BLOG POST Winds of change in the restaurant industry

Have you recently gone to any of the large fast-food restaurant chains in your local area? Then you probably were greeted by the large touch screens at the entrance of the restaurant and you probably used them to order and pay for your meal. This recent phenomenon in restaurants is called the self-service kiosk. While in restaurants this type of technology is new, it has already existed in many places for a few decades, such as the airports and self-check-in or the oldest version of self-service technology - the ATM. Why are the large chains investing so much money on this type of technology then? This article will detail the main advantages of the self-service kiosk and its rapid rise in the hospitality industry. 

In 2016, the cost of implementing a self-service kiosk environment in a restaurant would’ve cost around $100,000 to implement. This cost has however come down radically in the past 5 years, with the cost of hardware dropping to the $1,000-$5,000 range. Software pricing has also dropped to a cost-effective range for smaller businesses to implement. This radical drop has opened the doors for small and medium-sized restaurants to launch their own self-service kiosk operations. 

So why should the restaurant owner then invest in this self-service kiosk? The reasons are plenty, so consider these following benefits carefully. Does your restaurant have issues with available resources? Then the kiosk is already a great benefit for your restaurant, as the kiosk is an excellent sales channel. You can funnel your sales to go through the kiosk efficiently, so the employees can focus on other operational functions such as cooking, cleaning and overall improving the customer experience in the restaurant. The kiosk can take payments and also serves as an electronic menu that has pictures of the food and schedules for different menus, such as lunch, dinner or breakfast. Another benefit is that it is also a great salesperson, by being able to cross- and up-sell different products such as drinks and dessert with ease. You can design the menus to guide the customer to go through the drink and dessert sections and with the kiosk's pressure-free environment, the customer is more inclined to buy these additional products in your menu. The self-service kiosk also provides more accuracy to the orders made by your customers, as the customer is in complete control of the order and is asked to confirm orders multiple times. 

Is your restaurant losing customers due to long queues that discourage potential customers from coming to your restaurant? Well, the kiosk is an excellent queue buster, as according to data provided by restaurants with self-service kiosks, it can reduce the waiting time in the queue up to 40%. So far we have mostly talked about the benefits of the kiosk for the customer, but how about the restaurant owner? Kiosks can be managed by cloud based software like content management solution (CMS) that is provided by companies like Resimator. With this CMS platform, you can conveniently run different marketing campaigns and promotions - instantly. As the CMS platform is in-the-cloud, you can make any promotions, pictures or price changes and other marketing related tasks happen with a single click of a button and it’s right there in the kiosk the moment you push it live. This kiosk also serves as a big advertising platform in your own restaurant, which boosts the overall visibility of your restaurant to customers and generates more impulse sales. Some restaurants have reported data that customers are way likely to return to their restaurant if they have a self-service kiosk available. 

This is the best time to get your restaurant a self-service kiosk, as the pricing and technology are at it’s finest for this solution and it’s only getting more advanced each year. Get in contact with us at Resimator if you want to know more about self-service kiosks and what we can do for your restaurant business. 

Written by Ville Pekkarinen, Resimator & KioskCloud