Using Technology to Reduce Customer Wait Times

I think a very visible observation at this year's Restaurant Show was logical tech instead of theoretical. There was less "glimpses into the future" and more "proof of concept." Here's one of those in action: For two and a half years, Wingstop has worked on a new Smart Kitchen that forecasts demand in 15-minute increments, telling the store how many wings to drop. The system takes into account more than 300 variables tailored to each unit, like weather, sales trends, and sports. It also features digital touch-screen displays at every work station instead of paper chits and an order-ready screen at the front so consumers can keep up with their order. Another feature: there are now sticker print outs that identify what flavors are in each package. At restaurants where the technology has been installed, wait times have been cut in half to about 10 minutes, and there have been notable improvements in guest satisfaction, accuracy, consistency, and employee turnover. In the delivery channel, Wingstop has been able to show up in under 30 minutes. Why is this important? Shorter wait times allow the brand to become a greater consideration. Instead of serving as a destination—with an average frequency of just three times per quarter and once a month—the quicker service could entice guests to visit more often, especially during on-the-go periods like the afternoon daypart. The Wingstop Smart Kitchen is in 400 restaurants and the chain hopes to complete the rollout by the end of the year. Again, real-time innovation in the back of the house. That seems to be the battleground right now. More here: https://lnkd.in/eMHMUkmZ

Ever wonder why we tend to solve problems the hard way? 🤔 The key is in how we connect the dots. A cancer hospital was facing a major challenge. Patients, often anxious, needed timely care without added delays. Doctors relied on quick access to medical images to make this possible. For most hospitals, loading images within three seconds is the standard. But cancer patients often have extensive imaging records, making this target a significant challenge. This created escalating pressure in an environment that's already stretched to its limits The hospital consulted several firms. They all suggested the same thing: a costly network upgrade that would disrupt daily operations and inconvenience patients even more. The proposed solution was out of the question, the hospital needed something affordable that wouldn’t disrupt patient care. A consulting firm graciously recommended me for the task. I saw the problem from a different angle. IT experts looked at the network. But as a Health Informatician, I focus on using data and technology to design health services that support optimal care delivery. Instead of waiting for doctors to request images, why not load them in advance? By preparing the images during the patient’s wait time, we created a seamless workflow without costly upgrades. The results were immediate and impactful. 😊 The hospital easily met the three-second target, and patients noticed the improvement with shorter wait times. The cost savings were substantial, all without any disruption to care. "Adam, you literally performed magic!” shared the hospital’s clinical operations lead. Sometimes, the simplest solutions make the biggest difference. The key was understanding how health services connect and using technology to support these connections. These days, as a digital health transformation coach, I continue to co-design sustainable, human-centered innovations that improve how information is used to advance health outcomes. Ever found a simple solution to a complex challenge? I’d love to hear your insights and share approaches that make an impact. #HealthcareInnovation #LeadershipLessons #DigitalTransformation

I selected my hip surgeon largely because of his integration of technology into his patient workflow. When I went to book appointments with other orthopedic surgeons, I had to wait on the phone for long periods and was asked to fax, yes FAX!, my referral. My surgeon had an automated booking system linked with a digital patient portal - everything uploaded, secure, and available in one single source of truth. He employs 3D modeling to plan surgical options, uses robots and real-time imaging to augment his surgical procedures and improve precision, and leverages voice technology to automatically transcribe his clinical observations and patient notes in real time. He also uses software automation to provide me with alerts and send automatic updates to my physio and GP. Telehealth appointments, supported with photographs for postoperative wound care and pre-operative check-ins, were seamlessly integrated into his practice. All this technology enables the surgeon to practice being human during our personal interactions and massively improved the patient experience. Think about this in terms of the services we provide in health and safety. We serve our customers (the workers, managers, regulators), but how can we leverage tech to improve the design and experience of that service? Let me know your thoughts in the comments. #SafetyTech #SafetyInnovation #ServiceDesign #Safety #Technology

