This article may be of interest to you if you prefer ordering takeout online to ordering by phone. If you are concerned about your digital privacy, the online menu at your favorite restaurant could be a problem. Remote eye-tracking technology has been developed to track how customers navigate online menus in research environments.

Revenue Management Solutions created the groundbreaking technology in collaboration the Center for Marketing and Sales Innovation at the University of South Florida and Dr. Chris Smith, CMSI Director and Study Principal Investigator. Rob Hammond. They believe this technology will improve online ordering and increase restaurant profitability.

Revenue Management Solutions used the eye-tracking technology to analyze a TGI Fridays online menu. The study found many ways that restaurants can increase their online sales.

Remote Eye Tracking Reveals Selling Opportunities

Revenue Management Solutions used the eye-tracking technology to analyze a TGI Fridays online menu. The study found many ways that restaurants can increase their online sales.

iMotions teamed up with the Center for Marketing and Sales Innovation to develop a new technology that helped collect information for the online menu survey. Participants could then use their webcams for data collection as they ordered from TGI Friday’s online menu.

Data were closely analysed using emotional artificial intelligence tools. Participants were also asked to recall their order journeys and total spend before and after the study.

What were the key conclusions of the online menu study? One of the most important findings from the remote eye-tracking research was the presence of a persistent blind spot to the left side. Participants followed a "T” pattern when they navigated the online menu at TGI Fridays. Participants were unable to find items on the left-hand side of the online menu for half of the time.

The online menu study also revealed a distinct buyer journey that could lead to sales opportunities.

Each "buyer's Journey" had four phases that allowed for suggestive selling.

• Familiarization
• Exploration. Participants narrowed their choices and rated them.
• Affirmation : Participants will add items to their shopping baskets while browsing through the menu to search or add additional items.
• Confirmation:Participants have completed their checkout.

Remote eye-tracking revealed that buyers tend to make changes more often during the confirmation and exploration phases. Ryan Garner, Revenue Management Solutions' data architect, noted that checkout is where most of the suggestive selling occurs. Operators could benefit if these results are able to be translated across multiple menus, which we expect they will.

Remote Eye-Tracking: The New Normal

Sara Bittorf is the Chief Experience Officer of TGI Fridays and has noticed a shift in consumers' interactions with online menus. She stated that the research had already provided tools to enhance the guest experience and increase profitability of menus. As the research continues, we look forward to exploring more menu engineering insights.

Remote eye-tracking technology will need to be researched more thoroughly before it can be widely adopted. It is also important to examine how the technology is used to navigate different brands' menus.

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By: Brittany Baxter
Title: How Restaurants Design Their Online Menus To Get You To Spend More
Sourced From: www.suggest.com/how-restaurants-design-their-online-menus-to-get-you-to-spend-more/2590062/
Published Date: Tue, 28 Sep 2021 11:15:00 +0000

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