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Restaurant KPIs: What Pizzeria Owners Should Analyze from 2019 to Grow in 2020

Restaurant KPIs: What Pizzeria Owners Should Analyze from 2019 to Grow in 2020

It’s a new year (and a new decade!), which means it’s time for pizzeria owners to assess how well you hit your 2019 goals and where you might have fallen short. Restaurant success is a moving target, and strategies, processes, and technologies must be continually adjusted as industry and consumer needs change. For an optimal 2020 strategy, here are three crucial things and numerous restaurant KPIs pizzeria owners should analyze from 2019 to help grow in the new year: 

Are You Looking to Grow Your Pizzeria’s Profits in 2020? 

When analyzing pizzeria success, profitability is a key element to review. Although it doesn’t always reflect the entire picture, it’s good to start with an overview and drill down from there.  You can use your results from 2019 as benchmarks for your 2020 growth goals. 

Here are a few key profitability metrics or restaurant Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to track: 

  • Profit Margin [ (Total Revenue – Cost of Goods Sold) / Total Revenue] * 100
  • Revenue Per Available Seat Hour RevPASH = (Revenue / Seat Hours),  Seat hours = (number of seats x hours open per day) 
  • Sales Per Labor Hour (Total Sales / Labor Hours Scheduled)

To improve your pizzeria profits in 2020, look for ways to increase sales or decrease costs, such as:

  • Expanding your fulfillment options with online ordering and delivery services, both of which are becoming increasingly important to today’s diners.
  • Implementing technology that helps upsell or cross-sell to customers, as well as increasing table turnover rate. In a 2019 survey, 26% of consumers said the availability of tableside electronic ordering (such as tablet POS) and payment options would make them choose one restaurant over another.
  • Expanding or rearranging your restaurant to accommodate more customers and make the most of your space.

A good pizza point of sale (POS) system can help you boost profits with online ordering, delivery, automatic upselling prompts, and much more. 

What Promotions Had Your Pizza Lovers Buzzing? 

It is important to analyze the success of your pizzeria advertising campaigns and promotions. To do so, determine what your ultimate marketing goals were in 2019, such as more customers, greater average check size, or higher sales overall. Then, analyze the metrics you were looking to improve and compare to the time period that you ran your marketing and promotion efforts throughout the year. 

For example, if you ran a “buy one, get one free” promotion in March to improve overall sales, see if your total sale numbers in March spiked compared to other months when you were not running the promotion.  (Note: Your profit for that month should also not be a negative number as a result of the special offer.)  

Restaurant promotions are crucial for the success of your business, but you want to make sure you are using your resources wisely on things that actually work for your pizzeria. Analyzing the success of your marketing and promotions in 2019 allows you to be more strategic with your efforts in 2020. Some key metrics to track and compare with advertising efforts are: 

  • Average Customer Headcount (Number of guests in restaurant during a specific time period)
  • Average Customer Check Size (Revenue during time period / number of guests served during time period) 

The right pizza POS software will be a great help here, too. Information such as average check size or revenue per guest can be easily and automatically pulled from reports generated by an industry-specific POS system.

Other actions you can take to improve your advertising return on investment (ROI) include:

  • Integrating your loyalty program into your pizza POS system to strengthen customer relationships, gain more insightful data, and personalize promotions. These programs are an important restaurant strategy: 50% of consumers say the availability of a customer loyalty program makes them choose one restaurant over another. 
  • Conducting a customer satisfaction survey. Find out how customers found you (TV ad? Facebook page or other social media? Coupon in the mail?).  Leverage those areas to draw in more people. Ask for suggestions or feedback for improvement. Sometimes it’s best to go straight to the customer to figure out what they are looking for, and use that information to grow your customer base further.

Make Your Pizzeria More Efficient for Better Profit Margins in 2020

One restaurant strategy to increase your success in 2020 is to run a more efficient house. This is why it’s critical for pizzerias to evaluate their operational efficiency in 2019 and look for ways to improve the accuracy of the order production and reduce wait times.

Front-of-House (FoH):

It’s vital to view your FoH data to monitor employee performance and track efficiency. Talk to your FoH staff and managers to learn what issues arose in 2019, and get their ideas for improvement in 2020. A key metric to track is: 

  • Table Turnover Rate (Number of guests served during a time period / Number of seats)

To improve efficiency, equip your staff with innovative pizza POS software. An industry-specific system allows your FoH staff to enter orders more quickly, easily make customizations and substitutions, and process payments faster—whether the customer is ordering on the phone or in person. 

Ensure that your pizza POS software is integrated with a kitchen display system (KDS) to strengthen communication between the front and back-of-house (BoH). Also make sure your online ordering system is integrated with your KDS and delivery management system. This keeps integration operations efficient and allows you to collect and own your customer information, no matter how orders were placed. 

Back-of-House (BoH): 

Your BoH is the powerhouse of your business, preparing the food your customers can’t get enough of. This is why it is essential to streamline operations to maximize productivity. Again, talk to your BoH staff and management about problem areas in 2019 and get their suggestions for improvement in 2020. Key metric to watch: 

  • Average Ticket Time (the time it takes to prepare an order after it is entered into the POS) 

To improve ticket time (as well as order accuracy), it’s important to have an updated KDS that will keep track of customer orders, reducing lost and incorrect orders. A KDS integrated with your POS also ensures orders are made quickly and in the order they were placed, keeping wait times low and staff prioritized. 

Whatever your restaurant strategies for increasing profits in 2020 are, the first step is choosing the right pizza POS system. Whether you’re looking to add new capabilities (such as a loyalty program, online ordering, or delivery) or simply want to get the most out of your reporting and analytics, innovative POS software is the key to unlocking your potential.

HungerRush is a leading restaurant technology provider with solutions that are designed specifically for pizzerias and are backed by 24/7/365 support. To find out more about how our POS solutions can help you reach your 2020 profit goals, request a demo

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