For many people running a new restaurant isn’t a big deal. How hard can it be? All one needs is a good space, good food, good ambiance, some marketing and a name for people to recognize it.
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I wish it was only this but it’s a lot more, and the first step to achieve this objective is to implement a technology. It doesn’t matter whether you own a single outlet or a chain of restaurants, POS is the perfect technology that will take your restaurants to completely different level.
There are many restaurant POS software available, some may master in keeping the inventory under control while some are excellent in building a customer loyalty program. Don’t just get dragged by seeing too many features, pick a perfect system for your business and “get the most out of it”.
5 Benefits of Using Restaurant POS Software
1. No more Inventory or Cash-register theft
Owners need to run their restaurants in a disciplined and orderly manner else free drinks, over pouring and unnecessary complements can trap them into a big trouble. They might seem like small losses initially but in the long run, it can drastically affect your business revenue.
Unauthorized discounts, inventory theft, cash register theft was very common before the best restaurant POS system. Employees were using time-consuming and tedious reporting methods making it easier to steal.
- A good restaurant POS system will keep a track of all the transaction as they occur between the customer, the waiter, bartender or cashier.
- Business owners can keep a track of their cash register balances, inventory changes and transaction in real -time so that corrective actions can be taken as soon as possible.
Takeaway: A secured restaurant POS system with integrated loss prevention features can make your business more profitable, inventory management more accurate and increase staff morale.
Instead of using paper to showcase the special items on the menu and to save the valuable time of your waiter while taking orders and to avoid the confusion of orders from one table mixing with other, the best option is to use a restaurant POS system.
- They will help you divide your menu into interesting sections, styles, type of cuisine, type of meals, combos which can be extremely convenient for you as well as your customers. Your waiters can easily switch between menu sections, list of cocktails thus reducing time while serving the guest.
- Remember every item on your menu is an independent entity. A tortilla is completely different from a red sauce pasta and it requires its own personal recognition. Giving a unique identity to every item on your menu will help you get an accurate reporting on inventory, notify you when the stock is low and can even help you find out which is the most loved dish in your restaurant.
- You can also create a unique SKU (Stock keeping unit) and an order button for each item independently. This may consume little time of yours but it is worth doing if you want to track and manage dish performance and costs.
Takeaway: Menu analysis will help the business owners know the most popular and profitable dish on the menu. It also helps to plan the future items, their presence, and prices on the menu.
3. Lure your customers with attractive loyalty programs
The two things that attract the customers to a restaurant, again and again, is its delicious food and the excellent customer service which keeps them engaged with the brand and entice them to come back for more. I am sure the chef must be taking care of the food. To achieve the next important thing, you can use the customer data gathered by your restaurant POS system and create a loyalty program that is tailored to your customer’s needs.
Create discount cards and link information about every order they have made to the general history of visits. This will help to conduct marketing analysis and obtain real-time information about your target audience without any additional charges involved.
Takeaway: Create your own loyalty program using the POS ecosystem to increase visits, reward your customer, run personalized marketing campaigns etc. This will enable you to know your customer better and track their habits.
4. Right order at the right time
Like the behind scenes of a movie, a lot of things happens before a well-decorated, mouth-watering dish is served on the customer table.
A usual day in a restaurant would be something like this” waiter jumping between kitchen and dining area to deliver orders to the chef”. Orders mixing up or an incorrect dish prepared due to bad handwriting, language barriers or miscommunication. These processes can be streamlined with a restaurant point of sale software. Let us see how
- Orders can be delivered electronically to the kitchen instantly without having someone to deliver it personally.
- The chef can receive the order as a printed ticket or on a display screen.
- While receiving orders on a display screen you can also color code tickets so that they change their color when the order is not prepared within a designated amount of time.
This way a restaurant POS system can shorten the order journey from customer table to the kitchen.
Takeaway: A restaurant POS system will ensure on-time delivery of the order and will enhance customer dining experience just by improving communication between kitchen staff and waiters.
5. Provide a self-service zone
Self-service is becoming increasingly popular as the customers most preferred option in Quick-service restaurants, casual dining, bars etc. Restaurants using self-service kiosks have been able to increase their revenue using automatic upselling, suggesting combos, promoting specials etc. Customers get a flexibility to order in their own language which means zero chances of miscommunication.
Takeaway: Customers can place the order by themselves without a waiter help using which is much faster. The work of the waiter will be now simplified since his time will be entirely devoted to serving the orders rather than taking them.
Bottom Line
Doesn’t matter what do you own a bar, a café or a restaurant, there are hundreds if not thousands of tasks that you and your staff need to do on a regular basis. You can easily get stocked into some of the most humdrum tasks such as looking up at prices, managing tables, etc.
But your restaurant POS system will do all these tasks in just fraction of seconds. Everything from taking orders to processing them, rearranging of tables, wait time for customers and all the other tedious tasks that once sandbagged your productivity are now fast and almost effortless. So, get a restaurant POS system make the best use of it and free yourself and your employees from these monotonous tasks.
Supriya is a highly skilled content writer with over 8 years of experience in the SaaS domain. She believes in curating engaging, informative, and SEO-friendly content to simplify highly technical concepts. With an expansive portfolio of long-format blogs, newsletters, whitepapers, and case studies, Supriya is dedicated to staying in touch with emerging SaaS trends to produce relevant and reliable content.
