F&B Industry, Restaurant Technological Trends, Restaurant Management
5 Restaurant Technological Trends You Should Know Before Starting Your Business
- October 23, 2021
With daily circumstances occurring around the globe, especially during the current unprecedented times of Covid-19, business industries such as the Food and Beverage (F&B) are not spared from this as well.
Here are 5 Restaurant Technological Trends to prep you, if you are considering starting an F&B business venture, especially now more so than ever when both restaurants and business owners alike have taken a bad toll during this period and technology have been observed to provide F&B businesses with add-on means to stay afloat or to change its course of business model approach to have a leg up against the competition.
1: Reduce Food Waste Technology
Many restaurant owners have been looking to explore more into reducing food wastage in recent years as the Food and Beverage (F&B) industry is one of the few sectors that is currently contributing to the staggering amount of food wastage globally.
Recent technology enables Restaurant Owners and Management Staffs to have better insights and data into analyzing and anticipating guest demands for certain products and menu items.
i.e. High in demand, popular and sold out items, and also least favorite or popular items, thus help restaurants to track their inventory and reduce food wastage in entirety, such as decreasing amounts of ingredients purchased for least popular products or menu items and cutting costs in certain aspects relating to food preparation processes and more.
Hence it comes with the added benefit of helping restaurants reduce their operating costs overall where food waste is estimated to cost the hospitality industry $100 billion each year—without sacrificing anything in terms of the guest experience, where they could better plan and strategize to roll out more on high demand products and menu items based on preferred days and dining services’ time periods according to figures, while also reworking and/or promoting more on least favorite or popular products and menu items before including them onto their menu once again.
Additionally, many of today’s consumers are also consciously choosing to support businesses that strive to contribute to a positive environmental impact hence this would also enable businesses to position themselves with a better brand image and recognition with prospective customers as one of their target audiences too.
2: Technology that Improves Guests’ Experiences
This is a trend that’s commonly seen across all retail industries in recent years: Guests want an experience that’s tailored and personalized to them, their tastes, and their interests. That’s historically been a challenge in the restaurant industry, but new technology trends are slowly getting introduced and implemented for restaurants in this current digital age.
First, there are waiter ordering apps or platforms which could straightaway send (‘fire’) guests’ menu orders directly to the backend kitchen for preparation and this enables guests and restaurant staff to save time and cut costs while providing efficiency and productivity as stationery materials are no longer needed and could be replaced to become digitalized thus also minimizing human errors.
Then there’s the technology that allows you to collect and utilize data about your guests through membership feature; where restaurant owners are able to entice guests to become regulars or frequent patrons by offering them customized experiences that cater to their known preferences and also with the benefit usage of vouchers, coupons and more.
3: Technology that Allows Customers to Follow their Online Orders
Since 2020, many guests have replaced visits to restaurants with delivery orders instead—often placed via third-party delivery apps like FoodPanda, Zomato, Swiggy, Dunzo, and more, like dining in becomes challenging for restaurants and the majority have to turn to digital means such as online delivery to stay afloat.
A handy feature that online ordering and delivery apps could offer guests is the ability to follow along with every step of the food order process as their order is prepared, picked up by a delivery driver, and dropped off at their doorstep. Guests who have grown accustomed to being able to follow along and get real-time updates about their food orders would most likely not prefer to go back to how things were before.
This means that a growing trend in restaurant technology is the ability to take direct online orders and provide updates to guests while those orders are in the midst of completion and/or when it gets fulfilled with notifications letting guests know that their orders have been prepared and/or safely delivered once food orders have arrived at the chosen location.
4: Technology for Splitting the Bill and Paying at the Table
Splitting the bill has long been a little bit of a pain point for restaurant guests. But with the most compatible and ideal technology, it becomes a far simpler process—no calculator required.
Technology that’s really gaining in popularity allows guests to use either their own smartphones or a tablet at the table to view their bill in real-time, place multiple orders under the same dining setting, and have the options of either ‘Pay-First’ (paying first before dining) or ‘Pay-Later’ (paying later after dining) payment concepts at their table, so when it’s time to pay, the bill would be already sorted through without much hassle.
Additionally, when guests dine in at any restaurant, they would much prefer to be given the option of having the flexibility to add on menu orders and spill their bills in any preferred manner (i.e. Paying Dutch, Splitting by ‘n’ number of guests, etc.) due to circumstances when guests have companions who join them after or leaves before their meals are completely finished.
This saves time and enhances a positive impression for guests and restaurant staff, and can result in higher guest spending, better table turn time, and more revenue for your restaurant as a whole.
5: Technology for Different Contactless Experiences
The pandemic has made “contactless delivery” into a phrase everyone knows and understands. But even prior to Covid-19, contactless restaurant experiences were on the rise increasingly, and not just simply for takeout and delivery orders.
Increasingly, many guests want and prefer Contactless Dine-In. There are a number of different technologies that support this trend— such as Self-Order Kiosks, Pay-at-the-Table technology, Direct Online Ordering, and more. In fact, contactless payments at businesses around the world are expected to triple—from $2 trillion to $6 trillion—by 2024.
But one thing your restaurant will likely need no matter what kind of contactless dine-in experience it offers is a way to create and utilize QR Codes.
A guest’s dining experience starts from the moment they made their choice to queue at restaurants, view menus, make orders and payments, join in an online waiting list, and more, technology such as QR Codes has virtually unlimited applications in modern restaurants.
Why different contactless experiences are rising in popularity would eventually boil down to consumers’ behavior where many would prefer to make their orders while dining in comfortably at their own pace without feeling the pressure of restaurant staffs waiting for them, while having flexibility with various digitalized payment modes (i.e. ibanking, credit points deduction, etc.) based on their preference and more.
Consider LevelFive Solutions today!
At LevelFive Solutions, we can fulfill these restaurant technological trends we have listed above for your restaurant business based on your customized requests with our comprehensive DinePlan Solution Suite to address each core aspect of your restaurant flow and manage your restaurant operational systems overall. To find out more, send us your inquiry at sales@lfsolutions.net, Schedule a Demo with us at LevelFive Solutions today!
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