Contacted by wwwmapleai.com - has anyone tried this solution? Call comes in, press 1 to re-route to text message, then order through text and / or customer can ask all the questions they want, like those damn “is this gluten free” ones. Anyone tried? Some kind of AI tech that replies automatically. Seems early stage biz offering to do beta test for free for the first few customers.
StrideQ seems to text someone a link to order online, but doesn’t have the benefit of answering questions. I get so many calls about “what’s the status of my order”? Has this been beneficial for anyone? This will have to pay upfront then seems to be monthly charge, but seems to be a more established business that can be dependable.
maple AI contacted me and I’ve been trying. Problem is it doesn’t integrate with our POS which is Aloha (I know, I know…). They have Toast and Square integrated and they’re not charging any fees to customers because it’s all in trial period. So for ordering, I’m just going to stay on the waitlist and see if I can migrate my POS but it does seem to have potential.
The other thing they’ve helped w/ is just putting a phone number on my website - basically if anyone calls with a stupid question like “where can I park”, it automatically responds. I get ~2,000 calls / month across two restaurants and it’s been replacing about 5% of calls (I hope more in the future with an IVR installed). I do wonder what their pricing will end up being though because I’m currently using for free.