I was sitting in my rental car, staring at a blank wall, feeling like every minute was dragging on forever. One of those moments where you think: there has to be a better way. As a CPTO, I often talk about customer empathy. But the real lesson is this: there’s no substitute for experiencing the problem yourself. In lean manufacturing, it’s called 𝐆𝐞𝐦𝐛𝐚 — go to where the work (and the pain) actually happens. 𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑫𝒆𝒏𝒗𝒆𝒓 𝒎𝒐𝒎𝒆𝒏𝒕 (2015) Shortly after joining Walmart as part of the founding team of the online grocery group, I flew to Denver—our second city and the first to offer store pickup. So I tested it myself. • Ordered groceries for a 1–2pm pickup • Got the “ready for pickup” email 15 minutes early • Missed the signs and spent 5 minutes finding the pickup area • Parked, called the number… no answer • Four calls later, someone finally picked up • Another 10 minutes before my order arrived Total wait: 10–20 𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐮𝐭𝐞𝐬, which feels much longer when you’re sitting alone in a car staring at a wall. That friction completely canceled out the value of free pickup. 𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝒔𝒑𝒂𝒓𝒌 A week later in San Francisco, I used a parking app called 𝐋𝐮𝐱𝐞. The moment I crossed a location marker, a valet was assigned. I could see them coming. They could see me coming. No waiting. No stress. It felt like 𝐦𝐚𝐠𝐢𝐜. And instantly, it clicked: Customers needed a way to signal “I’m on my way.” Associates needed a way to see who was coming and when. The vision: 𝐳𝐞𝐫𝐨 𝐰𝐚𝐢𝐭 𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞. 𝑩𝒖𝒊𝒍𝒅𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒂𝒕 𝒔𝒄𝒂𝒍𝒆 Together with an incredible team (Mayan Cohen 🇮🇱 , Michal Russ, Syed Aman, Sharan Grewal, Gaurav Agarwal, Jason Shaffer, Wes Dyer, Devadas (Das) Pattathil) and under the leadership of STS (missed every day) Kieran Shanahan and Michael J. Bender — with strong support from Del Sloneker and Mark Ibbotson — we built it. In 2 months, we shipped a working prototype: • Consumer iPhone app • Associate Android app • Cloud integration & location services (All built from scratch) In 4 months, we onboarded 10 stores and iterated fast. One key learning: app adoption was everything. So we added a simple SMS an hour before pickup encouraging customers to download the app. Adoption jumped dramatically. In 9 months, we rolled out to 800+ stores. Wait times collapsed. App adoption soared. Customer satisfaction skyrocketed. Operators encouraged customers to use the app because it made everyone’s job easier. Even navigation improved—we could guide customers to the exact longitude/latitude. Unintended consequences, in the best way. 𝑻𝒂𝒌𝒆𝒂𝒘𝒂𝒚 This was my first at-scale consumer product success. And it started by sitting in a car, feeling the frustration myself. Sometimes, the most important product decision is simply showing up.

Reducing waiting time in outpatient departments (OPDs) requires a combination of operational efficiency, smart scheduling, and better patient flow management rather than simply increasing manpower. A key step is implementing structured appointment systems moving away from walk in overload toward time slotted visits, with triaging to prioritise urgent cases. Digital pre registration, where patients submit basic details and symptoms in advance, can significantly cut registration bottlenecks and allow clinicians to prepare beforehand. Equally important is workflow redesign within the OPD. Segregating patients into streams, new cases, follow ups, chronic disease clinics, and minor procedures prevents congestion at a single point. Task shifting also plays a major role: trained nurses or physician assistants can handle initial assessments, vitals, and routine follow ups, freeing doctors to focus on complex consultations. Introducing fast track lanes for simple cases and repeat prescriptions can drastically reduce overall load. Technology can further streamline operations. Electronic medical records (EMRs) reduce time spent on documentation and retrieval, while queue management systems provide real time visibility of patient flow, reducing uncertainty and crowding. Teleconsultations can offload non critical visits, especially follow ups and chronic care management, thereby decreasing physical footfall. Aligning staffing patterns with peak hours, ensuring adequate consultation rooms, and monitoring key metrics like average consultation time and patient turnaround time help maintain efficiency. When OPDs are designed around patient flow rather than provider convenience, waiting time reduces, patient satisfaction improves, and clinicians experience less burnout.

At the SevenRooms Customer Advisory Board this week, I heard a story that really stuck with me. At Shy Bird in Boston, brunch had hit a breaking point: 45-minute waits, tickets piling up, a kitchen stretched past capacity. Most people would have just tried to push through. Instead, co-founder Eli Feldman pulled out his phone and turned to AI. Within minutes, it pinpointed the bottleneck: almost everything was backing up at a single grill station. Two weeks later, after making changes, wait times dropped from 31 minutes to just 9. For me, that’s revenue management in action. Not about raising prices--but about removing bottlenecks, reallocating resources, and capturing demand more efficiently. AI isn’t coming “someday”--it’s already reshaping how restaurants forecast, operate, and engage guests. The only question is: where would you want it to remove friction first? #RevenueManagement #RestaurantAI #SevenRooms #RestaurantOperations #HospitalityInnovation

Your drive-thru runs on at least four separate technology systems that do not talk to each other. Your POS is one vendor. Your digital menu boards are another. Your headset and timer system is a third. Your AI ordering layer, if you have one, is a fourth. Every one of those handoffs is a point of failure. And your guests feel every single one of them in their wait time. Toast launched a unified drive-thru platform this past week that collapses all of it: POS, AI voice ordering, kitchen display, and dynamic digital menu boards into a single integrated system targeting enterprise QSR chains. It is live now and aimed directly at the 140,000 drive-thru locations operating in the U.S. This matters beyond the product itself. The QSR Magazine State of Restaurant Operations Survey, published April 17, found that the industry averages a 63 out of 100 on operational maturity. The single largest gap between high-performing and low-performing operators is not food quality or service speed in isolation. It is technology integration. Brands running fragmented systems score 22 points lower on operational efficiency than brands running unified platforms. That 22-point gap is not a technology problem. It is a guest experience problem and a margin problem wearing a technology mask. The operators I work with who have invested in platform consolidation consistently report two outcomes: faster throughput during peak windows and fewer order errors. Both hit the P&L directly. The barrier for most franchisees is not willingness. It is the capital outlay and the change management required to retrain a team on new systems mid-season. But the brands waiting for a perfect window to modernize are falling further behind the brands that act. Franchise operators: what is the biggest technology integration gap in your current operation, and what has held you back from closing it? #QSR #RestaurantTechnology #DriveThru #FranchiseBusiness #QSROperations

