A key component to any restaurant is making sure their customers have an experience that keeps them coming back. Even if the food exceeds expectations, issues with reservations or being seated on time will have an impact on return visits.
The Melting Pot, the premier fondue restaurant franchise with 92 restaurants in 31 U.S. states and Canada, faced operational challenges with their reservation management. Restaurant staff were overwhelmed with requests during peak operating hours, leading to missed booking calls and lost revenue opportunities. This problem was exacerbated outside of business hours, with further bookings missed.
Restaurant leadership sought a solution that focused on an artificial intelligence (AI) agent that would always be available, scalable across each location, and equipped to drive revenue by ensuring booking calls were not missed. The selected partner needed to reduce the burden on staff by handling routine guest requests while providing a welcoming experience as well as integrate with OpenTable, a significant driver of reservations for the Melting Pot.
Recapturing Lost Revenue
“We felt like we were losing revenue opportunities due to missed booking calls and needed a solution,” said Randy Barnett, Chief Technology Officer, Melting Pot.
As a recommended vendor of OpenTable, The Melting Pot chose PolyAI. The company builds AI agents for customer engagement— designed to handle complex conversations, deliver measurable results, and scale across industries. Its Agent Studio, the only voice-first omnichannel platform built on billions of data points from real customer interactions, helps enterprises like FedEx, Marriott, and Unicredit hold millions of conversations every year.
The Melting Pot Chooses PolyAI
The choice of PolyAI put The Melting Pot as an early technology adopter in the restaurant space. Available at all times, including after hours, the PolyAI agent named Judy has significantly enhanced the Melting Pot’s customer service model to never miss a call and ensure each interaction provides an engaging, on-brand experience. Judy answers routine questions from customers, covering everything from restaurant locations and opening hours to menu options.
Judy enables guests to create, edit, or cancel reservations, as well as make a booking deposit. These capabilities have generated additional revenue opportunities for the Melting Pot that would have previously been missed due to unanswered phone calls.
What’s more, the PolyAI agent can promote and provide information on OpenTable experiences, including menus for special occasions, wine pairings, and the ability to request specific table locations. This integration provides a seamless experience for guests.
The net gain from this integration is removing workload strain from restaurant staff, allowing them to focus on the needs of guests.
Bottom Line Results
The implementation of the PolyAI agent has led to remarkable improvements in the Melting Pot’s operations and guest experiences, said Barnett. During the first six months of site rollout, $250,000 of revenue was generated from after-hours bookings, opportunities that might have previously been missed.
Additionally, the AI agent automates 68% of all reservation-related calls, maximizing revenue generation by empowering customers to make reservations and have their questions answered— over half of all calls made to restaurants are answered by Judy.
“Locations can go live with a branded, pre-trained voice assistant extremely quickly, which, for our restaurants, means less time working on technology and more time delivering the perfect night out for our guests,” stated Barnett
Easy Implementation of AI Agent
The Melting Pot was the first restaurant to go live for new bookings with the PolyAI and OpenTable partnership. The result of this partnership has been both an increase and simplification of the table booking process for both the Melting Pot and OpenTable.
Overall, the PolyAI agent has generated significant cost savings for the Melting Pot and increased the efficiency of the table booking process. It has been welcomed by guests and staff alike, especially by front-of-house employees who can more fully focus on creating satisfying restaurant experiences. The teams know that if a call does come through, it will likely be a high-value interaction— large group booking— instead of a routine request that didn’t need their attention.
“Thanks to the quality of their technology and dedication of their team, they validated our assumption and worked to find a solution that would help,” said Barnett.
