Technology reaches every aspect of our lives as it always has but with the appearance of mobile devices and cloud computing the impact is more than ever. Between the arrivals of portable devices on the table, online bookings, social media, and new payment techniques, technology today has penetrated the food and restaurant industry like never before.
Some of these advances will serve to progress the knowledge both for the business and for the investor. Yet with every new advance comes a new test, and with technology preceding faster these challenges can be seen overwhelming. Its how the business deals with these progresses and the disputes that escort them that will decide the destiny of many restaurants, in spite of what’s on the menu.
The prospect of the restaurant industry and how customers dine out relies on these alterations. In retrospect, the restaurant industry is typically 10-20 years behind every other industry when acquiring technological advancements. It’s usually been a one-touch feel eating at the restaurant but now, with restaurant commitment programs, communication marketing, and digital receipts, there are even more opportunities for a guest to act together with a restaurant, and for a restaurant to make a commanding database.
How technology is influencing ‘ the way we dine out:
Maybe the most significant trend in 2016 will be the use of big data, as companies begin to get value out of the data they collect and apply it to improving management and the customer experience. The data available for analysis includes everything from inventory to customer mix to orders to social media interactions.
The cloud is the ideal environment for big data analytics, with the ability to add capacity quickly when needed and pay only for the computing capacity that’s used. Cloud vendors have added the ability to spin up Hadoop-based analytics environments quickly, reducing the need for restaurant IT shops to have that expertise on staff. The spread of prebuilt analytics packages will also simplify the ability to get value out of data, and packages that integrate with POS systems are becoming available.
New Payment Choices
The use of cards and cash will continue to decline as consumers become more familiar with other means of payment in one survey nearly half the restaurants expect to incorporate customer facing payment technology by 2016. The usage of crypto currencies like Bit coin continues to increase, with nearly five million users by 2019. Retail usage is expected to stay fairly limited, and while some real-world establishments already accept it, restaurants have been slow to adapt. Cash and traditional credit card payments aren’t going to go away in any case, and the use of chip-enabled credit cards will spread as banks replace existing cards.
Better Customer Experience
The top priority for any restaurant is for every customer to leave satisfied. It’s not enough anymore to just focus on the guests inside your restaurant. It’s about connecting to the customer before, during, and after the dining experience in person and virtually.
In 2016, restaurants will need to aim their sights higher. They’ll need to know their customer’s preferences and they’ll need to be able to treat each and every one of them like a VIP. Zomato Book is a tool to do just that.
Tools like these give restaurants the ability to provide customers with a more targeted and customised virtual experience through tools like mobile apps, messaging, and social media. By knowing your customers’ tastes, you can provide a more customized dining (in or out) experience through menu offerings, pricing, reservation times, and so on.
Electronic Receipts
Receipts are no longer stored at the backside of a guest’s pocket, to be elapsed until they show up wrinkled in the wash. Now, restaurants are detecting their guests where they are, their inboxes or their phones. And best of all, they’re opting in to this communication. This is adding restaurants closer than ever to their consumer base.
What’s more is that a few new restaurants are allowing guests to take care of expense and tip through their app so that a bill by no means even comes to the table. One of the common problems witnessed by restaurateurs these days is that guests wait too long for the bill, and this could get rid of guests leaving on blackball.
Kitchen Display Screens
With Kitchen Display Screens, processes can not only be more comfortable on the guest side, but also on the chef side. Menu orders intercommunicate flawlessly and right away to the kitchen, and missing an order is no longer an option. Kitchen display structures are staples now at fast food joints, but they have been encouraging over the years. Cloud systems can fire objects back to the kitchen right away from the Point of Sale tablets. Kitchen display screens can in fact help chefs learn about the speed of their line; how long it takes to finish orders on average, sectioned by menu group and item. This extends kitchen managers a precious new way to believe about how their kitchens function professionally.
It seems sure that smart dining will basically change the lives of both restaurant personnel and customers globally. It is an exciting time to be concerned in food hospitality; future generations will look back and see the arrival of this elegant dining era as an essential turning point in the restaurant industry’s long and celebrated history.
By Ritu Mehrotra
The author is VP, Global Growth, Zomato
