Crêpes & Waffles is a unique Colombian restaurant chain founded in 1980 by two Los Andes university students. The first restaurant, a small rustic French-style crêperie with a wooden bar and a young, informal atmosphere, was opened in Bogotá, Colombia.
Since then, they have expanded to open locations in Brazil, Panama, Mexico, Chile, Venezuela and Spain.
Crepes & Waffles also have a delivery service and an online shop selling more than 900 dishes.
Crepes & Waffles almost exclusively employs women, often single mothers. The founders aim to empower women by providing them with reliable employment and a generous monthly pay cheque whilst still having the time to study and look after their families.
Having an overwhelmingly female team has proven to be good for business and an effective way of lifting women out of poverty whilst fighting Colombia’s macho culture:
“Women are the backbone of a family. Colombia is a land of women. They’re the ones who look after the children, take them to school, and provide for them. So women bring more commitment to the job because they have a greater sense of responsibility for their families, with sometimes up to five children.”
Founder Beatriz Fernandez.
Challenge
As Crepes & Waffles grew, it needed a reliable, robust communication system to ensure the team continued to provide outstanding customer care and manage operations efficiently and effectively across all sites.
In addition to needing to communicate across the restaurant network, it was also essential to be able to communicate with transportation teams and the delivery service drivers.
The central control centre needed to know the whereabouts of the delivery drivers from both a logistics and customer service point of view and also to help keep the delivery drivers safe.
Solution
To improve communication and safety across the restaurant sites, the delivery service and the supply chain, Crepes & Waffles partnered with Claro Colombia, a Latin American reseller of push-to-talk over cellular technologies developed by Mobile Tornado.. Using the PTToC application, staff are able to instantly communicate with each other at the touch of a button.
Unlike legacy two-way radio systems, PTToC technology uses cellular networks, so Crepes & Waffles are able to depend on reliable coverage, regardless of location. What’s more, Claro Colombia’s solution provides best-in-class, seamless switching between 2G, 3G, 4G and 5G mobile and WiFi networks.
The push-to-locate feature enables live location monitoring and tracking. Knowing the whereabouts of employees helps to keep workers safer and allows informed decisions to be made in actual time, saving time and increasing overall efficiency. The ability to track the whereabouts of employees at any time also makes it easier to get the right people to the right place at the right time.
What’s more, using the emergency alert feature, PTToC users are able to alert other PTT users at the touch of a button to enable emergency assistance to be sent. Automatic location information is provided once a user presses the SOS button, allowing them to be quickly located and allowing response to be sent faster, significantly enhancing their safety and operational efficiency.
Claro Colombia’s world-class dispatch console, which is powered by Mobile Tornado, enables operations across all restaurant sites to be communicated with and monitored from one central location.
Results
Mobile Tornado’s PTToC solution has improved communication, increased productivity, improved efficiencies and enhanced worker safety.
By providing accuracy of worker locations and increasing the emergency alerting functionality, the management of emergency situations and incidents has improved dramatically.
The deployment of the PoC technology and dispatch console software has transformed operations at Crepes & Waffles. The restaurant chain now benefits from seamless, efficient communication across all its sites, significantly enhancing operational efficiency, customer service and worker safety.
