Introduction example: Register input is now faster and error-free, and it’s also made it easier to handle additional orders (Udonya Tokubei).

Instead of short-term staff training, we chose to improve efficiency through a system.

Could you tell me about your shop?

Our udon shop is celebrating its 30th anniversary in 2024. We try to make almost all of our items by hand, and whether it’s our simmered meat udon or kitsune udon, everything is prepared from scratch. Our “Tokube Udon,” which lets you enjoy all those flavors in a single bowl, comes topped with shrimp tempura, fried tofu, beef, wakame seaweed, and green onions, and is a popular menu item that lets you savor the taste of our shop all at once.

Because we’re a community-based restaurant used by a wide range of customers, from families with children to seniors, we’ve added dishes like tonkatsu and fried chicken to the menu in response to customer requests, in addition to our udon.

— Please tell us why you decided to introduce Respo Self-Order.

From the spring of 2023, wearing masks due to the COVID-19 pandemic became a matter of personal choice, but right at that time one of our employees decided to resign. For a udon shop, the Obon holiday period is the busiest time of year, so I was worried about whether we could bring in someone new in the spring and train them in time for the summer.

We decided to introduce AutoReserve’s Respo self-order system because we wanted to somehow keep the restaurant running with just our current staff until the Obon holiday. Until then, we had been using old-fashioned handwritten order slips and manually entering everything at checkout, so we implemented the system in the hope that it would shorten the time spent on those tasks.

The time required for checkout has been reduced to one-third

— After introducing Respo Self-Order, what kind of changes have you seen?

Previously, we couldn’t know how much a customer had to pay until we finished entering everything at the register, but with Respo Self-Order we can show customers their total amount in advance, so checkout at the register has become much smoother. Many of our customers are elderly, so only about 30% order from their smartphones, but even so, on the POS register we just tap the table number and the amount is displayed, which has significantly reduced our workload.

In the past, the busier we got, the more likely we were to make mistakes, like forgetting to enter the charge for udon toppings, but I’m really glad that those kinds of input errors don’t happen anymore.

Customers worry less about the staff and are placing more additional orders for side dishes and drinks.

— Has anything changed for your customers since introducing Respo Self-Order?

We’ve been seeing more customers who place self-orders on their smartphones add one extra item to their order. In particular, additional orders of side dishes and toppings have increased.

For example, when customers come in around noon, they usually finish their meal a little before 12:30. But even if they want a coffee after their meal, the staff are often busy, so some people feel they shouldn’t go so far as to call a server over just to order it. Now that they can order via QR code, though, I think they feel more comfortable placing that kind of order than before.

For us on the restaurant side, just eliminating the round trip of going to the table to take orders and then coming back is a huge help. First we bring the tea, then we bring the food, and after that we just clear the table. Before, we had to go back and forth to take orders after serving tea, and when that adds up over 20 or 30 groups, I think it used to take quite a lot of time.

By the way, at our restaurant we don’t include photos of the dishes on the paper menus placed at the tables, so that we don’t lock in a fixed image of each dish. Customers who scan the Respo self-order QR code can see photos, which is especially popular with new and younger guests.

Udon shops are restaurants too. We want to welcome guests with top-class service.

What kind of stores is Respo Self-Order recommended for?

Before introducing it, I was a bit worried that customers might think, “Are they really going to use the customer’s own smartphone to do business?” But once we actually implemented it, they came to understand that it’s a service that lets them order at their own pace with easy-to-understand, photo-based menus, and it also reduced the amount of concern they felt about bothering the staff during busy times.

However, since many of our customers are elderly, we make a point of giving them a bit of extra guidance. For example, each time we say, “When you’ve decided on your order, please ring the bell to call us,” and “If you like, you can also place your order using the QR code.”

A udon shop is a restaurant too, so I want to always keep a customer‑first mindset. For example, in the kind of restaurant you’d find in a high‑rise building in a big city, the waiter will naturally come over at the right moment without you having to call them, right? The more high‑class the restaurant, the more they’ll come to your table before you even call, and I think there are customers who feel, “I want each of my orders to be taken directly, one by one.”

On the other hand, there are probably people who feel, “I’ll place my own order, so I’d like you to bring it as quickly as possible.” Every customer is different, so I think it’s better to be able to meet both kinds of needs.

You’d really like to cut down on customers having to wait in line at the register, if possible, right? If we can show them the total amount while they’re still at the table, we can stay calm and provide good service right up to the very end.

As long as we’re running a restaurant, we want to aim for top-class service, so we plan to keep making use of Respo Self-Order going forward.

Store Information

Udon Shop Tokubei

Address: 27-4 Kutsuda, Oshima-cho, Ayabe-shi, Kyoto Prefecture
Phone number: 07-7342-6141
Store details:https://autoreserve.com/restaurants/yT4J9pGDEY7G3Y4fqjSq