Chili’s Grill and Bar has reunited with tabletop tablet supplier Ziosk to use its devices in its more than 1,100 company-owned restaurants.
Chili’s customers can use the touchscreen tablets to pay their bill without having to wait for a server. They also feature games and surveys, which are a key source of customer feedback for Chili’s.
The Dallas-based casual-dining chain was one of Ziosk’s first customers back in 2014 and one of the first restaurants to install tabletop tablets. But when it came time to renew its contract about four years ago, it went with a different supplier.
“We didn’t have all the kinks worked out,” said Ziosk CEO Rhonda Levene in an interview. “To be honest, we weren’t perfect out of the box.”
But it went on to improve its technology and in recent years reestablished its relationship with Chili’s, which underwent a management overhaul in 2022. It also helped that Ziosk’s competitor stopped selling tabletop tablets.
“We’re excited to rejoin the Ziosk family at an even grander scale this time around,” said Chili’s Chief Supply Chain Officer James Butler in an email.
For Chili’s, tabletop payment helps ease operations in the dining room and lowers wait times because guests can pay and leave whenever they want. They can also split the check and apply loyalty points.
Chili’s will also allow customers to enroll in My Chili’s Rewards on the tablets, and they’re rolling out a new game library. And customers will still be prompted to answer a few questions on the tablet at the end of their meal.
The tablets have been very popular with guests. About 94% of customers choose to pay on them, CEO Kevin Hochman said at last year’s Restaurant Leadership Conference, and they fill out about 20 million surveys a year. “It’s big data on an amazing level at thousands of restaurants,” Hochman said at the time.
Ziosk is working on ways to make that data useful to restaurants. Levene mentioned the idea of using the tablets to generate real-time alerts that tell servers when to get back to the table, or using generative AI to create personalized survey questions in real-time.
Chili’s hinted it would tap into some new capabilities on the tablets soon. “We’re just scraping the surface with the rollout so far,” Butler said, adding that the chain would share more in the coming months.
Working together, Chili’s and Ziosk were able to roll out the tablets in just four months, which is one of the fastest tech implementations the chain has ever done. Butler declined to reveal how much the changeover cost.
“Technology innovation is something we are investing in to set us up for long-term success,” he said.
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