This guest post about crafting a great experience for customers is from Saleem Khatri and our friends at Lavu, the world’s leading mobile POS for restaurants and bars.
These days, restaurants can have a tough time keeping up with the ever-changing food industry. Unfortunately, the rapid increase in the use of digital technology has left many businesses in the dust.
Whether it’s grocery delivery apps or meal kits, the food-service industry has seen plenty of changes in the past few years. But there’s no need for your restaurant to stay behind the times, especially when it comes to creating a better experience for your customers.
That’s where point-of-sale systems come in.
POS Systems Can Help
Point-of-sale systems are an excellent addition to any restaurant’s setup. Their focus on payment processing and workflow efficiency means your restaurant can improve both its service and your customers’ experiences.
But it’s not enough to only see the big picture of what POS systems do for restaurants.
Rather, you need to understand what features work together to create a standout POS experience. With this in mind, you’ll want a POS system that empowers your team to:
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- Customize your customer experience
- Improve workflow with your employees
- Benefit from new online features
- Offer seamless delivery service
- Create a customer database
These features can make a huge difference when managing your restaurant, not to mention help create a great experience for customers.
1. Customize your customer experience
Plenty of restaurants use digital technology to make their bookkeeping and management more efficient. Fewer, however, use digital technology to make the customer’s experience smoother.
Using a POS system with up-to-date features allows your restaurant to customize the ordering and payment experience for each customer. You’ll find that the increased efficiency and personalized process is appreciated on the customer’s end.
Check out Lavu’s Restaurant POS, with its mobile POS and POS kiosks, for a great idea of what to look for in a good POS system. The best POS platforms allow you to:
- Streamline your menu navigation. Point-of-sale systems can offer diverse and interactive menus that allow your customer an ease of navigation that you just can’t get with print menus. This helps your staff especially if you restaurant has a large menu.
- Use preset tip amounts. Make life easier for your service staff by including preset tip amounts in your POS system. Customers are more inclined to tip more if they understand how the preset amounts correspond with percentages.
- Create a personable ordering experience. Modern POS systems can add a level of personal depth to the ordering experience by helping your customer with cutting-edge menus, mobile ordering and booking, and smooth payment processing.
These ideas are just a few ways a POS system can make your customers’ ordering experience deeper and more enjoyable. Use them as soon as possible and watch the change in your customer satisfaction!
2. Improve workflow with your employees
It’s easy to make mistakes in a restaurants, no matter what your job. However, when you make a mistake in food service, it can be very costly.
Point-of-sale systems eliminate a wide range of potential errors by improving employee communication. You’ll find these improvements can make a huge difference in restaurant workflow, especially between your front-of-house and your kitchen.
Using a Bar POS can eliminate many common errors involved in managing drink orders or seating customers or setting tip amounts.
If you begin to upgrade your restaurant’s ordering system to a point-of-sale system, you will see amazing results like:
- Faster order processing. With POS systems, taking orders is faster and easier for the staff, and ordering becomes simpler for the customers. This means no more long lines and frustrated customers.
- Effective communication between front-of-house and kitchen. An important but often neglected issue of restaurant workflow is how your front-of-house staff and kitchen staff communicate. You’ll find that clerical errors or confusion are significantly reduced when you allow a POS to keep track of orders.
- Less space for error. If you upgrade to a point-of-sale system, then most of the wasteful labor created by booking errors, ordering mix-ups, and simple mistakes will quickly become a thing of the past. You’d be surprised how much time is lost correcting simple errors.
If these sound like great reasons to upgrade to a point-of-sale system, you’re not alone. Make life easier on your staff by implementing one as soon as possible.
3. Benefit from new online features
Online purchasing and integration is an excellent way to improve your customer’s experience.
Most modern POS systems offer an effortless combination with your restaurant’s online ordering process and with their own new online features.
A Coffee Shop POS, for example, can integrate with your cafe’s online gift programs to offer loyal customers a thank-you for their service.
So consider all the amazing things that a POS system can do for your restaurant’s online presence. It can:
- Improve your branding. Point-of-sale systems offer new ways for your restaurant to include its branding. You’ll find this stimulates an indirect improvement in your restaurant’s quality and experience.
- Upgrade your payment processing. This point comes into play especially when your customers are ordering online. POS systems can allow for automated payment processing which makes ordering from your restaurant online a breeze.
- Combine with Apps: Apps are a fantastic way to increase customer interest, especially when combined with usage of a POS system. Delivery apps or food review apps can be combined with a POS system to enhance the experience for customers.
So, take advantage of these suggestions and use a point-of-sale system to make your restaurant’s online features the best they can be.
4. Offer seamless delivery service
Delivery is the hallmark feature of many quality restaurants, and it can set your restaurant apart from the rest. But with delivery, it’s especially important to offer quick and reliable service to customers.
When using a POS system for delivery you save valuable time and effort for employees by streamlining the ordering process.
For example, using a Pizza POS system for your pizza delivery service can foster multiple areas for improvement in your restaurant’s delivery system. A great delivery system with a point-of-sale system can:
- Lower delivery times. Less time on the phone means more time can be spent devoted to making the food. Not to mention how ordering food online streamlines the process and removes common errors involved with customers calling for delivery.
- Maximize your employee’s time. Answering phones and interacting with delivery drivers takes valuable time away from your management and service staff. Use a POS system to streamline the delivery process and allow your employees more time for important tasks.
- Make room for more potential orders. Putting a customer on hold can be the difference between getting another order and losing one. Even using older online ordering systems can frustrate customers. With an up-to-date POS, you can receive multiple orders with minimal effort.
These are all great reasons to combine a point-of-sale system with your delivery service. So take advantage of digital technology and use a POS system to improve your deliveries.
5. Create a customer database
Keeping track of customer data is good practice for any business, but is especially helpful when it comes to running a restaurant.
Once you observe different trends in customer behavior, you can adjust your restaurant’s marketing. This leads to smarter management and a higher likelihood of increased profits.
When your POS system is integrated into your restaurant’s workflow, you can use the data you’ve gathered to improve your menu and marketing strategies. The importance of this can’t be understated.
So keep in mind that when considering upgrading to a POS system, a great one can help you:
- Take care of return customers. Maintaining a customer database through your POS can improve the experience for repeat customers. You can also use it to recognize customers who use coupons or gift cards.
- Improve your marketing strategies. You can use the data gathered through your point-of-sale system to orient your restaurant’s marketing strategies towards the people who are actually buying your food. This allows for smarter marketing and a better assessment of how effective your restaurant is in reaching its target demographic.
- Increase customer satisfaction. Collecting data on your customer’s preferences shows care and attention on your part. It can be a very important element of creating a fun and enjoyable restaurant experience.
Lavu’s POS System allows you to create a customer database for your future order with relative ease.
Point-of-sale systems aren’t difficult to understand. And with a smart POS system, you’ll see an effective boost in your business in no time.
With a great point-of-sale system behind, your service staff will be more efficient, and your customers will be happier. That means your restaurant provides higher quality service year-round.
