The restaurant industry is changing and the evolution of QSR technology is helping restaurateurs keep up with the shifting demands of today’s consumers. The most apparent change is how guests interact with their favorite fast food and fast casual restaurants. In addition to dine-in, many of these interactions now take place outside of brick-and-mortar walls. Guests want to consume food in a way that’s convenient for them. That means restaurateurs need to make sure their restaurant and drive thru design appeals to guests – whether that’s using a digital kiosk at the drive-thru or ordering digitally for pickup and delivery.
Having an all-in-one restaurant management system (RMS) can help QSRs run their restaurant more easily. And an RMS like TouchBistro is more than just a point of sale (POS). TouchBistro offers every tool a QSR operator needs to run their business, all under one umbrella. That means you can control every aspect of your operation – including marketing, your loyalty program, online ordering, gift cards, contactless payments, and more – from one centralized location.
In this guide to QSR technology, we’ll will cover:
- What a restaurant management system is
- Why QSRs need a restaurant management system
- Must have QSR technologies
- 4 benefits of an all-in-one restaurant management system for QSRs
What is a Restaurant Management System?
A quick service POS can handle basic transactions, but a restaurant management system (RMS) like TouchBistro can handle many other aspects of running a quick service restaurant, like online ordering, marketing, loyalty, payment processing, and much more. Best of all, these features are integrated with the POS to deliver all the technology your quick service restaurant needs to increase speed of service and efficiency, keep costs low by improving order accuracy, and track guest preferences to drive repeat business.
Learn more about the different restaurant management solutions TouchBistro has to offer in this complete product guide.
Why QSRs Need a Restaurant Management System
Running QSR technologies is no longer as simple as opening your doors and waiting for guests to walk up to your counter so you can take their orders. In today’s digital world, there’s a need for additional technology to reach customers and provide more engaging experiences to drive sales. Having tools like online ordering, marketing, and loyalty, in one place makes it easy for your business to quickly and efficiently manage operations from one centralized location. That means no more juggling multiple tablets or manually inputting information from one system to another.
Must-Have QSR Technology
Point of Sale
TouchBistro’s POS is the core of your RMS. This POS for QSR and FSRs can be used on its own to help you process transactions, manage menus, manage staff, and make better decisions with reporting and analytics on your restaurant’s performance. It can also be used in conjunction with additional tools in your RMS to expand the platform’s capabilities, like online ordering, loyalty, marketing, gift cards, payments, and more!
Since TouchBistro POS is mobile, your staff can move lines faster by taking orders via tablet when guests are in the queue. Plus, with handy upselling prompts, you can boost order sizes while ensuring your customers get exactly what they want. These orders are then sent directly to the kitchen so you can keep service moving at the speed your customers expect.
You can also use your POS for QSR in conjunction with TouchBistro’s Customer Facing Display (CFD) to quickly let customers view and confirm their orders, including menu items, modifiers, and prices. That means you can improve guest satisfaction, keep lines moving, and avoid costly mistakes by having your guests confirm orders before they’re sent to the kitchen.To improve the guest experience, you can also customize your Customer Facing Display screen with your branding, highlight special offers, menu items, your social media handles, and more.
Integrated Payments
Integrated payments, as the name implies, refers to payment processing functionality that connects with the other business tools in your RMS. When all of your systems are compatible and working together, it becomes faster and easier to accept payments, and all your payments data is stored in one place.
With an integrated payments solution like TouchBistro Payments powered by Chase, you can get paid faster and reduce costly errors from manual double entries. Plus, your guests will be pleased to know they can choose their preferred payment type, whether that’s swipe, dip, tap, Apple Pay, Google Pay, or another method of their choice.
All this is integrated directly with your TouchBistro POS so staff can also accept payments faster, ultimately saving time and speeding up order times by sending orders directly to the back kitchen instantly. They can even continue taking orders and accepting payments if the internet cuts out. By being able to take payments seamlessly and without interruption, your QSR restaurant can reduce long waiting periods that can otherwise put a damper on overall customer satisfaction.
In addition to keeping guests satisfied, you can also save costs with transparent interchange-plus pricing. Plus, you can use TouchBistro’s self-serve portal to see statements and transaction details, so you’ll always know exactly what you’re paying for and why.
Learn more about the different restaurant management solutions TouchBistro has to offer in this complete product guide.
Online Ordering
In a world immersed in digital technology, online ordering is here to stay. Smartphones and computers have changed the way we order food, meaning today’s QSRs need to give guests multiple ways to order and provide a seamless online ordering experience.