Post 4: CX at Scale—Why Great Experience Falls Apart in Big Companies (And How AI Can Fix It) 🚨 Scaling CX is HARD—especially when you don’t have a holistic plan that balances experience with financial sustainability. When I led Walmart Health’s go-to-market strategy, we had a clear vision: make high-quality healthcare affordable and accessible to more people. But making that vision a reality across thousands of locations required more than just great intentions—it required a CX strategy that worked operationally and financially at scale. Retail health is ultimately a people business. The challenge wasn’t just about processes or technology—it was about ensuring that every clinic had the right team, the right training, and the right culture to deliver exceptional care. The good news is we were building on a strong cultural foundation at Walmart. 🔹 Enter AI: A Game Changer for CX at Scale Now, in my role as Chief Customer Officer at Dragonfruit AI, I see how AI can bridge the gap between scalability and consistency. Large organizations—whether in retail, healthcare, or beyond—often struggle with fragmented data, labor challenges, and operational inefficiencies. AI-driven tools and insights can transform CX by: Predicting & Preventing Customer Issues – AI can analyze millions of customer interactions across locations, flagging patterns in service failures before they escalate. AI Computer Vision can provide real-time insights on customer journeys, wait times and staff.  Instead of waiting for customer complaints, businesses can proactively fix problems. Optimizing Workforce & Training – AI-powered analytics can help companies forecast staffing needs, identify training gaps, and even personalize coaching for frontline employees. The result? More engaged employees and a better customer experience. Enabling Real-Time, Data-Driven Decisions – AI can synthesize customer journeys, feedback, sales trends, and operational KPIs into actionable insights for CX leaders. Retail and healthcare industries have some of the highest employee turnover rates, making consistency and productivity difficult. 💡 The Fix? People, Process, and Technology—Together. Holistic CX Strategy: Experience and financial success must be planned together, not as competing priorities. Employee Retention & Empowerment: You can’t deliver great CX without engaged employees who feel equipped to do their jobs. AI-Powered Insights: Instead of relying on lagging indicators, organizations can use AI to optimize real-time operations. 📢 Takeaway: Scaling CX isn’t just about consistency— it’s about ensuring every location has what it takes to deliver great service, day in and day out and it’s about leveraging AI to create smarter, more adaptive customer experiences. 💬 How do you see AI transforming CX at scale? Let’s discuss! #CXStrategy #Scalability #AIforCX #Leadership #CustomerExperience

AI scheduling isn't magic. It's math, automation, and speed, working together. Here's what the data says: 👇 The average home services business loses 30% of after-hours calls. Technicians waste 30-40% of their day driving inefficient routes. And only 15-25% of leads convert — because response time is too slow. That's the problem AI scheduling solves. Here's how it actually works: 📞 Step 1: AI answers the call (24/7). No voicemail. No missed leads. AI picks up instantly, even at 2 am. 🔍 Step 2: It qualifies the job AI asks diagnostic questions: "Is your AC blowing warm air or not turning on at all?" Then, it determines urgency: emergency vs. routine. 📅 Step 3: It books the appointment AI checks technician availability, skills, location, and even parts inventory. Then schedules the best slot — no back-and-forth. 🚐 Step 4: It optimizes the route AI assigns jobs based on location and reduces drive time by 25-35%. 📲 Step 5: It keeps the customer updated with a confirmation SMS with tech name, photo, and ETA. Real-time tracking link. Auto-updates if anything changes. Result? 80% fewer "where are you?" calls. 🔁 Step 6: It syncs everything. Appointments flow directly into your CRM and calendar. No double-entry. No errors. The results speak for themselves: ✅ 40-70% more appointments booked ✅ 25-35% fewer no-shows ✅ 10-20 hours/week saved on admin ✅ Handle more jobs without hiring more staff One HVAC company using AI scheduling went from 145 to 204 after-hours bookings, with a 90% booking rate. A plumbing company reduced response time by 40% and increased appointments by 25% in just 3 months. This isn't about replacing your team. It's about removing the bottlenecks that slow them down. AI handles the busywork. Your techs handle the craftsmanship. This is exactly the kind of automation we build for home services businesses at Makarios. Systems that save time, book more jobs, and run in the background, without adding more work to your plate. Have you tried AI scheduling in your business? What's been your experience, game changer or overhyped? I'd love to hear what's working (or not).