As the modern consumer changes, restaurants have to alter their strategies and apply new technologies to their daily operations in order to keep up with expectations. The combination of COVID-19’s negative impact on business and the famously thin profit margins that restaurants have always had to contend with means that business owners have had to find creative ways to maintain revenue.
Upselling features are a great way to encourage increasing portion sizes, adding modifiers with a price tag, eating some side dishes or getting a little something extra along with an entree to take home in a box. Upselling increases the average check size and does a lot for overall revenue as well: Even a 5% increase in customer loyalty can generate a 95% rise in profit, so it’s smart to invest in a capable Point of Sale that has your restaurant’s needs in mind.
Redesign Your Menu
eatOS devices are made to automatically generate in-depth reports that give real-time information on the health of your business. Easily identify top-selling menu items so you can see, not only how much you’ve sold overall, but how much of each dish as well as their success on any given day of the week. Develop superior marketing strategies and promotional deals that highlight items that don’t do very well on their own or increase the price of popular modifiers, like extra cheese, by a few cents. Raising each check even a little bit really adds up over the course of a day.
With superior technology, you can also change around the physical format of your menu. Put the dishes you want to promote front and center to draw customers’ eye right to them; of course, “front and center” depends on if the menu is mobile, online or physical; this is why it’s so important to take your time, whenever you put your menu somewhere new like an app or website, to optimize it for that particular medium.
Visuals
Use compelling graphics to draw customers toward the items you want to make more money. High-quality, captivating imagery can do wonders for overall sales. Just make sure the dishes really do appear as advertised when it gets to the customers’ hands.
Visuals are only useful if customers can see them, which is why they’re a great addition to self-service devices such as eatOS Self-Order Kiosk but also beneficial for customer-facing displays where guests view their tickets as the cashier adds to it.
Program your PoS with forced modifiers that pop up automatically when a certain item is selected. Never rely on fallible human memory; instead your staff members can be instantly reminded to ask guests if they’d like to add chicken to their salad—or whatever dishes you apply forced modifiers to. You can even automatically schedule times for certain modifiers or prompts to go live to for a more hands-off management style.
Staff Alerts
Set automatic reminders for your workers to push certain foods or drinks at different days and times. This keeps your staff sharp and paying attention to ongoing trends. It’s a great way to remotely put employees on the same page while promoting a rotating list of items in your restaurant. Even include descriptions of the drink or meal in the alert so staff members have a script to go off of when they’re upselling during their shifts.
Incentives
Encourage your staff to work harder and your profits will naturally grow; cutting-edge PoS systems can help identify and reward your best-selling workers so you know who’s doing the most to make your company a success. Drive innovation and increase overall sales when you reward your best-selling shifts or individuals in a tangible way that lets them know you recognize and appreciate their dedication.
eatOS generates customized sales reports that break down by shift, time or individual so you can easily see who’s doing the best work. This information is useful, not just as a reward for a few weeks’ hard work when you have a contest ongoing, but as a metric for who and when to give out raises and promotions.
Loyalty Program
Since COVID-19 caused a downturn in general foot traffic, restaurants need a new way to bring in and keep customers besides the old reliable method of enticing them off the street. Loyalty programs are a great motivator to have guests return while simultaneously collecting data from their profiles that enable you to give a quicker, cleaner and tailor-made experience the next time they join you for a meal.
When you get customer information straight from the source, you can create promotional campaigns around your best customers’ favorite dishes and give out specific offers that cater to their preferences, or even encourage new meals to try out in their price range. The better you know your customers, the better you can make every experience so they’ll always think of your restaurant when they’re wondering where to go out to eat.
Point of Sale systems don’t just take sales anymore: They make them. Program in automatic upselling prompts to get all the benefits of self-service and smart devices whenever you make a sale. At eatOS, we believe in developing capable Point of Sale features that work for you. Book a demo with us today and we’ll show your restaurant how to maximize your staff’s and your menu’s potential.
