United KingdomFood and restaurants2022 – ongoingWhitbread
Beefeater Digital Host telephone reservations
Whitbread deployed a voice assistant for telephone bookings at 173 Beefeater restaurants
Problem
Beefeater staff had to answer calls while serving restaurant guests. Whitbread wanted to prevent missed calls and reduce these interruptions.
Approach
Whitbread worked with PolyAI on a bespoke Digital Host, with trials beginning before COVID-19. By July 2022, the supplier said it took telephone reservations across all 173 Beefeater locations. It also answered questions about individual restaurants through natural-language conversations.
Results
Takeaway
Deployment coverage was disclosed. Annual booking volumes and time spent handling calls were forecasts rather than measured results.
Categories
- Size
- Large enterprise
- Industry
- Food and restaurants
- Business function
- Customer service
- Innovation type
- Process innovation
- AI technology
- Conversational and voice AI
- Adoption
- Partner co-development
- Evidence
- Vendor case study
Sources
Source summaries
PolyAI announced the restaurant rollout and described booking and question-answering functions. Its annual usage figures were expectations, not completed operating results.
Full details are in the original sources.
