case study
Elior North America’s Constellation Culinary Group Leads with Guest Experiences at the Ziff Opera House using Ready to Pay
Contactless ordering and payments delight guests, help take the pressure from staff, and surprise with back of house wins.
About
Constellation & Ziff Opera House at The Adrienne Arsht Center
Elior North America and their brand Constellation Culinary Group who manages concession services at the Ziff Opera House at The Adrienne Arsht Center in Miami, believes that nothing brings people together like food—and nothing makes them happier than bringing people together. From their fresh approach to every course to their belief in warm and thoughtful service, this spirit is the first ingredient in everything they do.
Constellation started in 2008 with three employees and a well-known restaurateur. Since then, they have built a portfolio with over 100 locations throughout the East Coast and California.
The Ziff Opera House has 2 large buildings at the Adrienne Arsht Center complex seating 2400 and 2200 people, plus a smaller venue that seats 250 people. Constellation provides concession management and services for all the shows, restaurants, and events in these venues, plus weddings and large private events such as the Arsht Gala.
Problem space
Customer experience top of the list
The Ziff Opera House at Miami’s Adrienne Arsht Center wanted to offer a “Live on the Plaza,” Jazz Cabaret experience on Tuesday Nights on their open-air patio during the COVID-19 pandemic. This 100-seat patio is a walk-up self-seating patio venue ideal for smaller cultural events such as concerts, and offers a full-menu dining experience.
It was important to the team that the experience was safe and convenient for customers while maintaining Constellation’s values of culinary quality paired with thoughtful service.
A contactless order and pay solution was chosen to meet these requirements and empower guests to order and pay at will with minimal contact with the staff. Another primary goal was to enable the staff to serve more tables and improve operational efficiency even if short-staffed.
Solution
Technology elevating experience
The Elior NA and Constellation teams vetted a variety of ordering solutions using QR technology. The chosen solution not only needed to seamlessly integrate with Bypass (the POS system of record) but was required to offer a frictionless order and payment workflow that any guest could use without assistance from the staff. The team preferred a browser-based solution that did not require an app to download, logins, or any other barrier to the interaction.
Bypass recommended the Ready solution over other competitors because not only is Ready browser based, Ready offers a beautifully designed and integrated menu that is easy to interact with.
Ready’s guest driven ordering and payment experience required minimal interaction with staff providing a full transactional lifecycle to customers in an elegant, frictionless, fast, and easy to use platform.
The Constellation and Ready teams were able to overcome some challenges of learning a new system, such as remembering to turn the ordering system off and on again for the next event. They experienced a printer disruption with Bypass, that was quickly solved working with the Bypass and Ready teams to troubleshoot the issue. The Constellation team was able to roll-out the project on time, meeting all the project requirements.
Results
More than expected
Constellation saw 100% usage of Ready on the Tuesday night Cabaret events and experienced a remarkably high customer satisfaction rate. Customers found the platform easy and user-friendly which led to guests ordering more and tipping higher.
Labour was kept to a minimum with operational benefits such as improved order accuracy and efficiency gains. Servers were not required to take a zone but could run orders out to guests as they came in, doing quality checks with the patrons, and providing a higher level of customer service than a typical transactional model. Back of house operations saw the benefit of increased order accuracy – fewer (than expected) order cancelations and reorders, plus the ability to control the site menu scheduling times, and dynamically pulling items on and off the menu as needed.
Guests were free to order more at will, never needing to leave their seats and risk missing a moment of the show. There was a higher-than-expected ROI on the series since labour costs could be kept lower and guests tended to order more. Constellation’s implementation team is delighted that the Ready team is in constant communication, always checking up on them and flexible to their needs and requests.
Testimonials
The entire project with Ready has been seamless! We were delighted that not only did guests love the freedom to order and pay on their own terms, but we were also able to do more with fewer staff. Would always recommend Ready!
Nicole Resnick
General Manager
Constellation Culinary
Ready's integration was better and had more features than comparable products. We were really impressed with how Order to Table worked and saw a lot of value in the feedback survey but being able to put control of order to the table into the guests' hands was what finally drew us in, and we’ve been loving Ready ever since. We’ll be rolling out Ready to several other locations across the US.
Jerad Pedersen
IS Business System Analyst
Elior NA
We’re constantly coming up with new uses for Ready and are looking to roll it out at several properties in innovative contexts. Wherever you can map a POS location and have food sent there, you can use Ready.
Tom Hinker
Sr. Technology Analyst
Elior NA
About Ready
Ready is the leader of best-in-class contactless dining experiences and the next stage in Restaurant service innovation with friction-busting technologies that transform the guest experience from high-touch to high-quality. We are a company of food lovers whose goal is to make guests say, "Why hasn't it always been like this?"
