4 Ways Self-Order Kiosks Grow Restaurant Revenue
The pressure is on for restaurants to find new ways to increase revenue and customer satisfaction so they can stay ahead of the competition. Restaurant technology has come a long way, and developers are pushing the boundaries of innovation to create solutions that will help restaurants achieve success. One of these innovative solutions is the self-order kiosk. While kiosks have been utilized in retail for a while, the restaurant industry hasn’t been as quick to adopt them.
Here are four reasons why they should:
1. Increased Upselling Capabilities
Most restaurants train employees to upsell customers, however not all employees do so with every single transaction. Often, they are focused on getting customers served as quickly as possible to reduce wait times, and don’t want to take the time to upsell. While reduced wait times are good, not taking the opportunity to upsell to customers means you are leaving cash on the table.
With kiosks, you can decrease wait times and still upsell to customers all at once. This allows you to ensure every customer will be offered upselling prompts like “would you like to add a dessert?” or “make it a combo meal,” which boosts sales and overall profits.
2. Boosted Ticket Sizes
While traditional, and sometimes even digital menu boards have limited space, kiosks do not. They can display all of your offerings and allow you the opportunity to feature higher-priced items to entice customers, like bacon double cheeseburgers instead of traditional cheeseburgers. Kiosks can help you learn which higher-priced items are more desirable so you can push them more effectively. By understanding customer purchasing behavior, kiosks help restaurants increase the average check size by 15%-20%.
3. Decreased Front-of-House Labor costs
The conversation surrounding kiosks often have a “sky is falling” tone, in which people are afraid that kiosks will replace restaurant workers, but this is not really the case. While kiosks can indeed automate many front-of-house tasks, that doesn’t mean they are replacing labor. Instead, kiosks can be used to supplement front-of-house staff during peak hours. Labor can also be reallocated to the back-of-house to help increase the speed at which customers get their meals. Kiosks aren’t replacements for people—they’re tools to help people work more effectively.
4. Improved Customer Experience
Decreased wait times, improved order accuracy, increased speed of service—these all go a long way towards improving the customer experience. Self-order kiosks are phenomenal tools to help you achieve all of these goals.
Kiosks are line-busting machines, especially when used in combination with front-of-house staff to provide additional help. Because customers input their own orders, there is no risk of staff mishearing orders or entering them incorrectly, so accuracy is improved. Kiosks also help to streamline the entire ordering process, getting meals to customers faster.
The Importance of Happy Customers:
When it comes to delivering customer satisfaction, the self-order kiosk is a heavyweight champion. Giving customers more control over the ordering process automatically improves their experiences, which is exactly what a self-order kiosk does. Add in the benefits of shorter wait times and faster service, and you can almost guarantee your customers will be happier. It’s no secret that happier customers are more likely to return to your business. In this market, you won’t get ahead unless you’re focused on providing the kinds of customer experiences that increase customer satisfaction. Self-order kiosks may just be the ideal solution.
About the Author
Pascal Nicholas is the CEO of SalesVu. He created SalesVu after he acquired an Italian restaurant in Austin and could not find a solution that would allow him to manage the business remotely and generate more sales. A software engineer, he set out to create a payment solution that would include remote management and revenue generation capabilities. Prior to founding SalesVu, he worked at Dell as a product manager for a $100M software suite, traveling to large corporate customers and presenting at industry trade shows.