Enabling Imagination for food ordering
Compass Group’s Time 2 Eat is an AI-powered food ordering app built around LLMs, aiming to make food discovery more accessible and modernise outdated ordering processes.
The app needed to scale across Compass Group’s diverse portfolio of more than 5,000 locations in the UK and Ireland, from cafés and staff canteens to stadiums and factory restaurants serving organisations such as Citi, Tottenham Hotspur FC, Adidas and Bentley.
I was brought in to establish a new foundational design system and improve UX across key features, supporting each client’s evolving business model. This meant the need for flexible ordering options such as kiosks, click and collect, and delivery, alongside new loyalty redemption features and AI agentic search and purchasing journeys.
Influencing Employee Culture through Agentic Design
I used agentic design as a more intuitive way for users to explore available cuisines and restaurants through text, voice and touch. This also enabled users to find options that met their nutritional needs. This was especially relevant in environments such as the military and hospitals.
Following these changes, text search click-through rates increased from 24% to 32%, alongside a 1.6% increase in conversions.
Designing a brand in parallel with product development isn’t just about systems thinking; it’s also about vision.
I took the opportunity to create a new end-to-end loyalty journey, allowing customers to view their loyalty points, stamps and offers in one place and activate them via a QR code at the till or on the basket page in the app, depending on the business’s ordering model.
The approach was grounded in feedback from users and site managers at the start and before putting the feature live. The data showed an average basket total increase of £2.30 and a 2% monthly increase in returning users once they had been onboarded.
Visioncrafting loyalty Holisticly
Ultimately, the brand was successful in acquiring new business operations; I’m genuinely proud of what we were putting out. It rallied the existing team of engineers, builders, and everyone in between and resonated with the product's user base as well.
The work paid off in the end, culminating in a partnership with Sainsbury's Cafe.