BW Hotelier spoke to MugizhnanSambandhamoorthy, Co-Founder & CEO, UrbanWand Marketing & Technology Services in Gurgaon on how he plans to bring about a change in the restaurant business.

URBANWAND IS an effective technology solution for food outlets to understand customer ordering behaviour, resulting in effective upsell and customer delight. We spoke to MugizhnanSambandhamoorthy, Co-Founder & CEO, UrbanWand Marketing & Technology Services in Gurgaon on how he plans to bring about a change in the restaurant business.

Tell us about the concept.

Fine diners, casual diners, bars and lounges have immense potential to upsell and cross-sell. However, very less of it gets implemented on the ground.UrbanWand is an effective technology solution for food outlets of every size and segment to primarily addresses this problem. The concept is a combination of technology and consulting service in an interactive digital menu built on a plethora of user engagement engines to understand customer ordering behaviour and engages them appropriately, resulting in effective upsells, cross sells and customer delight simultaneously. These engagement engines are customised in discussion with the respective client’s F&B management. The sales performance is monitored, measured and success tracked. Periodic consultations are held with the F&B management to re-customize the engines, and further enhance the effectiveness of F&B sales.

So what made you create this technology?

We interviewed various restaurant owners, consultants, F&B Heads to understand their biggest pain points or unsolvable problems and day-to-day challenges. So we came to a conclusion to create a product that is effective for the industry as well as the user.

How do you plan to market this product?

Currently, its videos, success testimonials, case studies, infographicsare being shared with selective potential customers in India and Dubai.

Tell us about your expansion plans.

We are offering our technology to customers in India & Dubai, and are measurably generating 7 per cent to 12 per cent revenue increase. By 2020, through AI and Advanced Analytics on customer engagements, we shall be generating  14 per cent-18 per cent increase revenues to hotels/restaurants across 15 countries.

How do you plan to help the industry?

In an industry, where staff attrition is high, training and retraining staff involves efforts, costs, smart selling skills are present among a select few staff even among top end hotels/restaurants, and in peak business times even such smart staff become plain order takers, leaving a sizeable revenue opportunity loss daily for the hotels/restaurants, the concept works hand-in-hand with existing staff and lets hotels/restaurants seize that much needed sizeable revenue.

What has been the biggest game-changer for the restaurant industry?

Online search has been a game changer and online food delivery has been the biggest buzz word for more than half-a-decade now for the industry, irrespective of total food delivery market itself being a fraction in comparison to the dining market. What could be a bigger game changer in future, than maximizing the business of the dining industry!