From easy to use online ordering to a compelling website and effortless reservations, successful restaurants engage diners at every touchpoint. Behind the scenes, many restaurants use BentoBox’s seamlessly integrated technology to achieve up to 40% more web traffic, generate 50% more revenue, and welcome 28% more mobile visitors.
Customer Experience Manager Erin Forden has been with BentoBox for eight years, giving her a unique perspective on how the company has evolved — especially when it comes to scaling customer support. “We’re a hospitality tech company that started with a design-forward focus, which has driven our growth,” she says. “From websites to online ordering and POS integration, we simplify how restaurants manage their online presence, creating a truly hospitable tool for the hospitality industry.”
Front plays a key role in helping BentoBox stay true to their principles, enabling customer-facing teams to work efficiently and deliver exceptional service so that restaurant owners can focus on what they do best.
Front stood out for its ability to bring teams together in a single platform, making cross-department collaboration easier and more efficient. Its out-of-the-box functionality was the best we could find.
Challenges
Individualized teams, communication challenges, and unscalable tools
To support restaurant owners juggling multiple priorities, the hospitality tech industry demands quick, efficient communication. Before implementing Front, BentoBox relied on a combination of tools that didn’t quite meet their growing needs.
For their help center and email, the support team used Zendesk to manage tickets and host their knowledge base. Meanwhile, the onboarding and customer success (CS) teams used Gmail and Yesware for message templates, with Zendesk handling assignment and routing through Round Robin rules.
“In Zendesk, customer communication felt siloed: switching between spaces and transferring conversations was cumbersome and inefficient,” says Erin. With different tools in play, details often slipped through the cracks, delaying response times. “Getting the functionality we wanted with Zendesk meant extra integrations and add-ons, which cost more,” says Erin. “To get where we wanted to be, we needed to consolidate tools.”
With Front, our response rates are significantly faster, and customers feel better cared for with more accurate communication.
Solutions
A flexible, out-of-the-box solution
Looking for a tool that could unify their teams and improve collaboration without breaking the bank, BentoBox was drawn to Front’s out-of-the-box functionality. “We needed to get everything onto one platform, and Front helped us do just that,” says Erin.
One of the key drivers for the switch was BentoBox’s goal to launch their first chat widget, a feature that their existing tools didn’t support well. With Front, they saw an opportunity to consolidate systems and introduce new functionality without adding unnecessary complexity.
Front also offered scalable flexibility, empowering each team to manage their own customized workspace. For example, the support team works exclusively out of shared inboxes to efficiently handle a high volume of inquiries. Meanwhile, the onboarding and customer success teams use a hybrid approach:
Small and medium business (SMB) customers are managed in shared inboxes
Mid-market (MM) and VIP Hospitality Group customers have individual inboxes, enabling a more tailored experience
Streamlining customer support requests from start to finish
When a customer reaches out for help, BentoBox now offers three primary ways to contact the support team: email, a website form, or the chat widget. Each inquiry is routed into one of two shared inboxes: one dedicated to the widget and another for all other requests. From there, Front’s routing rules take over, directing messages based on priority and service-level agreements.
For example, critical issues (P1) and less urgent matters (P2) are assigned to team members with the appropriate expertise and tenure. If a Customer Success Manager needs to step in, Front’s tagging feature allows the support team to easily transfer the conversation, ensuring continuity and avoiding delays.
Once a request is resolved, the conversation is archived, which triggers a follow-up workflow to collect customer feedback through a customer satisfaction (CSAT) survey. This closes the loop on customer interactions and provides valuable insights to improve future service.
Seamlessly working together and across departments
Collaboration is key to how BentoBox operates, and Front’s features make it easy for teams to work together. Leveraging internal comments, they can leave detailed notes and create breadcrumb trails for ongoing conversations. If a request requires input from another department, such as revisions handled by the design team, the original support agent can simply link the ticket to BentoBox’s Asana integration, ensuring all the necessary context is available.
“Linking ensures that if the original rep assisting a customer is unavailable, the next rep has all the context they need to provide an effective solution,” says CS Operations Program Manager Anna Wetmore. Load-balancing rules and message templates make it easier to manage workloads, and Front Intelligence features, such as generative text and summarization, help speed up responses and ensure clarity, especially for more complex inquiries.
Tracking performance and integrating tools seamlessly
To monitor performance and identify areas for improvement, Front analytics are essential for BentoBox, allowing them to track key indicators like response times, resolution times, and CSAT. Integrations with tools like Salesforce, Asana, and Jira provide additional context and functionality, enabling BentoBox to manage tasks, sync contact information, and track progress across teams.
With Front rules, templates, and comments, we can ensure consistent communication with customers, delivering clear and accurate information every time.
Results
Efficient chat times, cross-team collaboration, and faster response rates
Front has fundamentally improved the way BentoBox operates, both internally and externally, and the results speak for themselves: their average handling time improved by 50%, and they also saw a 27% decrease in their average resolution time, from 21 hours on average in 2023 to slightly over 15 hours in 2024.
BentoBox chose Front because it provided a way to solve their immediate challenges while positioning them for future growth. Streamlined workflows and increased efficiency meant the team was able to unlock a new support channel. One of the standout achievements has been the successful launch of their first chat widget.
“Launching our first chat widget was a big milestone, and our handle times are excellent,” says Anna. “Cross-team collaboration has also improved drastically. In Zendesk, getting context and looping in other teams was previously a multi-step process, adding time and customer frustration. With Front’s rules, we can quickly route requests to the right team, reducing touchpoints and speeding up responses.”
Enhancing internal tools and workflows
Front has also simplified internal processes. For instance, BentoBox’s heatmaps — once created manually — are now automated, allowing the team to identify and adjust for peak activity times. This insight even led them to reschedule department meetings that overlapped with their busiest periods, ensuring maximum team availability when customers need them most.
The customer-facing help center and internal knowledge base have undergone a transformation as well. “In Zendesk, we had 10 years of outdated, disorganized articles that no one had maintained,” says Erin. “Moving to Front allowed us to rebuild it in a much simpler, more intuitive system. Plus, the internal knowledge base is not just another Google Drive or forgotten wiki: It’s a central, maintainable resource that’s easy to update and looks great.”
Front has fundamentally improved the way BentoBox operates, both internally and externally, and the results speak for themselves: happier customers, more efficient workflows, and a team that’s fully on board with a tool that makes their lives easier.
