Chick-fil-A ensures near 100% uptime with cellular back-up
BUSINESS PROFILE
Atlanta-based Chick-fil-A, Inc., the nation’s second-largest quick-service chicken restaurant chain (based on sales), currently has 1,340 restaurants in 37 states and Washington, D.C. Credited with inventing the chicken sandwich and first introducing the chicken nugget concept, Chick-fil-A serves nutritious and freshly prepared food products in malls, free-standing units, drive thru-only outlets, Chick-fil-A Dwarf House and Truett’s Grill full-service restaurants and through licensed outlets in college campuses, hospitals, airports, businesses, and industrial sites.
BUSINESS CHALLENGE
Fueled by a successful growth strategy in both new and existing markets, Chick-fil-A has continued to increase its free-standing restaurant openings each year. Many of these new free-standing units are a result of the chain’s desire to extend service in existing markets, where only mall restaurants previously existed. The chain continues to grow with new storefront sites and licensed operations (e.g., college campuses and airports), as well as additional mall locations.
The logistics behind opening a new chain restaurant location are astonishing. One critical preparation is the implementation of the point-of-sale (POS) infrastructure, which typically includes a cash register terminal that is integrated with a credit card reader. To enable successful transactions, the card reader must connect with the issuing credit company in order to verify the authenticity of customer cards, as well as to verify the presence of available credit lines.
Unfortunately, Chick-fil-A continued to run into issues with hardline connectivity providers. Local telcos at new retail locations consistently missed landline installation dates, rendering the chain’s POS systems useless. In addition to threatening the viability of a location’s grand opening date – resulting in disappointed employees and customers and bad publicity – no monetary transaction capabilities mean no revenue.
SIERRA WIRELESS AIRLINK SOLUTION
Chick-fil-A’s corporate Information Technology (IT) team has been innovative in developing communications strategies that link its many clients together into one corporate network. Among these strategies is the team’s adoption of a wireless POS solution utilizing the Sierra Wireless AirLink Raven intelligent modem running on the Sprint CDMA 2000-1x cellular network.
Chick-fil-A’s corporate IT team realized that wireless, cellular connectivity offered its retail locations both cost reduction and flexibility. Hardwiring a location costs thousands of dollars, and landline service is subject to higher on-going monthly usage charges. In addition, a wireless POS solution provides the portability and ease-of-installation that Chick-fil-A needed to guarantee effective POS system placement in each retail store to meet its speed-of-service requirements, as well as grand opening deadline.
Chick-fil-A worked to deploy a standardized wireless POS system with user-friendly, remote IT management capabilities. The solution consists of The Portable POSTM packaged system by field computing systems integrator USAT, featuring “always-on” connectivity and remote management capabilities provided by the AirLink Raven network device. The Raven is powered by ALEOS™, the longstanding industry benchmark for reliable and feature-rich intelligence, enabling remote configuration, packet-level diagnostics, and reliable network session persistence.
Chick-fil-A’s POS system is now “plug & play”. With robust wireless signals and the greater bandwidth and faster data transfer rates offered by 3G cellular technology, Chick-fil-A has found its wireless systems to provide the mission-critical uptime required to maintain customer service levels demanded by one of the largest, privately-held restaurant chains.
Chick-fil-A is also equipped with 24/7 monitoring through its Raven modems. ALEOS’ ability to establish and maintain a persistent wireless connection is of vital importance for Chick-fil-A, giving the company the peace of mind that its restaurants are always on-line.
RESULTS
“Wireless connectivity innovation greatly facilitated the process of Chick-fil-A opening new storefronts,” explained Tony Letts, IT senior supervisor at Chick-fil-A and a driving force behind the wireless POS solution. “Now, Chick-fil-A can begin processing credit cards as soon as we open a new location; we do not have to worry about delays caused by lags in getting the landline POS infrastructure in place.”The Chick-fil-A solution deployment using Sierra Wireless AirLink Raven intelligent devices produced the following improvements:
The Chick-fil-A solution deployment using Sierra Wireless AirLink Raven intelligent devices produced the following improvements:
- Decreased cost of installation by eliminating need for landline connection to Chick-fil-A POS systems.
- Eliminated wires, enabling a more portable solution.
- Enabled real-time, remote monitoring and management capabilities to IT team through Raven modems with embedded ALEOS technology.
- Improved relationships with customers by providing 24/7 uptime on a secure and reliable cellular network.
- Shortened cycle from installation to revenue-generation, enabling immediate monetization of the retail site.
For More Information:
- Learn More About USAT Retail Solutions
- For Help with Restaurant Connectivity Contact a USAT Rep
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