In 2021, restaurants are looking for innovative ways to increase their sales. As per restaurantbusinessonline, sales at restaurants declined almost 20% last year because of the surge in COVID-19 infections.
To overcome these unprecedented challenges, technology can help restaurants to a great extent. It not only helps improve your efficiency but also achieve drastic reduction in costs. Listing below 7 ways technology can increase your restaurant’s efficiency:
Manage multiple functions on a single platform
Gone are those days when restaurateurs used to depend on legacy billing machines. With modern day, digital restaurant Point of Sales (POS) platforms, you can manage billing with no hassles. There is absolutely no scope for clerical errors, long queues, and misappropriation of funds.
The best part of these platforms is that besides billing, it handles different functions such as inventory management, order booking, customer data management and marketing on the same platform.
Accepts different modes of payments
Post the outbreak of Covid-19, customers have become safety conscious and prefer contactless digital payments over cash payments. In a survey conducted by KPMG, 65% of the participants were of the view that they would not move back to cash payments post COVID-19 as they find digital payments safe and secure.
The highlight of the restaurant management platforms is that they accept all modes of payment options such as cash payments, digital payments such as Google Pay and Paytm, debit and credit card etc.
Enables data-driven decision making
The cloud based restaurant management systems such as inresto POS provides intelligent insights that aids you in taking better decisions. It helps you find out the items in the menu that are fast moving and those that are nonperforming. Based on this information, make changes to your menu accordingly. Another example is the information provided on the performance of staffs. Recognise top performers and deliver training to those who are lacking.
Smart inventory management
It’s quite embarrassing when you run short of food items requested by customers at the restaurant. The smart POS systems provide you with timely alerts to replenish the stock. It gets rid of the problem of running out of food items forever. Another major feature is the live-tracking of your inventory from anywhere, anytime.
The system also updates inventory status automatically based on the orders, and you will receive timely notifications. It facilitates optimum use of kitchen resources that leads to reduction in overall grocery cost and requirement. Wastage and pilferage is minimised that again leads to major cost savings.
Advance booking of seats and digital menus
With POS platforms, customers can book their seats in advance and avoid waiting near the tables. For placing orders, diners just have to scan the QR code on their mobile phones and order via digital menu.
They don’t have to worry about touching the paper menus used by multiple people. From the restaurant’s perspective, they can save money spend on printing the paper menus.
Accepts order booking from multiple platforms
As per Forbes, 72% of the customers prefer to go with the food delivery option as they do not want to step out of their house. A popular option preferred by diners for ordering food is via third party delivery apps such as Swiggy, Zomato, etc. The beauty of POS platforms lies in seamlessly processing orders from multiple platforms such as third party aggregators, websites, and apps.
Automate your marketing campaigns
With the help of platforms such as inresto, you can launch targeted campaigns and automate your communication. Several marketing campaigns can be run simultaneously, with personalised content for each target segment. Reach out to the target audience via different communication channels such as SMS, E-mail, or Push notifications. In a single click, it lets you send promotional offers and messages to a huge number of people.
Parting words
Restaurants are struggling to stay afloat because of the challenges posed by COVID-19. In the new normal, it has become an imperative to embrace technology and explore the enormous benefits offered by restaurant management platforms. It not only brings substantial improvement in efficiency, but also helps you gain an upper hand over the competitors. Thus, technology has proved to be a real boon for restaurants in the post pandemic world.
