Every restaurant owner will eventually have to face the task of selecting a new point-of-sale system. 20 years ago, there were four major POS providers: Aloha, Digital Dining, Micros, and Future POS. Fast forward two decades and there are more than two dozen POS products for restaurants. As cloud point-of-sale systems continue to takeover the POS market, legacy systems are on the way out. SpotOn is the highest rated cloud POS system according to customer reviews. Still, it’s worth asking: how should I qualify my next POS? What should I be looking for? Every restaurant is different. Let’s take a look at how each restaurant concept should qualify their next point-of-sale.
Quick Service
Fast food point-of-sale needs to be quick, efficient, and streamlined. Utilizing combos and quick edits is important for keeping lines moving. Kitchen video display screens can allow kitchen workers to be in sync across numerous stations. Concepts like Chick-Fil-A utilize handhelds for outside car service in order to maintain steady drive-thru flow. Customer marketing tools such as loyalty are important to keep in contact with customers and promote sales.
Quick Service Qualifications: Quick screen flow, combos, kitchen display, line busting handhelds, customer engagement.
Fast Casual
This type of concept is similar to quick service but without the drive thru. Fast casuals should still be looking for modern tech to keep in-store and online orders moving. Proprietary online ordering through your point-of-sale can mean lowering third party delivery fees. Some fast casuals cannot steer away from third party delivery services. A POS system should have the ability to flow third party services into its online ordering system. Finally, check to see if you can use NFC contactless payments like Apple Pay to make lines move faster.
Fast Casual Qualifications: Proprietary online ordering, third party delivery aggregator integration, NFC contactless payments.
Casual Dining
Casual dining concepts can include anything from family restaurants to diners to local sit-down joints. These concepts need to have loyalty programs the remember customers and incentivize them for return visits. Backup LTE routers can keep orders going during busy rushes in case the internet goes out. Large order screens with customizable modifier flow can reduce touches and increase service.
Casual Dining Qualifications: Loyalty program, LTE backup, large screens, customizable modifier screen flow.
Fine Dining
A fine dining point-of-sale needs to deliver the best service possible for high end customers. Coursing and synchronized order firing can have dishes served at the same time. Automated event scheduling can bring up different menus and items without a hitch. Removing a back-office server, typical with legacy systems, provides fine dining restaurants with one less potential service failure point.
Fine Dining Qualifications: Coursing, event scheduling, cloud-based with no back office serve.
Bar / Tavern
Bars are different than the other restaurant concepts. Nightclubs even more so. Tavern and alcohol establishments’ point-of-sale must have EMV payments; this reduces charge back liability. Taking EMV bar tabs is also incredibly important – a feature that many legacy POS systems cannot perform. Transferring tabs from one server to another should also be easy. Splitting tabs among multiple customers needs to be seamless.
Bar / Tavern Qualifications: EMV payments, bar tabs with EMV compatibility, easy tab transfers, seamless order splitting.
SpotOn Restaurant POS can help meet all of your needs, regardless of concept. Selecting the right point-of-sale can be difficult for every concept. Let our specialists help find the right SpotOn tools for your restaurant. Contact us today to qualify your point-of-sale needs!