Lines are getting longer and lunch hours are getting shorter, says Kristin Kronhardt, vice president of marketing for Port of Subs Inc., a Reno-based sandwich chain.
"People are looking for quicker options," she says, so the company set up an online ordering system.
Now customers who go to www.portofsubsonline.com can order a sandwich pretty much the same way they order a book from Amazon. Some restaurants even take credit card payment on-line.
The customer fills in fields, and software on an Ohio-based computer server transfers the online order into a fax that's routed to the right store and prints it as a paper cue next to the cashier.
The service was introduced at the company's Arizona stores. The Las Vegas stores were wired over a year ago and now 90 percent of the 29 restaurants in Reno are on the program.
Las Vegas-area customers have placed more than 8,500 e-orders since Port of Subs started electronic ordering in January 2005.
"We are seeing an average of about 3 percent of sales coming thru the online ordering system for participating stores," says Kronhardt.
Some stores have seen as much as 5 percent.
"Implementing the online ordering system was pretty seamless," she says,
because of the Web service, Genesis Webmasters.
The Ohio-based company was recommended by a franchisee whose family operates it.
Port of Subs began in Reno and now operates 146 company-owned and franchised stores in six Western states.
