“AI introduces frustration to a lot of people that are not used to it,” said Kent, who works alongside AI receptionists in her job as an systems analyst. “I’m very used to it. However, [I’m] still frustrated.”
Crush Pizza is one of many small restaurants across New England and the country taking orders and fielding other calls using AI, a move helping cut costs and staff amid slim post-pandemic profit margins, inflated food and labor costs, and ongoing labor shortages. These technologies have been met with resistance from some customers who said they can’t get the service they are used to.
Tony Naser, who rolled out AI answering systems at both of his Massachusetts-based Crush Pizza locations and another chain, Mickey’s N.Y. Pizza in New Hampshire, said many customers were “surprised,” and some “standoffish,” after the change.
Naser signed on in 2024 with Austin, Texas-based voice AI startup Loman AI, one of over a 100 hundred similar startups representing a multi-billion dollar market in automated service.
“As time goes on, we get less and less customer complaints about it,” Naser said.
For him, criticisms of the technology pale in comparison to its benefits, which include handling a least a thousand calls per month at each of his stores. Loman said the system had a 98.6 percent accuracy rate. Human receptionists generally score 94 percent accuracy in data entry, according to health care research.
“We can’t imagine going back to like a Friday night and answering the phones,” he said.
According to Loman’s data, restaurants like his can increase phone revenue by 26 percent using AI as opposed to humans.
In addition to Naser’s stores, Loman software was launched over the same period at three of 12 locations of Nick’s Place, a largely family owned and operated pizza chain dotting the North Shore and Southeastern New Hampshire. Owner Costa Alexandrou said the decision to switch to artificial receptionists came in 2024 when many of his counter workers had graduated high school and moved away.
Alexandrou and Naser said they do the majority of their business through online ordering, echoing industry trends that show many customers have moved away from calling in as mobile ordering and delivery apps have become dominant. Still, missed phone calls remain a large source of lost revenue for restaurants, especially those serving takeout as some customers resist digital food service and its lack of human interaction.
Stephen Clark, president and CEO of the Massachusetts Restaurant Association, said phone answering tools are probably the most widely adopted form of AI in the restaurant industry, especially by neighborhood pizza shops. Franchises such as Chipotle and Domino’s have used similar services since 2018, but the continued spread n New England, where 9 out of 10 restaurants are small businesses in Massachusetts and New Hampshire, makes sense as the cost of these services has dropped, he added.
Mom-and-pop stores using AI has proved a testing-ground for the technology’s effectiveness in small-market scenarios, and consumer acceptance of these tools. Naser said he feels local stores are being held to a different standard even as more large chains phase out human receptionists.
“You can’t call a lot of these big fast food chains. So why do customers get upset when a smaller mom-and-pop shop wants to try to get a little technological advancement or be a little bit more efficient?” Naser said.
An October report from customer analytics platform Qualtrics XM found nearly 1 in 5 consumers said using AI customer support tools did not provide them with any benefit at all, echoing widespread sentiment that consumers still prefer human interaction to AI tools.
Of over 1,700 total Google Reviews across all of Naser’s restaurants, only 20 mention AI or robot phones, though the majority of those that did left one and two star ratings.
Meredith Harvey, of Hampstead N.H., said she didn’t mind speaking with an AI agent, and even found it easy to use when she ordered plain, unmarinated grilled chicken two weeks ago at Mickey’s N.Y. Pizza in Derry, N.H. Only later when she found out at home that she was given marinated chicken was she annoyed.
Apparently, the restaurant doesn’t serve what she wanted, she said, but the AI never informed her, and she wasn’t refunded. Like Kent, she has yet to order from the restaurant since the incident.
However, for owners, the technology has so far been a major win for generating revenue and freedom in the thinly stretched world of local business.
Alexandrou said he now worries less about what’s going on in his stores, and even went home early last Halloween during one of his store’s busiest nights of the year, which he said would have been unthinkable before integrating AI.
“Nevermind my food pride, but like my tech pride … I try to help out everybody as the new technology comes on,” he said, “People don’t realize that this stuff isn’t just geared toward the franchises.”
Christian Wiens, founder and CEO of Loman AI, said his company grew by a factor of 15 last year, attracting small businesses who regularly leak revenue through missed phone calls and can’t afford more help.
“If anybody’s telling you the phone isn’t a struggle at their restaurant, it’s a complete lie,” Alexandrou said. “[AI is] saving the day.”
For Naser and Alexandrou, AI helps them repurpose their workers across the kitchen and other areas. Fending off another critique he’d seen online about his business — that he is letting AI take away jobs — Naser said that his past year was so strong, in part because of the tech upgrade, that he now employs more people than before he started using it.
“I look at it like I’m paying an employee but it’s also cheaper than an employee,” Alexandrou, who hires fewer people to work the phones since adopting the AI, said.
Wiens said Loman’s customers save around $2,500 per store, per month in labor costs. He said 66 percent of Loman’s restaurant clients reduce their labor costs through staff cuts, a decrease of roughly one human shift per day. Thirty-four percent retain the same staffing levels, though the large majority of these reported they could reduce their work force.
Loman’s AI agents increase order value by 16 percent through upselling, and also record all calls to gather large amounts of data so restaurants can personalize interactions for repeat customers, Wiens said.
Some industry experts said customer complaints will fade and universal adoption will take hold as the technology continues to improve.
“People are resistant because the ones that are deployed today are crappy,” Paul English, co-founder of travel search engine Kayak and consumer app startup producer Boston Venture Studio, said. “Bots are going to be better than humans, and very soon people are going to say, ‘You know what, as long as I answer my question quickly, that’s great.’”
Bryan Hecht can be reached at bryan.hecht@globe.com. Follow him on Instagram @bhechtjournalism.
