A guest calls to order a pizza. They know which toppings they want, but they have not thought about a side or dessert. A helpful suggestion could turn that pizza into dinner for the family.
During a rush, your cashier may be focused on getting the order entered and returning to the line at the counter. There is less time to answer menu questions or suggest something that completes the meal.
Palona Voice AI brings that help into the phone conversation. It answers menu questions and makes recommendations using the location’s menu, the guest’s request, and the restaurant’s configured priorities and best-selling items. When a guest adds a suggested item, Palona includes it in the order sent directly to a supported POS.
For restaurants, the opportunity is straightforward: help callers choose food they will enjoy, capture additional sales, and keep staff focused on service.
How Does Palona Make Menu Recommendations?
A useful recommendation starts with understanding what the guest wants and knowing what your restaurant offers.
Palona is configured around each location’s menu and restaurant information. It can answer questions about menu options, including vegetarian and gluten-free choices, and help guests work through their selections.
Recommendations and upsells can also be customized around the items your restaurant wants to highlight. That might mean introducing a best-selling salad or suggesting a dessert that guests often overlook.
Here is how those pieces come together in an ordering conversation.
1. Help the guest choose their meal
Some callers arrive with a complete order. Others need a little guidance before they decide.
A guest might ask what vegetarian options are available or how they can modify a pizza. Palona can answer using the restaurant’s supplied menu information and support complex modifications, including different toppings on each half.
That assistance is valuable before any additional item is suggested. The guest gets help choosing the food they came to order.
2. Recommend an addition that fits
Once the guest has chosen their main items, a relevant recommendation can help them complete the meal.
Consider this illustrative exchange at a pizza restaurant configured to recommend its house salad:
Guest: “I’ll have a large pepperoni pizza.”
Palona: “Would you like to add a house salad to go with your pizza?”
The specific item and wording would depend on the restaurant’s menu and agent configuration. The point is to make the suggestion easy to understand and connected to the food the guest is ordering.
A salad, side, or dessert gives the guest another option they may appreciate. For the restaurant, an accepted suggestion adds to the value of the order.
3. Include the selection in the POS order
If the guest adds the salad, it becomes part of the food order. Palona sends the order, including the selected items and supported modifications, directly to the restaurant’s supported POS.
Staff can focus on preparing and fulfilling it rather than copying the conversation into another system.
Our guide to how AI phone ordering works explains the broader journey from the initial call to the order your team receives.
Can Restaurants Customize Palona’s Upsells?
Yes. Palona’s recommendations can reflect your restaurant’s priorities and best-selling items, with configuration tailored to each location.
That matters for restaurant groups. One location may have a different menu from another, and the items you want to feature may differ too.
When planning recommendations, start with the choices your team already makes when helping guests:
- Which items deserve more attention? Identify best sellers or menu items you want more guests to discover.
- What completes the meal? Choose additions that make sense alongside common orders, such as a salad with pizza.
- How should the suggestion sound? Use language that fits the way your restaurant welcomes and assists customers.
Palona’s voice, speaking style, and restaurant-specific phrases can be configured around your brand. A recommendation should sound like part of a helpful ordering conversation.
Toast’s guide to suggestive selling makes the same hospitality point: recommendations work best when they improve the guest’s experience. That is a useful principle when deciding what your phone agent should suggest.
Why Do Menu Recommendations Matter for Restaurant Operators?
Give each phone order more opportunity to grow
A caller who has already chosen your restaurant is ready to buy.
Helping that guest discover a side or dessert creates an opportunity to serve a more complete meal. The additional sale comes from a menu item the customer chooses, making recommendations a practical way to increase average phone-order value.
Help guests feel confident about their choices
Menu questions are part of ordering. A customer may want to understand their options before choosing food or making a modification.
Palona can handle those conversations alongside order-taking. The guest gets assistance, while staff can continue helping customers in the restaurant.
Bring your brand’s hospitality to the phone
Your team has a way of greeting guests, explaining the food, and making suggestions. Palona’s configurable voice and speaking style help extend that experience to callers.
For a restaurant group, location-specific menus and recommendations let each restaurant offer relevant choices within the broader brand experience.
How Can You Tell Whether Recommendations Are Helping?
Review both the conversation and the resulting order.
Palona’s Voice dashboard includes call transcripts and the number and value of phone-generated orders, with views for individual locations or groups. Transcripts let managers review how suggestions were phrased and how guests responded.
Use those records alongside your POS reporting to evaluate the results. Compare similar periods, account for menu-price changes and promotions, and distinguish submitted orders from paid and fulfilled sales.
A higher average order value can be encouraging, but the guest experience matters too. A good recommendation should make choosing food easier and give the customer a reason to enjoy ordering from you again.
Put Your Menu’s Best Recommendations Into the Conversation
Start with a few additions your staff would confidently recommend. Bring those items, your common phone orders, and your preferred wording to a Palona demonstration.
Follow the experience from the guest’s menu question to the suggestion and the final POS order. Our article on quality control at Palona explains why the order your team receives deserves as much attention as the conversation.
Your restaurant already has food worth recommending. Palona Voice AI helps introduce it to callers while your team delivers hospitality in the restaurant.
Book a Palona demo to hear how menu recommendations and upsells could work with your restaurant’s menu.