It’s a common misconception that investing in technology is something that only applies to big corporations and office-based businesses. The belief here is that investing in technology generally means paying for high tech new video conferencing systems or new productivity software and thus it might not seem immediately obvious how this could possibly benefit a small commercial business like a store or a restaurant.
Actually though this is far from being accurate. Actually ‘technology’ is a very broad-term and can really apply to anything man-made that helps to make a particular job or process easier. Thus there are many ways you can use technology even in a small commercial business and many ways that will help you to increase your profits and to increase your customer experience. Read on to see how technology can help your restaurant reach the stratosphere.
Marketing
Perhaps the biggest benefit that technology can have for your business is in restaurant marketing and getting the word out to potential new customers. One strategy you can use for instance that relies on technology is to use PPC advertising. This stands for ‘Pay Per Click’ and basically means that you’ll have to pay only when someone actually clicks on one of your adverts. Google AdWords is the best known option for businesses hoping to use this method of advertising and will show your adverts whenever someone searches for related terms.
This then means that you can show adverts for your restaurant whenever someone searches for restaurants of your cuisine in your area. This can potentially bring thousands of new visitors to your business, especially if you trial different combinations of keywords to advertise on and adverts to display until you find the best formula.
Another way to market a restaurant online is through social media marketing. This means creating an account on Facebook or Twitter and using that to get followers and fans. You can get people who have been to your restaurant to like or follow your pages, and get them to invite friends for discounts and other deals. This way you can spread word about your business through existent networks of friends and family which means people will visit on recommendations – a great way to get more business.
Turnover
Something else which can help is to use an iPad point of sale. In other words, stop using a till which will be confusing for new staff and require a lot of teaching to help them use it, and instead look into using iPads which can manage all the money you take a lot more quickly, easily and intuitively.
Similarly you should also make sure you’re taking card payments, and ideally contactless. Better yet, why not use NFC payment methods? If you can make life easier and more convenient for your customers, then they will be more likely to want to eat at your establishment when they’re in a rush. At the same time you’ll be making life easier for your staff so that they can spend more time providing a sterling service to the customers still eating.
You can get more advanced than that still if you want to try stepping into the future. For instance you can give your customers devices that buzz when their food is ready so they can come and collect it, or you can try using conveyor belts. Some restaurants now even do away with staff taking orders and instead give customers the ability to make their own orders using digital systems projected onto the tables themselves. Using technology in these innovative ways can not only once again speed up the process of taking orders, but also serve as a way to differentiate yourself and to stand out from the crowd.
Cooking
There are also ways you can use technology to prepare food faster, easier and on greater scale. There are countless appliances and devices for the kitchen which can help you go wireless, blend food, peel items and more – all of which are ideal when you’re trying to scale your cooking for a big influx of customers!
Author:
Harry Ronald, the contributor of this article, is an employee at Aireus, reputable providers of iPad for Restaurants. Harry loves to blog about technology whenever he gets time.