As customer expectations shift and technology advances, the restaurant industry must embrace that new technology to stay in competition. Trends indicate that consumers increasingly favor personalization, quickness and accuracy: Diners prefer automation, fast yet exceptional service, trendiness, healthy options, and explicitly allergy- and diet-friendly menus. As the industry juggles these shifting attitudes with the everyday challenges of restaurant management, only the most advanced technology can ensure maximum profit. Cutting-edge POS systems are the best way to make your business run faster and more efficiently than ever.
Touchscreen POS Terminals
These are the cornerstone of advanced restaurant technology. Easy-to-use interfaces reduce your cashiers’ workload and stress, and the speedier service shrinks lines and improves customer satisfaction overall. You or your POS vendor can easily train staff on how to use these devices as well, which facilitates the onboarding process. This is especially important considering the abnormally high turnover rate that the food service industry experiences, ultimately wasting hundreds of thousands of dollars in regularly finding, hiring and training new employees.
In addition to making employees’ jobs easier and speeding the production process, many POS systems even come equipped with customer-facing screens so that they can follow along, ensuring more accurate orders and hastening the payment process. This improves table turn times, allowing you to serve more customers and improve profits that way.
Self-order kiosks
Self-order kiosks also hugely benefit restaurants by letting customers place their entire order directly on the screen, payment included, without ever having to visit the cashier. By redirecting some if not most of the cashiers’ lines to these kiosks, you greatly reduce wait time and free up your staff to expend their energy in areas of the business that need attention. For example, staff can spend more time focusing on guests’ experiences to ensure greater customer satisfaction overall.
Self-service improves efficiency and table turnaround. Just install them somewhere highly-trafficked and noticeable, in an area that won’t conflict with other areas of the business, and take advantage of that ROI almost immediately. Learn more about the benefits of self-service kiosks here.
Handheld POS systems
Handheld POS systems are another self-service device that drastically improve business operations. They basically act like miniature terminals; many sit-down restaurants already have their tables equipped with a tablet so guests can order and pay directly from their seats. This cuts down on how long they have to wait for service, which makes their meals go faster and opens up the table to other customers so that you can serve more people in a shorter period of time.
Customers can also easily add to their order and review their choices to guarantee accuracy. Interestingly, people are also much more likely to add modifications, sides and bigger portions this way. For one, they can easily order more food at any time right from their seat. People also often feel that cashiers and staff might judge them for getting too much food or for what they order, so the privacy of a handheld device lends itself to larger portions and bigger checks.
Kitchen Display Screen
All these terminals, kiosks and handheld devices can transmit information directly to back-of-house staff with kitchen display screens. They negate the need for tickets, thus eliminating paper waste and allowing cooks to start orders more quickly. With KDS, kichen staff can easily reference tickets and view upcoming orders onscreen, whereas paper tickets get lost and damaged. KDS also help in cases where making items in bulk is faster than cooking small portions for multiple separate orders.
Integrating processes
Many advanced POS systems can also connect directly to printers and cash drawers. Thermal printers produce faster receipts than ink-based ones, further cutting down on customer wait time. Syncing the cash drawer will automatically record all transactions and you can lock, unlock and open it all from the cashiers’ screen. Manager permissions further dictate who can operate which devices and when, giving you more control and more security over your business.
You can also use your system to track and analyze data, manage employee schedules, change your menu and more. The right POS system will connect all of your associated devices and all of your additional processes together so your business operates as efficiently as possible.
No doubt that major technological advances can seem intimidating at first. However, all of this automation cuts costs, saves time and makes daily operations easier and more accurate so you can focus on doing what you love: Creating an incredible dining experience for everyone.
