Is February too late to still be celebrating the new year? We hope not because we’re rolling out a new monthly blog featuring our most important product updates to help kick off 2022! 

As an operator, you know exactly how hard it has been to keep business going during these challenging times. At Bbot, we know we can’t make hospitality easy, but we can try to make it a whole lot easier. That’s why we’re continually implementing your feedback into our product updates.

This month, we hone in on ten incredible new features we’ve recently launched to focus on the biggest issues that may be causing you to lose sleep: 

• Guest experience
• Server churn
• Operational challenges
  

Read below to find out more about what’s in store. 

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Better guest retention

Service requests

Bbot Order & Pay already makes it easy for guests to order from anywhere, but what about when they have off-menu questions? How do you sort through your orders for a faster response time? Introducing service requests - guests can quickly and easily ask for help with the literal click of a button. 

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Imagine this: your server is busy, and your guest is annoyed because of something as simple as a missing forks. Avoid it all by dodging the ‘flag down’ and enhancing the guest-server connection with immediate notifications, right to the server handheld.

Map view ordering

Don’t leave ordering to chance when you have multiple locations. Map view provides the perfect user experience for guests to search for their nearest location so the food’s always hot when they pick up - leading to better reviews!

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Additional checkout information

Guest data collection will be key to success in 2022 and beyond. We’ve added more info collection with mandatory fields at checkout to help you build better guest profiles, reporting, and marketing. Tartine, a San Francisco based bakery & restaurant, uses this data to build segmented marketing campaigns, driving 20+ return orders for hundreds of loyal guests.

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Server churn reduction

Tips by server

In today’s competitive hiring climate, every tip matters. Our tipping feature now lets you choose between pooled tips and tips by server. You can continue to pool tips in a collaborative environment or reward your top talent by encouraging the hustle. Either way, this new feature augments Bbot’s already robust server retention. When using Bbot, Cobble & Co. found that they didn’t lose a single staff member for over a year

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Tipping in cloud tabs

We’ve updated the tipping experience in cloud tabs. Previously, guests would enter a tip each time they submitted new orders to their tab. Now, guests can retroactively adjust their tip when they close out, fully aligning their tip to the entire experience. With the increased server efficiency that comes with using Bbot, this means a stronger customer experience leading to more generous tipping.

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Smoother operations

Expeditor view & smart refresh

During peak busy times, staff can become overwhelmed and miss details. Our expeditor view lets your staff view KDS orders with multiple fulfillment stations as linked tickets rather than separate orders. Whether you're a food hall or operate with different food prep stations, use this new feature to streamline how your orders hit the floor. 

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You’ll also love our new smart refresh, a button that instantly refreshes your KDS with new orders. But don’t worry – you’ve still got the option to wait for an automated refresh so you can stay focused on your current ticket.

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Order throttling

Don’t leave hungry customers waiting for their food. Plan ahead for big events or peak hours to avoid overwhelming your staff with both in-venue and off-premise orders. Use order throttling to set hours during which your system automatically declines or places limits on incoming orders, or just to give your kitchen a moment to catch up during an unexpected busy period!

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Better search functionality

Reviewing previous orders shouldn’t be a slog; we’ve enhanced the search functionality and KDS filters to include start dates and end dates, so you don’t need to sift through every single order in the past few months when you're on the hunt for something specific.
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Stripe improvements

Regardless of how you use Stripe, your focus should be on running your business — not fussing with tech support. Moving forward, you’ll automatically install high-priority system updates, so you can put your energy where it matters.

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A prettier Bbot

We’ve refreshed the UI across our screens to streamline navigation for a better and faster Bbot experience.

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We welcome new integrations to the family

Bbot integrates seamlessly with some of the most widely used restaurant software, and we continue to add new integrations every day. Check out our newest partners to help boost your operations or explore all of our product integrations.

• OpenTable - Leverage the world’s largest reservation network to better understand your customers with 360° profiles. Track your guests in-venue reservations alongside Bbot off-premise orders for better reporting and marketing opportunities.
• Otter - Push automatic updates across all first and third-party delivery platforms, reducing duplicate items and errors. 
• Revel - Bbot and Revel work together to simplify operations: sync your menus, aggregate orders in one place, and grow your off-premise reach with minimal lift. 
• Spendgo - Pair Bbot with Spendgo’s flexible platform to create unique loyalty programs and promotions. 
• Square - Bbot and Square combine to create the most user-friendly restaurant system, providing a comprehensive view of both front-of-house and back-of-house operations without ever missing an order. 
• Thanx - Reward your most loyal customers armed with the knowledge of what they order through Bbot.
• Upserve - Manage menu changes, out-of-stocks, and reporting more efficiently by syncing data from your Upserve POS directly to Bbot.
  

Peek into the future

What can you expect next? We’re working hard behind the scenes to launch an exciting new group ordering feature, alongside some key partner integrations with Agilysys and Deliverect. Check back in March to learn more!
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