Using TouchBistro Online Ordering as part of your RMS allows you to accept pickup and delivery orders on your own website or order.tbdine.com, while paying $0 in commission fees. Orders flow from your website directly into your point of sale in real-time so there’s no manual order entry required – say goodbye to missed or inaccurate orders!
Plus, you can boost sales by offering in-venue pick-up or drop-off through your own fleet of drivers, or our integration with DoorDash Drive. With this integration, you pay one flat fee per delivery and can strike a balance between happy customers and healthy margins by choosing to pass some or all of your delivery fees on to diners.
To provide even more convenience to customers, TouchBistro Online Ordering allows diners to schedule their orders hours or days in advance. This can also help you manage your inventory and staffing needs to keep costs manageable – something that’s essential for a QSR looking to keep costs under control.
Loyalty
Loyalty programs are an important tool for QSRs to attract new customers, retain existing customers, and collect customer data. And loyalty programs are increasing in popularity among QSR customers, with 41.6% saying they use at least one loyalty program.
As customers keep coming back and spending more using your QSR’s loyalty system, you can get to know your guests better. Imagine knowing what types of meals or beverages your guests like, and when they last visited. Then you can combine these insights to plan what ingredients you should stock up on, and what promotions you can deliver to offer a better customer experience and drive more sales.
By integrating a rewards program like TouchBistro Loyalty into your RMS, you can start capturing important customer data, like visit history, birthdays, and food preferences. Then, you can segment this data to better understand your guests’ behavior patterns, so you can offer enticing rewards and give diners more of what they want.
Rewards are a key component of any restaurant loyalty program. With TouchBistro Loyalty, you can structure your rewards any way you’d like. For example, you can reward guests based on the number of purchases they make, like a buy nine coffees, get one free earning structure. Or you can award points for each dollar they spend to encourage guests to increase their order values.
Best of all, your guests can access your loyalty program at any time on their mobile phones through your very own customer web app. Your custom-branded web app allows guests to easily view and redeem loyalty offers on the fly, all from the convenience of their own devices.
Plus, TouchBistro Loyalty integrates with TouchBistro Marketing, so you can leverage all your guest data with advanced email marketing to drive even more visits – all from one platform. Supercharge your loyalty program even further by integrating TouchBistro Loyalty with Online Ordering, so diners can earn and redeem rewards when they order for pickup and delivery as well.
Learn more about the different restaurant management solutions TouchBistro has to offer in this complete product guide.
Marketing
Marketing is a critical tool that QSRs can use to keep guests coming back by creating engaging, value-driven campaigns. QSRs often experience challenges with keeping costs low, especially when it comes to balancing the soaring cost of food and increased hourly wages. At the same time, your guests have to budget for inflated prices on everyday expenses, like groceries and gasoline. That’s why it’s so important for QSRs to promote value or your guest might look elsewhere to find a better deal!
TouchBistro Marketing is a POS-integrated marketing platform that QSRs can use to create custom, value-driven email promotions and in-app campaigns. With this easy-to-use marketing platform, you can create eye-catching designs that let your latest deals shine with drag-and-drop email templates and other easy-to-use marketing tools. And if you’re looking for ideas to get started, you can refer to TouchBistro’s restaurant marketing guide to learn about successful digital marketing strategies you can implement today.
Plus, TouchBistro Marketing integrates with Loyalty and Online Ordering, so you can leverage your diner data and insights to offer your customers what they want, when they want it. For example, you can send out a two-for-the-price-of-one promo to guests who have ordered five or more coffees in the last 30 days, or send customers an “I miss you email” with a special offer if they haven’t visited your restaurant in over 60 days. Guests can then conveniently redeem your offers in-venue through your branded customer web app, or for pickup and delivery via online order.
Not to mention, you can put your marketing on autopilot by automating your email marketing campaigns – ultimately helping your team save time and focus more on serving customers. And with detailed reporting, you can easily track promotion redemptions to figure out what works, so you can determine the right message that will turn your first-time guests into regulars, and keep your regular diners returning more often.
Gift Cards
When it comes to running a QSR like a fast food venue, a fast casual joint, or another type of limited service restaurant, keeping costs low is essential. Fortunately, gift cards are a low-cost marketing tool that can help boost sales and average order size.
For example, TouchBistro Gift Cards make it incredibly easy for guests to purchase and send gift cards at any time. This can help to boost revenue for your QSR because, as one study found, consumers who redeem their gift cards at fine dining and fast casual restaurants spend 80% more than the value of that card when using one. That not only means more guests through the door, but more money in your pocket at the end of the day.
