Digital Transformation for Restaurants

Over the last few years, the restaurant market has fascinated a lot of public, since the technology started playing an essential role in redefining the restaurant industry. The food and restaurant business has exploited Smart Restaurant Technology Solutions to boost its overall performance, quality, efficiency, and customer satisfaction.

Likewise, 2018 will be supplementing these Smart Restaurant Technology Solutions with some new trends to further flourish the restaurant market. These 2018 Smart Restaurant Technology Solutions and Trends can help the restaurant business owners to develop the quality of customer services, and also enable them to go beyond their limitations in reshaping their businesses.

digital transformation for restaurants

What Are These Next Generation Smart Restaurant Technology Solutions and Trends?

  • Mobile Apps
  • Websites
  • Mobile POS
  • IoT
  • NFC
  • iBeacons
  • Analytics
  • BI
  • SaaS

The recent industry report of restaurant research has concluded that 73% of consumers think technology improves their dining experience and 95 % of restaurateurs think technology improves their restaurant’s efficiency.

  • As per the recent survey, the market share of restaurant app development illustrates a serious growth as compared to other areas. It is around $160 million for 2016, which is twice as much as revenues of 2014.
  • According to 451 Research report, it seems that the number of installed mPOS to rise globally from 13.3 million units in 2016 to a massive 54 million units by 2019.
  • After experiencing the huge evolution of restaurant businesses with technology, many restaurant owners are turning their hands to invest in such technology solutions to flourish their businesses.
  • According to American Express Restaurant Trade Survey, over the next 12 months, two- thirds of restaurateurs plan to spend on technology investments, and on average will spend $4,200.

Do you want to be one of them?

Yes, you can also deploy one of these smart restaurant technology solutions for your restaurant and can take your restaurant business up to the next level.

Want to know how?

In this article, we will help you to understand the different aspects, strategies, benefits of smart restaurant technology trends emerging in 2018, so as to adopt appropriate one for your restaurant.

Let us first give you some effective tips to successfully integrate any smart restaurant technology solutions with your restaurant:

  • Do a Research

Restaurant technology is intended for diverse functions. You have to do complete research so as to choose a precise restaurant technology solution as per your restaurant requirements like whether you want to perk up the front of house or back of house operations.

  • Have A Backup Plan in Place

If you are not sure about the successful working of the smart restaurant technology you have chosen, then have a backup plan. The plan will help you to apply the best solution in case of any breakdown. Further, it will be useful in future restaurant technology rollouts.

  • First Test it at One Location

If you own multiple restaurants at different locations, then select one to start with. It is important to test the technology first at only one restaurant. With this approach, you can save money initially and also efficiently track the restaurant technology success and shortcoming.

  • Apply On Other Restaurants

If the restaurant technology is successful at a first location, observe all the aspects and factors then apply to other restaurant locations. Make sure you don’t put in any new technology into the existing one while expanding. Also be ready for unusual issues.

  • Train Your Staff

Getting familiarized with new applications and technology is quite difficult. Thus for any new technology integration, you need to train both the back of house and front of house staff to use it properly. You need to prepare them for each known issues in the technology.

Mobile App Development Solutions for Restaurants, Bars, Cafes & Food Court

Gone are days when cafes, bars, and restaurants used to depend on the conventional form of advertising to communicate with people. Since this is the era of Smartphone and mobile app, dinners and restaurateurs are respectively embracing mobile apps and restaurant iPhone and android app development to maximize their business revenue and customer base.

Some famous restaurants like Subway, Chipotle, Taco Bell, Wendy’s, Dunkin’ Donuts, Domino’s Pizza, and Burger King have already deployed a restaurant mobile app and experiencing a massive development in their business revenue and customers.

You can also join this list of food giants by making a next branded mobile app for your restaurants, cafes, clubs, and bars. Mobile food ordering app is also extremely preferred by the food lovers, as it becomes more convenient for them to order their desired food from their favorite restaurants. Thus On Demand food ordering app development and restaurant ordering system app are also viable options you can implement.

With A Restaurant Mobile App, You Can Offer Customers

  • Online Food Ordering
  • Table Reservations
  • Special Deals
  • Loyalty program
  • Menus List
  • Push Notifications
  • Social Media Integration
  • Improve Dining Experience
  • Online Payment (58% of diners will use mobile pay or will pay using a restaurant’s app)
Restaurant Mobile App

Benefits of Restaurant Mobile App Development For Your Business

  • Bring Back Your Customers
  • Increase your Customer Base and Engagement
  • Know Your Customers
  • Potential to Compete With Other Businesses

How To Create An App For A Restaurant Business?

Restaurant mobile app builder or Make a Restaurant App with an online App Builder is the one way that most of the restaurateurs consider for mobile app development. But is it really feasible?

