demand. With this, your business can make better decisions and better plan outgoings and cost control-ultimately improving your bottom line. 

Fat Hippo, a multi-location restaurant across the UK, has found Lightspeed’s inventory management to be a game-changer. Richard Nelson, Executive Chef at Fat Hippo, explained that “there’s so many different inventory management systems, scheduling systems and accounting systems that all pull from Lightspeed. And, when you’re going from three sites up to 18, you need that consolidation of data. You need actual figures the moment they’re happening. And Lightspeed gives that to us.”

3. Evaluate your staff performance

Knowing who your top-performing servers are can be invaluable. While gut feelings and experience play a role, data-driven insights can back up staffing decisions and highlight areas for improvement, ultimately improving your business performance. 

A decade ago this sort of insight would have seemed unobtainable. However, with the power of technology behind Lightspeed Restaurant, you can easily and efficiently gain access to these statistics and identify blockers for low performing staff as well as recognise those working hard and reward them for better staff retention. 

It’s as simple as logging into the back office of Lightspeed Restaurant, selecting reports and clicking on ‘Staff Turnover’. You can easily adjust between a certain time period, as well as view the performance by day, week or month of all your staff members. The report will churn out data based on the amount of receipts processed, covers occupied, total revenue from each member of staff plus more specific data like total ATV and ACV. With this detailed data, restaurant managers and owners can identify top performers and provide targeted training to those not performing as well. These analytics also encourage improved staff scheduling and rota planning by allowing managers to identify top-performing employees and optimal times for their shifts. And with better performance on the restaurant floor you can expect to see a significant boost to your bottom line.

4. Create smarter menus

Through menu insights, you can gain a better understanding on what is or isn’t selling, and adjust as needed to make your menu more profitable. Collecting data centred around menu analysis helps identify popular items and those that might need adjustment. For example, a dish that sells well might not be the most profitable, or a lower-selling item might have untapped potential. By highlighting and promoting high-potential items, adjusting descriptions, or refining menu placement, you can boost sales and attract more repeat customers.

5. Boost marketing presence

Driven by the expanding capabilities of technology, the effectiveness of data collation is growing everyday. And with that, it’s clear that digital marketing is advancing alongside it. That’s why it’s important for restaurants and hospitality businesses to use marketing analytics as a way of increasing digital presence and awareness.

Whether it’s pushing campaigns and promotions across social media platforms, improving your user experience on your website, or creating touchpoints with diners through newsletters and emails, tracking the effectiveness of your digital presence is vital for business growth.

There are a huge range of platforms out there that offer tools designed to enhance restaurant operations and boost revenue through advanced data analytics. Helpful platforms like Google Analytics, Instagram Insights, Hootsuite, and TikTok Analytic offer comprehensive reporting tools to monitor metrics like engagement, impressions, reach, referral traffic, conversions, and audience growth, and present the data in easily understandable formats.

Using these metrics, restaurant owners and managers can refine marketing strategies, improve customer engagement, and ultimately drive more footfall through restaurant doors through digital branding. 

To find out more about social media marketing and digital presence, check out our guide to social media reporting for restaurants.

Integrations and deeper restaurant analytics

With seamless integrations across various aspects of restaurant operations, Lightspeed goes far beyond basic point-of-sale functionalities, offering in-depth analytics collation to better understand how you can use your data. 

A useful integration offered by Lightspeed is Apicbase. The platform enhances your ability to delve deeper into restaurant analytics, offering a great overview of your kitchen operations and financials. It provides specific tools for managing stock, controlling food costs, and streamlining production processes. With features for recipe management, procurement, menu planning, and sales analytics, Apicbase allows restaurants to maintain precise control over their cost of goods sold as well as optimise your kitchen’s operational efficiency, enabling more informed decisions that drive profitability and enhance overall business performance. 

Another great platform for deeper restaurant data analysis is Tenzo, available directly from your Lightspeed ePOS. Integrating Tenzo with Lightspeed allows restaurants to leverage  data analytics for more precise operational efficiency and revenue growth. By combining sales, labour, inventory, and employee performance data, this integration enables restaurants to forecast future sales with precision using advanced machine learning algorithms. This foresight allows for optimised staff scheduling-minimising understaffing and maximising service efficiency. Additionally, accurate inventory management helps prevent food waste and ensures that stock levels align with demand. With all your data aggregated into clear, actionable visuals, Tenzo and Lightspeed provide invaluable insights that drive informed decision-making, helping you boost revenue and streamline your restaurant operations.

Rounding it up

The message is clear that leveraging restaurant analytics is crucial for driving success in today’s competitive hospitality landscape. By utilising tools that aggregate your stock, staffing and sales data restaurant owners and managers can gain incredible insights into every aspect of their operations. From there, these analytics provide actionable data that informs better decision-making. Embracing these advanced analytics tools enables restaurants to boost revenue, enhance customer satisfaction, and optimise operational efficiency, ultimately leading to growth and profitability.

Your restaurant’s ePOS system can help you track everything from employee performance and costs to menu performance and more. Need help choosing your restaurant technology? Chat to one of our point of sale experts.