Startup Idea - Allow consumers to view the queue time of FnB outlets

[jchu4]

I would appreciate any kind of feedback

Problem: Long queue times at FnB outlets/restaurants (Especially in population dense areas)

Idea: Use physical sensors or a piece of tech at restaurants to detect people in queue. Use the data collected and calculate the queue time. Provide the information on an mobile app for end users.

What does it solve?: Consumers will waste less time queuing and they can make a better decision on where to eat at FnB outlet/restaurant

Key Features

1. Queue Visibility - End users would be able to view the number of people in the queue and the estimated queue time
2. Queue Time Prediction - Users can also input how long it takes for them to arrive at the restaurant so that AI can take that into consideration and accurately predict the estimate queue time upon their arrival
3. Promo - Provide consumers with discounts for certain FnB outlets

Future Features

1. Provide reservation option for consumers
2. May expand to areas other than FnB outlets

Pricing

1. Subscription plan for consumers
2. (I am unsure on how to price the FnB outlets/resaurant, I am still working on it)

Concerns

1. It will cause the outlet to lose customers. For example, if consumers know that there are many people at a FnB outlet and decides not to dine there.
2. From a FnB owner perspective, they would not care how many people is in the queue as long as the restaurant is working at high capacity generating as much revenue as possible
3. Dilemma....
   1. High Queue time might be a sign of a restaurant being more popular and desirable perhaps nicer food, better ambience or better deals. OR it could be looked as not to waste time queuing there
   2. Low Queue time might be a sign of arestaurant being bad, bad service, bad food, inconvenient place. OR it could encourage people to dine here for the peace and to get away from the crowd
4. Legal issues? - public surveillance?

Personally, I came up with this idea because I ran into this specific problem more than enough times living in a population dense country, and it really bothered me. Especially deciding to have a meal somewhere and after travelling for 40 mins just to find the queue time is an additional hour.

 

[jar1437]

@jchu4 (I'm assuming this is for locations where reservations are not accepted)

I think it could only work with either manual input from staff members of how long the avg wait times are for that period or some sort of calculations.

Thinking about the actual use cases in this scenario, you're trying to solve the problem with queues and wait times.

Take it back a notch and have a think about your future functionality and that's where the real problem is: The management of tables and dining times per cover.
If you have 50 tables of varying sizes and customers, you can effectively figure out the average length of time used per table. For example, with a table for 2, they could be in and out, especially on a weekday lunch meal. However and Saturday evening meal for 10 could be at least an hour to turn that table around.
Using that type of detail you could figure out how long it would take per cover and then predict how long it would take for it to become available.

Now going back to the door, you can have reservations set for certain amounts of people and then the system could tell the customer how long it will take depending on the number of tables available and the time the system has calculated that the current diners will be vacating said tables.

For customers that are not on location, you could have them hold their table for a small charge that will be deducted off their bill.

I expect to be paid for this lol.

 

[jchu4]

@jar1437 Hi, yea actually I was not looking at the reservations portion for now, but can be implemented in the future. I just want to focus on the queuing and wait time portion. More on the people that are standing and waiting in line.

What you said about the time to turn a table is extremely interesting and eye opening. I believe if the sensors and code is good enough it can definitely calculate that to predict the wait time.

And if this feature were to be implemented with a booking system as well, I definitely agree that telling the customer the waiting time for the current diners to leave brings lots of value as well.

I understand that, restaurants wouldn't pay for this just to potentially lose customers. Right now, from a restaurant owner perspective and a consumer perspective, this would heavily benefit the consumer unless I bring some value for the restaurant to pay me.

I was wondering would you think that a service with managing queue such as booking system, AI to study the queue stats/crowd for the business which can be centralized for the business owner to view if he/she has numerous restaurants. For example one of the thing the AI could provide is if there will be a high traffic at the restaurant so that you and your staff can better prepare for the crowd, this is just one example. This for more on Business Intelligence for the restaurant/business owner, which is think will bring much value for the owners. (Perhaps implementing some of the GPT models to train)

I was thinking of pricing it at 1$/month for consumers. If the above features are implemented, I have yet to figure the pricing for the business/restaurant owners. Please feel free to give any opinions on the pricing!

