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Everyone has encountered the upsell. It’s the extended-warranty offer when buying a TV, or the ask to add a Danish to the coffee you just purchased. Now, CardFree Inc. has released a tool to help merchants automate the upsell with its new Smart AI Upsell feature.
A component of CardFree’s loyalty, payments, and offers online-ordering platform, the artificial intelligence tool analyzes historical ordering data in real time, based on items currently in a shopper’s cart as well as on their location. Prior to checkout within the ordering platform, the Smart AI Upsell feature suggests paired items to add to the basket. San Francisco-based CardFree also is making Smart AI Upsell available via an API code to all users, regardless of which company they use for online ordering.
In a pilot at the brewery Tree House Brewing, CardFree says upsell adoption increased 326% compared to previous standard upsell suggestions. At a handful of other restaurants, the use of Smart AI Upsell generated a 126% increase in adoption at a quick-service coffee location, and food-centric establishments experienced upsell boosts ranging from 30% to 40%.
“The tool leverages the history of flavor trends and ordering preferences that are married together and mines that data to come up with a much more intelligent upsell,” Jon Squire, CardFree founder and chief executive, says in a statement.
CardFree expects artificial-intelligence tools will make their way into other elements of hospitality operations. “As AI progresses, we’ll start to see things like cook times, order frequency, backend inventory, and other critical operational aspects leverage AI, so we’re expanding into those areas with our own products,” Squire says.
