Creating a relaxing and inviting dining environment is a common goal of all restaurant owners. An important part of creating these experiences in your restaurant is the ability of you and your staff to accurately fill orders with minimal delays. Not only does accuracy help improve table turnover times, but customers will remain relaxed without the hassle of being served the wrong meal. This is all achievable when you are using the right restaurant ordering system.
Introducing an ordering system into the flow of your restaurant starts with developing an understanding of the things you should, and should not, put into place. There are several features that need to be thoroughly examined to ensure that they have a place in your restaurant and that they contribute positively to the customer experience. The depth of knowledge you build here ensures the successful implementation of the ordering system you choose.
Ease of Use by Servers and Staff
Adding a restaurant ordering system to your restaurant workflow will not be a successful venture unless the technology is intuitive and easy to learn. Implementing an ordering system, like any other piece of technology, will fail if your staff feels frustrated by the system or is consistently finding ways to avoid using the new solution. In addition to an intuitive interface, your ordering system must be responsive to the touch and not inhibit their ability to interact with customers.
Your staff must be given the proper training from the beginning to help ease the transition into using the new ordering solution. In addition to providing in-depth training, it is also important to involve your staff in the solution selection process. This empowers them as stakeholders to help select a piece of technology that they know they had a hand in selecting. It ensures that they take any training seriously, and makes it more likely that they will fully train new hires.
Integration with Popular Kitchen Display Systems
A key area of examination is how a restaurant ordering system integrates into advanced kitchen display systems (KDS). A KDS serves as the eyes and ears of your kitchen staff and presents them with the information required to fill orders accurately and with speed. Having a POS solution that includes an advanced ordering system will connect to many of the top KDS platforms on the market, driving your order accuracy towards levels of perfection.
The most common, and productive way of ensuring a high degree of integration between your ordering system and KDS is by implementing an all-inclusive POS system. Without these tightly conjoined systems in place, you will likely lose some of the accuracy and responsiveness in filling orders. Additionally, much of the data you need to see into the many layers of your restaurant will be disjointed and may force you to manually assemble it all to build reports.
Data Continuity in Your POS System
Data makes up the foundation of how you operate. It presents you with clear and fact-based insights into the performance of many aspects of your restaurant. Data continuity across all areas of your restaurant is only possible when all of the pieces fit together perfectly. Innovative POS technology for restaurants will do just that; you will gain a comprehensive ordering solution the seamlessly integrates into sales, your KDS, inventory, and even payroll.
Restaurant inventory is a bit more complex than in retail, which places additional emphasis on preserving data continuity through an all-inclusive solution. Tracking ingredients, both usage and storage, down the gram or ounce, introduces immediate cost savings, as well as consistency in meal prep. Each recipe has a set amount of ingredients, and having the ability to track the number of ingredients used per order will help you maintain quality and consistency in your final products.
Leveraging Your Restaurant Ordering System for Predictive Data Analysis
An innovative restaurant ordering system that comes as a part of an innovative POS solution will help you avoid manual reporting and analytics. Having all of your business pieces together in one solution helps you to build advanced predictive models that turn your business adjustments from guesswork into works of genius. This puts your restaurant ordering system to work in more ways than simply pushing orders down the line.
A restaurant ordering system should provide information that is directly related to all aspects of your operations. Monitoring staff performance becomes simpler by having the ability to watch for production backlogs as they are happening. This gives you the ability to shift staffing to fill in where help is needed the most, which keeps the meals heading out the tables and reduces the amount of time your customers must wait to be served.
The Best Restaurant Ordering System Is in the Best POS System
The greatest mistake made when implementing a restaurant ordering system is when it does not seamlessly integrate into the rest of your technology. That makes the best possible restaurant ordering system the one that comes as a part of a comprehensive POS software solution. When your ordering solution operates a cohesive part of a bigger solution, you gain a firmer grip on production and inventory controls while gaining the ability to improve the customer experience.
You need the help of a POS solutions expert as you move forward towards implementing innovative technologies. The experts at talech will examine your restaurant’s ordering process from every angle, using this information to develop a solution that blends emerging technologies with your business needs and goals.
