How Voice AI helps this family-run restaurant thrive

Missed calls mean missed revenue

For Il Nido, moving to Voice AI to handle incoming calls was about delivering excellent customer service, without adding extra staff.

Adrian knew calls were getting missed, and the volume of calls coming in during peak service periods was putting pressure on staff. He explains: 

“We have great staff, but it was stressful for them to try to look after customers in the venue, while also fielding 30-40 calls a night. If staff answer the call, customers in the venue have to wait, whereas if we miss the call, we miss the revenue.  

It’s not good when customers say they’ve been trying to ring for 30 minutes and haven’t been able to get through. On a weekend, we can easily have 6 or 7 calls coming in at the exact same time, so it is just not possible for staff to answer them all.

And of course, when staff are taking calls while trying to multi-task in a busy restaurant, mistakes can get made, which is a problem for the customer and for us.” 

Calls convert to confirmed bookings, fulfilled orders, and catering enquiries

For Adrian and the Il Nido team, Sadie has driven operational improvements in multiple areas. Not only has she positively impacted restaurant revenue, but she’s taken the pressure off staff, and empowered them to deliver better front-of-house service. 

Adrian says the impact of Sadie has been “incredible” since the start, but that the implementation of the new Square integration has taken their success to a new level. Il Nido is one of the first adopters of this new integration that enables Sadie to handle takeaway orders end-to-end over the phone. He explains: 

“Rather than paying 30% fees to third-party ordering apps, Sadie takes the order and routes it directly through Square, which improves our margin on takeaways. That makes a big difference to the bottom line when up to 40% of all orders are takeaway.” 

By ensuring 100% of calls are answered, Sadie has helped Il Nido convert missed calls to confirmed bookings, fulfilled takeaway orders, and actionable catering enquiries. 

How Voice AI helps Il Nido thrive

As a family-run restaurant, Il Nido has no shortage of hospitality expertise, but Adrian says it is their adaptability that makes the venue thrive in a challenging environment.  

“My parents have been in hospitality for over 50 years, and I’ve been in the industry my whole life. One thing we have learned is that even established venues have to be adaptable. The past few years have been insane in terms of hospitality technology, and if you don’t move with the times, you’ll quickly get left behind.” 

“Sadie has made such a difference for us, giving us time to focus on other things, eliminating errors and positively impacting our bottom line.” 

Front-of-house staff freed from fielding dozens of calls during peak service

For Il Nido, the initial goal of implementing Sadie was to reduce the pressure on front-of-house staff, using their time more efficiently while on shift. He explains:  

“We have really great staff, but on a Friday and Saturday night, we’re often under-staffed. It makes such a difference to be able to redirect staff to the floor, and have them completely focused on dining service, and not being pulled away to the phone all night. It’s amazing to see how much staff time we were losing to answering the phone during busy service.” 

Takeaway revenue up, order errors down

Takeaway orders make up around 40% of total orders for Il Nido; however, capturing those orders was a challenge. Adrian says that often, multiple calls would come in at once, and takeaway calls tended to happen right when the dining room was at its busiest. 

For Adrian, missed calls mean missed revenue, so finding a way to accurately capture all of those orders was critical.  

Adrian says:

“Hospitality is a tough game, you can’t afford to be missing revenue, takeaways or bookings that come in over the phone. Customers have options and if you don’t answer, they’ll just go somewhere else.”  

Il Nido was already using Sadie to handle incoming calls, so when the opportunity came up to integrate Sadie and Square, enabling her to handle takeaway orders over the phone, Adrian jumped at the chance.  

“The takeaway side of things with Square has been unreal. Sadie handles all the orders and almost never makes a mistake. Having Sadie handle orders over the phone has helped us move more of our takeaway to our own platform, rather than relying on Uber Eats and DoorDash, which saves us a ton in fees.”  

Simple solution, with solid support

For Adrian, the Sadie experience has been a positive one from the get-go, going live just days after deciding to move ahead. He describes his onboarding: 

“The customer success team at Sadie are just awesome. If ever we have a problem, I know that it will be resolved super quickly, and we’ll have a response pretty much straight away. And when we saw that takeaway was an option, we got started very quickly, it really was a matter of just sending the information from Square to Sadie.” 

Get started with Sadie x Square

To see how Sadie could help your venue get better coverage of takeaway orders over the phone, book a free, 15-minute demo here.