With restrictions being tightened on the hospitality industry we look at how handheld devices can help your business thrive in these uncertain times. In the North East of England restaurants have been instructed that they must only do table service. Many businesses will already be used to this style of service but for the venues that are not, this could be intimidating with business owners now having to consider putting more staff on at a time when they're being limited to how many guests they can have in.
When taking orders you want to know that your new device will actually work how your business needs it to. An integrated system gets your front of house and kitchen staff working in harmony giving customers what they truly want, great food, served quickly and accurately. Orders should automatically sync real time between your Main Terminal, Handheld Terminal and kitchen printers to create a truly effective system.
Utilising a handheld that is fully integrated to your system is proven to help your business. Staff do not need to devote time and extra training on how to use it and they will have their workload reduced, increasing their efficiency and allowing them to focus on delivering great customer experiences.
Implementing technology in your business is a long term solution, you will find that when you have one cost to buy the technology, in this case the handheld device, but you also have a return on your investment. One key way with handheld ordering is that you increase staff efficiency, so where staff can lose up to 10 minutes an hour waiting to put orders on a till at peak times this can be done instantly. Throughout the day this can save you 90 minutes of wasted staff wages every day. It increases the turnover time, whilst never compromising service, helping your business to increase daily profits.
Many different options are available, you can have the handheld software installed on tablets or phones, custom built tablets or purpose built handheld devices. This decision is 100% up to you and research is very important to ensure you make the correct decision. In the hospitality industry you tend to find that the items you use need to be robust and able to withstand common issues such as dust, grease, oil, being dropped, repetitive use, long shifts which diminish the battery life of lower spec devices.
There is no doubt that technology is revolutionising the hospitality industry, fuelled by consumer demand. We know, in order to overcome most issues businesses face, digital solutions need to embrace integration and unify their systems. Automate daily tasks saving your staff members time.
SPARK addressed the issue. Using our handheld devices, you can increase the efficiency of your staff, by enabling them to take orders table-side, preventing bottlenecking and staff queues for the till. We have found that this increases the amount of customers they can serve in an hour, ensuring a faster table turnover. When speaking to staff in the industry that have embraced handheld devices they all agree they're now able to offer better service to their customers.
Our handheld devices are one of the most cost effective ways of streamlining your service in the most convenient way possible. They are fully equipped and feature rich to help your staff handle every circumstance. There are many other solutions that may suit your business, helping you to modernise and streamline in these uncertain times. A popular choice has been Self Ordering, where customers are able to order their choices from a website or an app. Many businesses have found this to be a great approach to reducing staff interactions with customers. Businesses looking to push functionality to the next level may want to consider utilising SPARK Pay for the added convenience and even faster service times that having the Next Generation of PDQ's enables.