Casey’s Rolls Out Voice AI as Convenience Stores Take on QSRs

In convenience stores’ ongoing push to gain share from quick-service restaurants (QSRs), Casey’s General Stores is turning to voice ordering technology.

The convenience retailer, which has more than 2,500 locations, announced Wednesday (Sep. 6) that it is rolling out a conversational artificial intelligence (AI) from SYNQ3 Restaurant Solutions across its system to automate the process of taking call-in orders.

“We are excited to partner with SYNQ3 to give our team members more time to focus on our guests and operating our stores,” Sanjeev Satturu, the retailer’s chief information officer, said in a statement. “We are committed to reducing friction on our guests and team members by leveraging technology to simplify and streamline the ordering experience.”

In addition to reducing the convenience store’s labor needs, the technology includes upselling capabilities and integrates with the chain’s rewards program, such that these call-in orders are linked with consumers’ digital profiles.

The move comes as convenience store chains increasingly look to compete with QSRs to capture the spending of consumers looking to get a quick, convenient meal. Casey’s, for its part, advertises itself not only as the No. 3 convenience retailer in the country but also the No. 5 pizza chain.

To remain competitive with restaurants, these kinds of automated technologies are becoming increasingly essential. Findings highlighted in the PYMNTS report “Inflation Puts Technology on the Menu for Restaurants,” the June edition of the “B2B and Digital Payments Tracker®,” created in collaboration with American Express, showed that three-quarters of restaurants are already using automation in at least three areas of operations.

Voice AI especially has been catching on in recent months. Over the course of last month alone, White Castle announced a drive-thru ordering partnership with conversational AI company SoundHound; ChowNow, an online ordering and marketing platform for independent restaurants, announced its own collaboration with the same solution provider; and DoorDash, the nation’s leading restaurant aggregator, shared that it is developing AI-powered voice ordering capabilities to enable restaurants to field phone orders more efficiently.

These moves come as call-in orders remain elevated even in the face of more digital options. PYMNTS Intelligence from a study last year, “Digital Divide: The Key Factors That Drive Restaurant Choice,” found that 32% of consumers (and 36% of frequent restaurant diners) were calling in pickup orders more often than they did before March 2020.

While consumers tend to resist automation in some cases, it seems that at least some diners are getting on board with voice AI. In an interview with PYMNTS earlier this summer, Aaron Nilsson, chief information officer at restaurant chain Jet’s Pizza, discussed customers’ positive experiences with the company’s deployment of HungerRush’s technology, even though they know what it is.

“The voiceover is communicating that it’s a robot,” he said. “We didn’t want to hide that in any way. … One really delightful thing that I hear on occasion when we pull recordings from this is that, at the end of calls, frequently, customers will say, ‘Thank you.’ That is inherently a human-to-human thing. … They’re having an interaction that’s human-like.”

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