Restaurant Inspections: Four Reasons to Go Mobile

If your restaurants are unprepared for health department inspections, the reputation and sales of your brand are put at risk - not to mention the safety of your guests. In fact, about 48 million people per year suffer from foodborne illnesses, a public health problem that could be largely avoided if more restaurants were dedicated to food safety.

With such a significant amount of illnesses, the popularity of websites like Yelp and TripAdvisor, and legislation that requires certain cities to to display their inspection grades at the front of their location - word of foodborne illnesses spreads quickly.

To keep your guests safe and avoid being the topic of food violation incidents, it’s crucial that your locations operate compliantly with health and safety regulations on an ongoing basis. The goal: your restaurants operating so that they could pass an inspection by the health department at anytime, without notice. This level of operational excellence requires two key activities:

1. Employee training
• All employees who handle food need training/certification - from cooks to food runners to bartenders. This ensures all areas of your restaurant are following safety guidelines.
  
  
2. Internal/self-inspections
   • Internal restaurant inspections must be completed as frequently as possible. In additional to weekly, monthly and quarterly self-inspections, your management team should be inspecting your restaurant twice daily. First, during opening to ensure no problems occurred overnight, and then again during closing.

You might be thinking, twice daily? That’s costly and time-consuming. This is true when it comes to using paper methods; however, there is an alternative. Using a mobile restaurant inspection app makes it easy for your managers to complete inspections daily and benefits your business in four ways:

1. React to food health and safety issues faster
2. Drive compliance to increase your bottom line
3. Easily identify trends and low-performing locations
4. Cut costs associated with paper based processes

1. React to food health & safety issues faster

Reaction time costs. A problem that can be all too familiar for businesses using paper methods to conduct restaurant inspections. The time it takes to input results into the computer or get them into the hands of the right people causes issues to linger, and can put the safety of your guests at risk.

When it comes to preventing foodborne illnesses, time is of the essence. Mobile form software like IntouchCheck puts the right information into the right hands, instantly and automatically. With real-time submissions, automated action plans and email alerts, your teams can immediately take the necessary steps to resolve issues identified during an inspection.

2. Drive compliance to increase your bottom line

Your brand’s reputation has a direct impact on your bottom line. Converting to mobile inspections makes it faster and easier for your managers to perform daily inspections and measure both food safety and brand standards. The more you measure, the more compliant your teams become - ensuring safe, happy customers and a healthy brand image and bottom line.

3. Easily identify trends and low performing locations

Paper methods limit visibility into your teams’ performance. Add hundreds or thousands of franchises to the mix and getting a clear picture of your operations is no easy feat.

Mobile form software like IntouchCheck rolls up all of your inspection results into one place, improving your visibility into team performance. The visual analytics can be filtered by location, date, inspection and more. The reporting platform also identifies top and low performers, and trending issues so you can easily make data-driven decisions when identifying where and what improvements need to be made. 

4. Cut costs associated with paper based processes

Paper based processes are expensive. Period. Mobile form software is proven to save businesses thousands and thousands of dollars every year.

By automating your inspection process, you eliminate the need for constant scheduling, data entry, emails, transportation etc. involved in the inspection process. This saves your teams hours of work, cuts your labor costs , and allows your teams to focus on other company goals like customer satisfaction and retention.

Conclusion

Converting to mobile inspections helps you keep the safety of your guests at the forefront of your restaurant operations and maintain a reputable brand image. By implementing a tool easy enough for your managers to use daily, your business will benefit in four ways:

1. React to food health and safety issues faster
2. Drive compliance to increase your bottom line
3. Easily identify trends and low-performing locations
4. Cut costs associated with paper based processes