Panera Bread

Panera:

How well do you know your customers? If I were to go into a Panera location today, would you greet me by name and know what I order every time? No, of course not.

According to this article on Businessweek, you have many problems. To name a few:

• Not enough workers
• Inadequate equipment
• Phone orders disrupting workflow
• Number of transactions dropping
• Fast food chains AND casual dining trying to beat you out
• Capacity constraints
• Waiting in lines

Those are all complications that are probably being addressed in some way, but I want to highlight a sentence in the article that presents perhaps the biggest mistake of your strategy.

"Panera will also try to push phone orders online, although no details were provided about how to the encourage that transition."

Let me tell you why this is bad. 

First, it is completely understandable that you are trying to push away from phone orders. I agree that they disrupt workflow and are an overall hindrance to production. With that said, have you ever heard of a smartphone? If you said yes I wouldn't be so sure I believed you. Think about the benefits of an MyPanera app would create. 

1. The ability to order from anywhere and not have to wait in line. These orders could go straight to the computer where employees can start working on it immediately. Customers would be happier not having to wait in line, can go straight to their seats and wait until their order is ready. Heck, you can even put their queue number and expected time until ready on the app to give the customer better awareness. 
2. Better rewards system. I'm not sure what % of your customers do the MyPanera thing, but my guess would be a low number. If you were to push your customers onto the app, not only would  your rewards system be more rewarding, but it is much more manageable from the customers point of view. They have access to all their information on the app which in general gives them a better experience.
3. Data creation. There are so many possibilities to extract and analyze what customers do and order on the app and it will lead to better data-driven decision making.

In all seriousness, it is annoying having to give the same order over and over to your cashiers when this could easily be replaced by an app. It seems like a no brainer. Once it catches on that you don't have to wait in line and can instead order directly on your smartphone people will flock to it. It just creates an overall better experience. Shorter lines, "knowing" the customer and their order history, better rewards system, etc. I want to stress the waiting in line part because waiting in line is a waste of time. Lots of people go there for work related reasons and if you were to create a seamless experience I think you'd have a much better retention rate.