It’s been a long time since the use of technology brought positive results to the restaurant industry. Today, technology and innovation are indispensable for many parts of the players in the industry. Hence, to attain a competitive advantage in such an industry, it’s important to know the restaurant technology trends. Knowledge of the latest advancements in the industry will enable restaurants quickly to adapt.
The changes brought about by technology have helped restaurants to retain and acquire more customers. Not to mention, the security measures that these restaurant technology trends have brought about. Ultimately, you need creative ideas to boost revenue, even if you have the best technology at your disposal.
Mind, technology can be a double-edged sword. Hence, it’s enough to know the latest and hottest trends. But you also need to know how best to apply it to your business goals. So if you’re interested in growing your business and serving your customers with the latest technology in technology, below are some hot trends in 2020.
Top Restaurant Technology Trends in 2020
In the upcoming months of this year, technology in restaurant management is likely to involve sectors of the industry, such as innovating food tech, transforming customer experience toward a more seamless one, and streamline the flow of restaurant operations.
Now, let’s look at this year’s upcoming restaurant technology trends closely.
Chatbots
Placing orders to major restaurants through their digital platforms lacks the quality and satisfaction of interacting with real-life servers at times. Hence, the restaurant industry had to find a more efficient and personalized way for customers to place orders. This solution had to be implemented across different online platforms that served as an online order management portals.
Hence, the popularity of interactive chatbot assistants is likely to be on the rise in 2020. Taco Bell and Burger King, which are large restaurant chains, have led the way by introducing chatbots across their online platforms. These chatbots deliver significant results so far in the way they engage customers.
You can program chatbots to perform tasks such as processing orders, redirecting customers to payment gateways, or your website. Some of their more sophisticated tasks include answering FAQs, and sending promotional emails and messages to targeted customers. Also, you can quickly integrate chatbots into the major social media platforms like Whatsapp, Twitter, and Facebook. This brings major benefits since customer engagement and interaction is now possible 24/7.
Furthermore, you can add them inbuilt mobile apps for uniformity across all platforms. Overall, we’ve not seen the last of the evolution of chatbots. They are such wonderful marketing tools when put to good use. And we can expect to see them in the days to come.
Voice Technology
“Alexa, please remove the burger from my initial order.”
The restaurant industry can now expect a virtual assistant to catch up with other, more developed technologies such as restaurant POS systems and restaurant accounting software. Foodservice chains such as Pizza Hut, KFC, and McDonald’s have implemented voice-activated ordering to help customers in a seamless and quick manner. Integration with virtual voice assistants and in-ap voice assistants such as Google Assistant or Alexa offers customers easy navigation across different menus when ordering.
Thus, voice assistance displays some of the most promising growth rates among other restaurant technology trends. Therefore, you can expect it to influence many aspects of the restaurant industry in the coming months and years.
Handheld Ordering Devices
Handheld devices such as tablet POS systems have made their mark in the restaurant industry for a while now. However, not every restaurant fully understands the difference they have while taking orders and serving large amounts of customers. In essence, some of the restaurant technology trends, such as the handheld ordering device signify the end of the traditional paper-based ordering system.
With each order you take with a handheld device, you eliminate wasted time safely recording the ordering habits of customers in the cloud. Also, your POS system receives these orders immediately; you take them. This ensures faster delivery per order placed. Furthermore, a significant number of human errors that characterize the traditional error is eliminated.
Hence, this is certainly something you want to pay some attention to going forward.
Self-ordering Kiosks
McDonald’s and other large quick-service restaurants are paving a new way for the rest of the restaurant industry with their self-ordering kiosks. These are less popular options for customer-facing devices at the point of sale. However, their small nature and digital systems enable customers to easily use them for placing orders without the assistance of restaurant staff.
Hence, the order taking time in such restaurants has reduced drastically. If you want a versatile system that will help with customer retention, then you want to keep an eye out for the self-ordering kiosks in 2020. The system doesn’t only take orders autonomously from customers. It also allows them to pay through the different payment methods they deem suitable for them.
It is no secret that long queues are one the banes of customer satisfaction in the restaurant industry. Therefore the self-ordering kiosk is one of the few restaurant technology trends that address this issue head-on. Due to the reduced wait-time and more customers you serve, you stand a chance to make more sales with this piece of technology.
Also, you can use the recording and data collecting features of this technology to gain real-time insight into the preferences of your customers. It makes a significant difference if you can know what your customers want and why they order particular dishes on your menu. Restaurateurs can significantly improve their entire service by knowing what’s working and what’s not performing well.
Tabletop Ordering System
Your customers can have the luxury of scrolling through your entire digital menu and place orders by the click of a few buttons. Your servers don’t have to take physical orders and walk all the way to the kitchen with them. The kitchen receives digitally placed orders directly and instantaneously the moment customers place them.
In some cases, we have costly-friendly restaurant entertainment features integrated into these ordering systems. With these, you can engage customers in some fun activities to make the wait time for their orders more enjoyable. Unlike the traditional method where guests have to wait for their orders and try to ignore the boring shows your TV set presents them, such integrated entertainment helps the overall ordering and waiting experience.
Therefore, you get to serve for guests; your customers won’t even notice the time going by as they wait for their orders. Also, you can serve more customers since ordering time is drastically reduced. Gone are the days that you have to deal with difficult customers who won’t wait a few minutes to receive their orders.
If you’re excited at this point, that’s because it’s an amazing time to be in the restaurant business. Because the restaurant technology trends emerging around the world promise such growth for those who can capitalize on them.
Final Thoughts
The food industry is constantly moving towards more efficiency in every aspect of operations. From remotely enabling robotic assistance in the kitchen to accessing your restaurant’s daily operations from anywhere in the world, the possibilities are endless. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter your present level of technological sophistication.
You may be using a traditional cash drawer or a POS cash register, that should influence your ability to leverage technology for the growth of your business. Usually, the first step in the right direction begins with choosing the best restaurant POS system. And Sygnio’s restaurant POS system is an option many restaurants trust to help run a better business. For more, you can check other articles to be up-to-date with the latest restaurant technology trends.
