Known for its contemporary Mexican cuisine rooted in authentic flavors and ingredients, Rosa Mexicano grew from a single New York locale opened in 1984 to 15 global sites, including Miami, New Jersey, Washington, D.C., Atlanta, Minneapolis, Maryland (National Harbor), San Francisco, Los Angeles, Dubai, Puerto Rico, and Panama.
This past summer management worked with Swipely, a cloud-based analytics and marketing platform that recently added two new features to its toolkit, specific to the restaurant industry—Menu Intelligence and Server Performance.
The two programs link menu, staff, and customer insights with Swipely’s platform. “We help restaurants accept payments from customers, understand their customers, and then help them grow sales with marketing tools,” says Angus Davis, Swipely founder and CEO.
Menu Intelligence identifies what is selling off the menu, and what is not, based on data from every transaction within a restaurant. It can specify which menu items sell the best, what is most likely to entice a guest to return, and what is most commonly being ordered with another menu item. It is also able to track what is being said about specific menu items online.
“Forty percent of online reviews mention a particular item,” says Davis.
Rosa Mexicano is using Menu Intelligence to track what new and repeat customers order to understand what boosts loyalty. “With those insights, we’re honing in on which menu items to keep and change, as well as how to competitively price dishes,” says Cory Bronson, Rosa Mexicano VP of marketing.
“We are able to see how much new vs. repeat customers are spending, lists of our best and most recent customers, and sales during different hours of the day,” adds Bronson.
During a locale’s Restaurant Week, the company’s restaurants are able to determine which dishes are the most popular, and tailor marketing after the promotion is over based on what will boost sales.
Menu Intelligence is also helpful when testing new menu items. “Sometimes what you think is going to be one of your top performers doesn’t turn out that way—and vice-versa,” Bronson says. “We’re rolling out a new menu company-wide and are using Menu Intelligence data to help us track which dishes are performing the best in each market. For instance, we were able to see that our Tampiquena (Grilled Skirt Steak) entrée and Carnitas Skillet taco quickly became two of our top selling dishes after we initially launched them in Miami, and subsequently made adjustments to other new menu items, like our Salmon Poblano, where we’re now seeing more increased sales, too.”
Server Performance lets Rosa Mexicano see where to improve staff performance. “We are able to arm each server with the best real-time data available,” says Bronson. “We share the insights with the servers during pre-shift meetings. The beauty of the data is that it’s personalized for each server.”
Rosa Mexicano managers are able to see who is successful at selling appetizers, for example, who has the best turn time, and who could use training on the cocktail program.
By Joann Whitcher
