Some fast-food restaurants in the US are paying cashiers on other continents to take orders over video calls, rather than finding workers locally.
Happy Cashier's founder, Ji Chang, told Business Insider that his company's staff, who the company calls “happy cashiers,” take orders on behalf of American restaurants via video call from the Philippines, Malaysia, and Ghana, where labor costs are much lower.
The New York Times reported in April that restaurant technology company Happy Cashier paid Filipino order-taking staff at its New York City restaurants just $3 an hour, well below the city's $16 hourly minimum wage or the $10.65 minimum cash wage for tipped food-service workers.
Employees are in different time zones than the customers they serve: the Philippines and Malaysia are both 12 hours ahead of New York, and Ghana is four hours ahead in the summer and five hours ahead in the winter.
Chan told BI that people in some Asian countries “are so used to working during graveyard hours that they think it's fine and sometimes even prefer it.”
“We always strive to pay our employees enough to live on and above the local wage,” he added.
Each restaurant has one or two dedicated screens connected by video calls by Happy Cashier staff who take customers' orders, explain allergy information, and transmit the orders to the restaurant kitchen.
Many of Happy Cashier's customers are based in the United States, and the company has an office in Manhattan. Chan also said the service is trademarked in major English-speaking countries. The company works with restaurants of “all sizes,” but mostly fast-casual and fast-food restaurants use the video cashier service, Chan said.
He told CNBC in May that “dozens of restaurants across New York” were testing the service.
“Most customers have given very positive feedback,” Chan told BI.
Happy Cashier gained attention in the spring after a post by X about the company's operations at New York City restaurant San San Chicken went viral.
Chan said restaurants that use Happy Cashier typically have one or two dedicated cashiers who are paid an hourly wage.
Happy Cashier did not respond to multiple requests for comment from BI about how many virtual cashiers it employs, how it trains them, how much it pays them and whether it takes a cut of tips.
Lily Jiang, a lecturer at Cornell University's School of Hotel Administration, told BI that the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the “evolution” of takeaway, as people had no choice but to get food from restaurants to take away or have it delivered during lockdown.
Jiang said the introduction of video calling cashiers would allow restaurants using Happy Cashier to “bridge the gap” between cutting costs and providing a personal touch.
“We want to be seen as customers,” she said.
The biggest expenses for restaurants are ingredients and labor, but wages have risen steadily since the pandemic began.
Jiang said the novelty of ordering over a video call could help attract customers, but ultimately restaurants need to consider whether using such a service makes the experience better or faster for staff and customers, she said.
Chang said most restaurants “want to use our services from opening to closing because during the restaurant's off-peak hours, our cashiers do a lot of behind-the-scenes work, like posting to job sites, managing reviews and search engine optimization.”
