by Chandra | Sep 10, 2018 | Equipment, Featured, Hospitality News, News, POS Systems, Restaurant Industry News
POS Systems Dominate this Year’s Florida Restaurant and Lodging Show
The Florida Restaurant and Hospitality show in Orlando this past week was filled with three amazing days of great food and ideas to help your Restaurant become iconic and memorable.
Restaurant POS solutions were showcased by Florida Resellers, Card Systems, Inc., Cervion Systems and JCR Systems. Point-of-Sale Industry leaders all came together to share mega-trends, “what’s new” in online delivery, guest engagement with SMS text features, and kiosk order. Delivery companies like Uber Eats and POS delivery and tracking systems made restaurant owners re-think their position on having someone else deliver their meals.
To compete with the Amazons of the world why not harness the Digital Tools and Features in your Point-of-Sale Systems? You can now reach out to your customers, using beacon technology and ping your daily specials right out to your customers as they drive by. What about allowing your clients to order online to pick up in an hour or for dinner? How about giving your customers an app to “skip the line” to order and pay without talking to anyone at your restaurant. These features are just the tip of the iceberg of what the New POS Systems are capable of. If they are not options in your current Point-of-Sale System, you should consider upgrading to one that has these features.
These trade shows are key to helping restaurant owners make sense of all the new technology available to make better buying decisions when choosing a POS System. The education programs provided were practical and relevant for today’s food service personnel. Industry leaders delivered business lessons, the latest information on trends and best practices in the market, as well as their own opinions of what creates success in the food world and now in a digital world. Contact us for more information.
Are you Digital yet?
- Streamline your Takeout Operations
- Increase Revenue with Digital Gift & Loyalty Programs
- Create Operational Excellence and Lower Costs
- Boost Beverage Earnings
- Deliver an Optimal Customer Experience
Don’t miss the show in 2019!
by Chandra | Dec 15, 2017 | Hospitality News, News, Restaurant Industry News
People go to restaurants for a variety of reasons. But basically they want good food and expect great service. Restaurants sometimes become complacent when selling specialty drinks, specials of the day or even gift cards because they are short staffed or just plain busy. Often servers get so busy they forget about asking about the little add-ons like appetizers, desserts and after dinner drinks that increase their checks, thus increasing your restaurant’s profits.
Here are a few refreshers to give your restaurant a boost
Training – A server who primarily worked at sports bars or other casual dining restaurants may not know that “fine dining” service requires a different approach to the guest. On the flip side, the reverse is true. Investing in the training of a new server, regardless of their previous experience, is essential to a positive dining experience and will result in rave reviews, repeat customers and great reviews. Knowledge is power in every industry.
Upselling – Most restaurants have either drink specials, food specials, or both. Servers should be able to convey what is “special” about the meal. Remind servers to suggest appetizers, desserts and after dinner drinks to your customers. Have them do it in such a way that it’s not just a question “Can I start you off with an appetizer?’ but “You should try the crab stuffed mushrooms; I had them earlier and they’re delicious!” it sounds much more appetizing. Always give two choices as studies show people are more likely to choose one of the options over an open-ended question. What would a 20% increase in appetizers do for your restaurant’s bottom line?
The Taste Experience – Servers tasting the specials share their personal experience. They are more convincing and they will sell your specials.
Point of Sale System (POS) – Not all POS systems are created equal. Product knowledge is critical and servers should be able to answer any question a customer has about a menu item at the table. The new pay at the table device POS Systems actually display menu items, giving guests a visual to aid servers in being more efficient. Servers now are able to go from table to table and fire orders back to the kitchen without upsetting the next four tables they are taking orders from. Turning tables faster creates happy customers and more revenue for you and your servers.
Online & Pick-up Ordering – Many of the older systems have not caught up with today’s ordering habits. People today want to place orders online for pickup, or delivery, and future special events. Most are ordering with their smart phones as well; you now must be mobile-friendly to get found. It becomes frustrating when a customer cannot order online or has to wait on the phone to place an order because the restaurant’s POS system does not have intuitive features built in. A robust POS system will offer this and can also collect valuable data about your customer. It’s a fabulous marketing tool to collect such things as ordering habits and frequency of visits. You can even send your customer a thank you coupon with a set dollar amount or loyalty points for their frequent visits to your restaurant. A select few new POS Systems offer “Beacon” technology, an amazing tool for notifying customers that are in the vicinity of your restaurant of specials of the day. Imagine reaching out to the street to advertise your happy hour or gift card special for the holidays! This coupled with the valuable data you are collecting equates into increased sales, which increases profits.
Communicate with your customers – Send out a newsletter or an e-gift certificate. You are collecting your customer data, right? If you are not…start today!
Sales Incentives – Create weekly/monthly sales competitions among the servers. Whoever sells the most “dinner specials”, “Gift Cards”, “desserts” etc. wins a reward; either cash, food or gift cards. Competition is healthy and energizes the server staff.
These are but a few reminders that we sometimes overlook with the hustle and bustle of a busy restaurant life.
by Peter | Sep 5, 2017 | Hospitality News, News, News Alerts, POS Systems
Living in the age of smartphones, apps, and online ordering restaurants are being pushed into adopting new technology to meet guest expectations and deliver best in class customer service. Customers and restaurant owners alike are wanting to see newer technology integrated into the dining experience as well as their daily operations.
Considering that 80% of today’s internet searches take place on a smartphone or tablet restaurant owners are beginning to take notice of the need for online ordering.While customers receive instant gratification from placing and managing their own orders, restaurateurs are saving time and money by not answering the phone and keeping their wait and host staff focused on guests in the dining room. A vast majority of younger customers are likely to skip over locations who do not offer such services. In extreme cases, some restaurants have increased their total volume by upwards of 50% simply by adding online ordering.
When technology is added to daily operations it helps restaurants run more efficiently and streamline processes. Point of Sale technology that can achieve this level of operational efficiency is usually thought of as too expensive or difficult to use. Many restaurants use a combination of systems to manage different parts of their business that are never really able to tie all the important data points together. For example, a restaurant uses one system for in-store sales, another for online, and a third to track customer loyalty. This type of operation is likely losing some useful data and labor hours when attempting to bring everything together. Sounds confusing right?
Can One System Offer the Functionality I Need?
No toggling between applications, no switching stations to check out to-go or delivery orders, customer loyalty, in house orders, sales tracking, a waitlist that sends a text message, payroll, and more all managed from a simple cloud based website.The efficiency and labor hours you would recapture are likely to more than offset the cost of this revolutionary iPad Point of Sale System, not to mention increased sales from being able to offer online ordering if you don’t already.
A system that’s completely scalable to your needs today with the ability to grow your business into tomorrow. Start as simple or complex as you like and add in the included functionality as you begin to phase out your legacy systems. Getting started with a single tablet and online ordering is just as simple as a 10+ station operation using the full functionality.
Don’t wait any longer and contact Card Systems today for a no charge site assessment and demonstration of the iPad point of sale system that your employees will love! No matter what your business model, efficiency never looked so affordable. 1.866.207.3298
