We are all looking at things we used to take for granted a little differently post-COVID-19. For the restaurant industry and its customers, there is a heightened awareness and greater urgency around health and safety. With new priorities of social distancing and keeping surfaces and hands clean, restaurants are rethinking practices such as sharing menus with multiple patrons and face-to-face interactions with customers. They need to find new, safe restaurant ordering systems.
Options for Safer Processes
As restaurants reopening their dining rooms or serving customers in outdoor dining spaces, they need new solutions to get back to business safely. ISVs and VARs can provide the systems their clients need to take orders, at a distance, such as:
- In-house online ordering
Customers always have their smartphones with them. Restaurants can take advantage of that fact by enabling them to place orders online while seated at a table. By ordering online, diners don’t have to risk encounters only a few feet away from servers or counter attendants.Adopting this restaurant ordering system has additional benefits. Managers can easily update menus so they always reflect current specials or items that are 86ed. Customers can also take their time when they order, double-check to make sure they order exactly what they want, including modifications, add-ons or taking advantage of combos.
It’s a chance to ensure customer satisfaction with prompt, accurate orders as well as social distance that keeps both diners and restaurant staff safe.
- Turn-key kiosk solutions
If customers don’t bring mobile devices with them when they dine, restaurants can deploy kiosks for safe restaurant ordering. Kiosks, like smartphones for ordering, minimize interaction with staff. However, using a touchscreen may raise concerns for patrons. Restaurants can overcome that issue by keeping hand sanitizer nearby and encourage them to wash their hands. Another option for restaurants with capacitive-touch ordering systems is to offer each customer a clean stylus to use to place an order.
Some of the benefits of using a kiosk ordering system, such as the Food Online Ordering Systems solution that Poké Concepts deployed, include decreased wait time and faster table turns. Kiosks, which were widely adopted by quick service restaurants prior to the COVID-19 crisis, are also proven to increase average ticket size by 15 percent to 20 percent, which means they produce quick return on investment.
- Online ordering for takeout or delivery
Even though there is now a lot of focus on restaurants reopening table service, some customers may still not be comfortable with on-premises dining. To accommodate those diners, restaurants will likely continue to optimize their takeout and delivery service.
Restaurants that didn’t have the capability to accept online orders directly may have used third-party platforms; however, those services charge a fee — from 15 percent to 30 percent of the order. Online ordering systems, such as solutions from FOLOS or Real Time Ordering, enable restaurants to accept online orders directly, integrating with their websites, point of sale (POS) and payment system.
The Best Restaurant Ordering Systems from the Perspective of the Back Office
A single, integrated system makes it easier to manage restaurant orders via multiple channels and accommodate any customer’s preferences. Furthermore, integrating that restaurant ordering system with a hardware- and processor-agnostic omnichannel payments platform allows the restaurant to use one solution for any type of payment it collects.
Provide your clients with a well-planned, integrated system, and their back office will thank you for streamlining reporting, reconciliation, accounting, vendor interactions, inventory tracking, and customer relationship management with data from all revenue streams.
Time for Change
Whether restaurants want more efficient and cost-effective delivery and takeout processes, safe restaurant ordering systems for on-premises dining — or a combination of both — your clients and prospects are anxious to take advantage of your technical expertise, advice, and creativity. They need to find a way to give customers the comfort of safe, compliant operations while ramping up business to a pre-COVID level that will enable their business to survive. Providing a total solution with options for safe restaurant ordering will help you meet that need.