Lastly, thank you so much for the feedback! Feel free to give further opinions on this I would appreciate it a lot!

 

[jar1437]

@jchu4 Sorry about the delay.

What kind of sensors are you referring to? Do you mean something to detect footfall or heat?

In terms of AI, you'd need multiple inputs such as events taking place locally, school breaks, paydays, etc. Those data inputs are not as easily obtainable from what I understand but you may know more about it.

If you pull together a modelling software to put together the above, I think you'll find that there are probably shopping data analytics tools that already exist that does this exact thing (albeit without 'AI' for now).

I think maybe a better option is to have a look at current EPOS tools and building an add-on if possible to those tools. They usually have all the data available in terms of tables, seating, orders, etc. All you need to do is build some brains behind it to understand the trends of potential traffic and footfall + the queueing tool. How does that sound?

It is an interesting concept though and I've enjoyed thinking of different angles to make this a feasible product.

 

[jchu4]

@jar1437 I was looking at Time-Of-Flight (TOF) sensors or Laser sensors, but based on my research I think TOF sensors are less expensive. I do not have much technical knowledge on these sensors yet, I will start to do more in depth research once I decided to carry out the business.

Yea I am unsure about those inputs as well hahha. The inputs I can think of is those people in the queue that my sensors can pick up and the EPOS tool that I can draw data from like you suggested.

Speaking of building on top of EPOS tools to use the existing data is an excellent idea in my opinion, hopefully this would provide enough value for the restaurant owners. Meanwhile I will think of more tools/value for owners. Perhaps my tool can provide deep enough data analytics and some suggestion on how to proceed with the business and some alerts as well.

Suggestion - for an example, it could be telling the owners that they are going to experience a high traffic on 8 may 10am onwards. So that they can prepare for that day. Vice versa for low traffic days.

Thank you so much for your reply and the excellent idea! Really appreciate it

 

[karenwnc]

@jchu4 The main problem is that your solution requires some kind of sensors or manual data entry by the restaurants, while on the other hand, Google has all this data already automatically (they can get this data from their Google Maps spyware installed on people's Android devices).

In other words, if your business is ever going to succeed, Google can at any time decide to offer a similar service and basically kill you off.

I wouldn't start a new business based on such premise: if it succeeds, another company can easily kill it.

 

[jchu4]

@karenwnc Thank you so much for the feedback! Just curious, how is the accuracy of the wait time for you? Cuz in my area it doesn't seem to be very accurate.

Sorry for the confusion, my sensors will require no manual work.

I agree that Google has already a feature like this to solve this problem. I have been thinking about it and feel free to provide more feedback on this.

With my service I can provide a much higher level of accuracy as compared to google. Since google only works when people have their location on in their smartphone. Furthermore if restaurants are closely packed together or in a mall with multiple levels. Google might not provide information that is accurate enough. This is just my opinion, I want to provide the actual number of people in line for consumers.

Correct me if I am wrong, but google only shows the crowd level on a chart for all restaurants and it wouldn't give an estimate wait time. For example, taking that google does not take the physical size of the restaurant into consideration, a restaurant of a smaller size may only have 5 people dining, it would consider as crowded on the bar chart.

In my country and from my personal experience with google, it hasn't give me much accurate results. Idk why, maybe its just an issue in my area I have yet to find out on other areas.

So would you think this is enough to compete with Google if I were to launch this product/service?

I was thinking of pricing it at 1$/month for consumers. If the above features are implemented, I have yet to figure the pricing for the business/restaurant owners. Please feel free to give any opinions on the pricing!

Lastly, thank you so much for the feedback! Feel free to give further opinions on this I would appreciate it a lot!