No, making an app with Restaurant mobile app builder will surely give you quick results, but what about its quality, functionality? In order to make your app market compatible and robust, it definitely needs to have user engaging and trending features and high functionality.

Hiring well-versed Freelance restaurant app developers or a Restaurant app Development Company you could implement all the trending features and strategies to your app, so as to make it stand long and unique in the competitive market.

Best Restaurant Website Design

Another effective solution to bring your restaurant business in the front is a cool restaurant web page design, best fast food website design, or an online food ordering website design. A responsive website lets you portray an ultra-professional image of your restaurant business, giving your customers an idea of the offerings and atmosphere before even stepping a foot inside.

If you are looking for ways to better attract eaters online, to make a restaurant website along with Content Management System (CMS) as an essential ingredient, is the best way for you. Developing the best cms for the restaurant website using WordPress, Joomla, will allow you to alter key menu items, specials, prices, or other features by just logging in and making an update.

Create A Restaurant Website

You Can Create A Restaurant Website To Offer Certain Benefits To Your Customers

  • Quick Order Food Online
  • Online Table Booking
  • List of Daily Available Food
  • Maps and Directions of Restaurant
  • Catering Services and Information

Benefits of Restaurant Website for Your Business

  • You Can Include Customer Testimonials
  • Increases Awareness of Your Business
  • Differentiate Your Business from the Competition
  • You Can Improve Search Rankings
  • You Can Build a Solid Brand Image
  • A Way to Promote Other Services
  • Save on Staff Time
  • Negligible Order Errors
  • Low Advertising Costs

How to Create a Restaurant Website?

Many of the Restaurant Website Builder or a restaurant website design company use restaurant website clone scripts, but the websites developed using website clone scripts may lack of your brandings, trending functions and features that will leave you behind in the market competition.

Further, best restaurant website design doesn’t just mean a good-looking site. Flourishing design strategy requires mobile marketing, use of plug-ins for better client engagement, frequent changes in content and tracking and analyzing on-site behavior.

Thus, to build a highly responsive and feature pact website make sure to choose the best Restaurant website Development Company that can give you one-stop solution for your entire requirements.

Restaurant Point of Sale Systems/Software

At present, the restaurant point of sale system is frequently referred to as the restaurant point of service, provided that restaurant POS software is no longer just about processing sales. The best restaurant point of sale systems will allow you to process orders and sustains financial control of your restaurant business, through cash management and integration with payment service providers.

Modern restaurant POS systems such as mobile POS system and cloud-based POS systems provide the best platform to streamline business operations and enhance the customer experience.

Mobile POS System

Mobile POS System can be well described with its ability to be used anywhere. You can carry them around and use them anywhere in the restaurant. The mobility facilitated by using restaurant mPOS, streamlines guest interactions, contribute to an increase in revenue and improves the overall customer experience.

Mobile POS System
Cloud based Restaurant

Cloud-based Restaurant POS Systems

Cloud-based restaurant POS System/Software allows you to fetch new properties online and rapidly. It will help you deliver better customer experiences, increase employee productivity and improve operating efficiency. Moreover, Cloud-based restaurant POS offers you high security and protects your guests and business from hackers.

Integrated and Best Restaurant Point Of Sale Software Will Also Offer

Best Restaurant POS software for Restaurants, Bars cafes & Food Court

  • Accurate Reports
  • Delivery Management
  • Tax calculation system
  • Sales and cash management
  • Payroll Management, Store Chain Management
  • Kitchen Systems to Maximize Food Quality and Accuracy
  • Hassle-Free Processing Of Credit and Debit Card Transactions
  • Gift and Loyalty
  • Loss Prevention
  • Table Reservations
  • Faster Checkout Speed
  • Enhanced Security At The Point Of Sale
  • Centralized Control of Menus and Promotions

How To Select Best Restaurant Point Of Sale System?

For smooth running of your restaurant, you need to be careful while selecting the precise and best restaurant POS system. It requires you to understand exactly what do you want, and what you don’t want.

  • Collect the must ask questions when considering a POS system
  • Get an evaluation checklist to utilize when comparing POS systems
  • Discover the functionality that is important to you
Best Restaurant Point of Sale System

SaaS Solutions and Smart Cloud Based Software for Restaurants

Software as a Service (SaaS) makes use of applications that are hosted by a service provider or vendor and made accessible over the Internet. SaaS app development Solution or cloud-based software makes it easier to adjust the scale of your restaurant operations. If you own multiple restaurants, Restaurant chains then this is the most affordable and applicable technology solution for you.

By deploying a cloud-based software or SaaS system you could be able to efficiently manage all restaurant functions and services like food ordering, inventory, staff management, etc.