And if you integrate TouchBistro Digital Gift Cards with Online Ordering, diners can instantly use gift cards to pay for online orders and purchase gift cards from your venue’s online ordering page. This allows you to drive orders across multiple revenue streams. In fact, studies show that QSRs generate 6% more in online order sales when customers use gift certificates.
You can also improve your customer experience with gift cards, by offering customized gift cards for new and returning diners. For example, you can customize the design of your gift cards for special celebrations like birthdays, Mother’s Day, and more! These branded gift cards ultimately serve as a free marketing tool that can help to boost brand recognition and deepen customer loyalty long-term.
Best of all, TouchBistro Gift Cards are POS-integrated, so you can track gift card purchases and redemptions with powerful reporting, all from your RMS.
Learn more about the different restaurant management solutions TouchBistro has to offer in this complete product guide.
4 Benefits of an All-in-One Restaurant Management System for QSRs
Now that you understand the functionality of an all-in-one RMS like TouchBistro, it’s time to dive into the benefits of having all of your QSR technology under one roof.
1. Streamline Operations
RMS tools integrate with each other to give you 360-degree control over every facet of your QSR business. The result is an all-in-one restaurant management system that gives you the ease and convenience of controlling every aspect of your operation from one place – no more juggling multiple software programs or devices!
And even when you add guest engagement products like Loyalty or Online Ordering, all your information still flows through your POS. Instead of working individually, these products speak to one another and allow data to flow from one product to another so you can leverage all the information you have to reach customers and boost sales.
2. Increase Sales
Having an all-in-one RMS can help to increase sales in many different ways. For example, with TouchBistro POS, you can boost average order size by including menu modifiers that let diners customize their meal with upgrades, like extra sauce, a side of fries, or even an increased burger size by the ounce. Your POS will prompt staff to promote these modifications automatically so staff can cross-sell and upsell with ease.
And when you extend the capabilities of your TouchBistro system with additional guest engagement solutions, you have even more opportunities to reach customers and increase sales. For example, you can give customers more ways to order with TouchBistro Online Ordering, you can use TouchBistro Loyalty to create a rewards program that drives more repeat visits, and you can even use TouchBistro Marketing to reengage lapsed diners and drive order frequency. All this adds up to more orders coming in and more money in your pocket at the end of the day.
3. Enhance the Guest Experience
Having all the features you need in one place can also help you enhance the guest experience at your fast food or fast casual restaurant.
With an RMS, all of your orders go through one centralized platform, so your kitchen can accept, process, and track orders as they come in and in the right order. This can help improve your guest satisfaction by reducing wait times, speeding up order processing, and improving order accuracy.
Furthermore, you can provide quick and efficient service by confirming orders for dine-in guests with a customer facing display. That means you can show your customers’ itemized orders and payment information to ensure guests are satisfied before their orders before they are sent to the kitchen. And you can bust lines with a mobile POS that your staff can use to take orders while guests are standing in line to shorten wait times.
And whether your customers order in-venue or off-premise, you’ll get detailed reports from your POS for QSR on how often people order, what channels they order on, and more – data that can help you can make decisions that will enhance the experience of dining at your restaurant. Then you can leverage these analytics further by using integrated products like TouchBistro Marketing to send targeted messages that ensure customers enjoy personalized promotions that are relevant to their tastes and behaviors.
4. Save Time and Money
Whether you operate an independent QSR, a franchise, or a chain restaurant, it’s important to keep your costs low so you can provide the most value to your customers. By using an all-in-one RMS, you can access comprehensive reports and analytics on customer behavior and spending patterns so you can make more informed decisions on how to keep costs low by learning what inventory to buy, how to price your menu items, what kinds of promotions to run, and more.
In addition, having a POS that integrates with tools like a direct restaurant online ordering system can save you time by freeing staff up from the hassle of having to take phone orders and eliminating the process of manual data entry – it all flows through your POS in real time!
Learn more about the different restaurant management solutions TouchBistro has to offer in this complete product guide.
Keeping up with the demands of today’s consumers isn’t easy, but having the right QSR technology in place can make it a lot simpler. Having an all-in-one restaurant management system like TouchBistro makes it easier to run virtually every aspect of your operation from one central place. These QSR technologies help restaurants increase efficiency, keep costs low, and build more engaging guest experiences that drive repeat visits.
Debra was a Content Marketing Specialist at TouchBistro, writing about the latest food and restaurant industry trends. In her spare time, Debra enjoys baking and eating together with family and friends.
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The right POS should help you increase sales
The right POS should help you increase sales.
