Hotels Look To Better Track F&B Sales With New Software System

NATIONAL REPORT— New software is helping hotel food and beverage directors track sales and the performance of servers, and it is also proving valuable as a training tool. The Westin Peachtree Plaza in Atlanta has been using the Web-based software, called Slingshot and produced by New York City-based Avero Inc., “for a little more than a year,” said Mary McKee, food and beverage director. Annual food and beverage sales at the 1,068-room hotel are “$19 million plus,” according to McKee. Slingshot works by extracting raw data from multiple point-of-sale systems. At the Avero data warehouse, the information is subsequently loaded into a secure database and is viewable by designated users via the Internet. “It’s basically a report writer that gives us a variety of useful information related to sales trending, item sales and the servers,” McKee explained. “We can do a category trend and look at the entire operation, or just one outlet. We can also assess time periods— the last 30 days or some other period— along with things like the size of the average check. It lets us see if there are any identifiers, for example, if every Friday is busier than other times.” The reports gleaned from the software are especially valuable for seeing how the servers are performing at the Westin Peachtree Plaza’s food and beverage outlets, which include a fine dining restaurant, café, lobby bar and Starbucks coffee bar. McKee can obtain a “server sales opportunity report” that gives her specific data on each server in each outlet. “We can see if a particular server is good at selling appetizers or desserts or wine, and determine their strengths and weaknesses to help them perform better,” she said. “We can help a server become a true sales performer so it is a good training tool.” When a server’s strength is identified, he or she is encouraged to give tips to co-workers, McKee noted. “If they’re good at wine sales, they can tell the others how they do it,” she said. That concept appears to be working, she added. “We get a report showing all servers and what the difference is in the average check. We’re now seeing the difference in the average check narrowing,” McKee said. Another “great feature” of Avero Slingshot is its calendar and log, according to McKee. “In the past, the manager would make handwritten notes of daily activity in log books. Now, it’s all put right into the system and we have it in one place. It would be very easy for me to go back and see how business was last New Year’s Eve, for example,” she said. The Plaza in New York will also soon be using the software to track sales in its food and beverage department. “We essentially will be able to better analyze data with the new software,” said Tim Herman, food and beverage director at The Plaza. Annual food and beverage revenues at the 805-room landmark hotel amount to $50 million, according to Herman, with $40 million in the food category and $10-million in beverages. The Plaza is currently in the implementation phase with Slingshot, according to Herman. He estimated the system will be up and running during the first quarter of this year at the hotel, which is managed by Fairmont Hotels & Resorts. The software will be installed at The Plaza’s various food and beverage outlets including the Oak Room, Oak Room Bar, Oyster Bar and Palm Court. It will also track sales made via room service, guestroom minibars and the hotel’s gift shop. “We’ll be able to see what the most popular items are and we’ll also see how our promotions are doing,” Herman said. “We’ll have enhanced reports that will allow us to see opportunities and hopefully increase check averages through selling other items,” Herman said. “One thing we’ve always wanted to know is how effective our promotions are. For example, if we have an apple martini promotion, we want to know not only how many were sold, but who sold it and at what time,” he said. The same would be true with foods, he added. “We might lik