Benefits of SaaS Solutions for Restaurants

  • Ease Of Implementation
  • Flexibility And Scalability
  • Instant Access From Anywhere At any Anytime
  • Security
  • Reporting & Analytics
  • Multi-Store Management
  • Customer Management
  • Feedback Management
Select best restaurant Point Of Sale System

IoT for Restaurants

The real significance of the IoT is intelligently using the large amounts of data collected by sensors to respond quickly, in real-time. Since restaurants need constant vigilance for their food safety, services, and functions, IoT is the best vehicle for ensuring that these key factors are being addressed 24/7.

How to Implement IoT for Restaurants

Connected Displays

This is one of the best applications of IoT Solutions for restaurant businesses. Using Connected Displays you can take orders and process payments at the customer’s table. This will eliminate the requirement to manually transmit data to centralized systems.

IoT Connected Tablets

IoT Connected Tablets allow customers to look through menus, place orders, and pay bills, without the assistance of restaurant staff.

A Connected Kitchen

Kitchen appliances can be well managed and controlled with the help connected kitchen solutions. Restaurant employees will be able to check multiple the kitchen process and equipment through this IoT application.

Facial Recognition Payment

Implementing a Facial recognition payment with IoT technology for your restaurants you could be able to serve a new interesting and convenient payment experience for your customers. And the customers will no more have to use their smartphones, credit cards, wallets to pay at your restaurants.
The best example of Facial recognition payment technology is “Smile to Pay” facial recognition payment system launched by Alibaba at KFC in China.

IoT for Restaurant

Benefits of IoT for Your Restaurant

  • Streamlined Operations & Improved Workflow
  • Safer Cooking Environment
  • Supplying & Maintenance Automation
  • Kitchen Management on the Remote
  • Increased Speed-of-Service with Tableside Ordering
  • Reduced Energy Use & Costs

NFC

Near Field Communication (NFC) technology are the best way for restaurant owners to reach existing and potential customers. An NFC-enabled application like NFC-Connected Restaurant Application can help restaurateurs to cross-sell menu items, enhance the dining experience and accelerate table turnover.

How to Implement IoT for Restaurants

Interactive Offline Ads

By simply tapping on the NFC-enabled advertisement on the Smartphone, your potential customers can access the restaurant information.

Touch Orders

You can give NFC-enabled menus to the customers, which allow them to tap items for complete product descriptions and even place orders.

Promotional Vouchers

Providing vouchers via NFC is a low-cost method and renders convenience to your customers. You can utilize these promotional e-vouchers to drive sales and build customer loyalty.

Benefits of NFC for Restaurants

  • Increased Customer Satisfaction
  • Lower Expenses
  • Better Employee Communication
  • Reduced Need For Staff
  • Scalable Security
  • Improved Sales
NFC for Restaurants

iBeacons

With this new proximity-detection technology restaurants can have meaningful, personalized conversations with customers.

How To Use iBeacon Technology In Restaurants

Pre Inform the Customers

You can install iBeacons around your restaurant to provide real-time information about how busy and crowded the restaurant is.

Serve Ahead-order service

Installing a long-range beacon, your kitchen staff can get an alert once the customer is within a certain distance from the restaurant. This will ensure that staff has the customer order ready.

Get Detail Insight About Restaurant Traffic

You can use iBeacon to gather huge information data like busiest hours throughout the day or week, the number of iBeacons hits and customer dwell time at iBeacons within a specific time and date range, the number of customers served and many more.

Benefits of Restaurant iBeacon Technology

  • Cost Effectiveness
  • Work Automation
  • Easy Tracking Of Employees And Customers
  • Offers Push Notifications Based On Customers’ Favorite Dish

Business Intelligence

One way you can use Business Intelligence solution for your restaurant is deploying a Business Intelligence Software. This will help you to examine product performance and customer sentiment and improve your ability to grab opportunities as they arise.

Benefits of BI for Restaurant Business

  • Predict Customer Desires
  • Improve Resource Management
  • Catch Opportunities
  • Costs Control
Analytics

Analytics

Analytics Solutions can help you to make behavioral insights actionable. Data analysis software can help you to look at data to manage the restaurant information so as to increase revenue and increase profit margins.

Implementing Analytics Solution you can

  • Get Configurable And Customized Insights
  • Optimize Sales And Service On The Fly
  • Track Customer Diner Preferences And Habits
  • Personalize The Guest Experience
  • Increase Sales Using External Data

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Conclusion

Ready To Upgrade To An All-In-One Restaurant Technology Solutions?

Making the investment to implement these types of ground-breaking technologies will definitely pay off in the long run for restaurants seeking ways to attract new guests. 58% of restaurants have updated to smart restaurant solutions that streamlined their restaurant business while offering valuable insights.

Restaurant owners all over the world have been experiencing a remarkable revolution in their respective businesses by leveraging such smart restaurant solutions and trends. You can be the next to grab a huge success in the restaurant business, only if you will decide to take on one of these solutions. Contact US to Transfer Your Restaurant Business Into Smart One