Freeing up phone lines for restaurants and retail.

The Challenge

The challenge started with COVID-19 and phone lines being tied up for restaurants and stores during busy periods. As the pandemic went on, more challenges became apparent. So, what started as issues with handling curbside pickup soon became much larger.

As we began to work with beta users, we saw expanded challenges around in-premise pickup as well as delivery.

Now, as restaurants have begun to open for outdoor seating, they’ve found that they that don’t have COVID-friendly solutions to notify customers. Customers do not want to handle a physical restaurant pager (buzzer). Restaurants needed a way to notify customers that their table was ready.

The Solution

We knew it would be challenging to change behaviors:

  • First, there will always be customers that call – even if ordering online
  • Second, many restaurants and stores weren’t built for curbside – and neither are their Point-of-Sale (POS) systems
  • Third, even POS systems that have evolved to help with curbside have missed the core problem with phone congestion

The objective of CurbFetch is to allow initial calls, but prevent subsequent calls from coming in. By leveraging SMS (text) messaging to the customer instead of phone calls, we reduce follow up calls. The platform minimizes typing by having pre-determined and mostly automated flows for communicating with customers.

Each CurbFetch Customer will receive a local phone number. Now, the only thing a restaurant or store needs to do when taking the order is, advise the customer the rest happens via text message.

Today, CurbFetch handles the following flows for restaurants (and retail as well):

  • Curbside Pickup Flow
    • Coordinating curbside pickup after the order
  • In Store/Restaurant Pickup Flow
    • Letting customers know when they can enter
  • Delivery Flow
    • Allowing drivers to easily update the next customer
  • Seating Flow
    • Enables restaurant to handle waiting customers – customers aren’t tethered to the restaurant and will get the SMS when their table is ready
    • Customers don’t have to handle germ-prone restaurant pager systems

You can check out CurbFetch at: curbfetch.com. For a Demo or to talk about POS integrations, contact us at 630-749-2808.