The covid pandemic has challenged each industry, especially the hospitality industry. Old operating methods and approaches need some serious modifications. Digital transformation is no longer a choice, but a must-have resource now.
However, you need to pick your technology carefully, as not all resource management products would provide you with an all-in-one package. It is recommended to look for a unified commerce solution like LS Retail, which offers all the necessities under the same platform.
Our experts have computed the following tips to help you adopt this digital transformation and beat the crisis.
Revisit Your Each Step
Yesterday you served hospitality and convenience; today you primarily need to ensure your customer and employee safety.
Many restaurants are bringing up innovative hacks, such as covering their payment devices for easy sanitization. However, this causes the reader to work improperly sometimes. The contactless payment trend is not temporary yet the restaurants need more innovation.
Sit back and revisit each step, how can it be modified? How else can you ensure customer and employee safety without compromising your profit? Here are two examples:
- Menu Access via QR code: QR Code menu access is more fitting as paper menus are hard to sanitize. Not only this, but it also adds up to your profit margin; you do not have to waste a bundle of paper to make petty changes to your menu.
- Tables and seating plan management software: this feature helps you with floor plan redesigning complying with safety standards. Also, it helps tracking who is sitting where for contact tracing.
Emphasize Mobility
Mobility is a key feature in any digitizing process. It becomes easier to manage your guest flow and staff within the restaurant with the help of a mobile POS. you can easily take an order from a whole group chilling on the terrace, then turn around to another table to take their card payments. Everything becomes easier and faster for both; staff and customers.
Having a two-way connection POS is even better, it saves your front-of-house staff from the unnecessary back and forth activities. As soon as you punch an order, it displays straight to the correct kitchen station, saving quite a lot of time and effort for your front house employees. Therefore, fewer contact risks and wastage. Also, it enhances communication between the front house and kitchen which minimizes errors and saves a great deal of time.
Adopt A Strong Technology Platform
You need a unified approach to meet consistent customer demands. Such solutions are successfully replacing the traditional IT setups. With this solution, you can witness the following benefits:
- Get a complete overview of your organization with real-time customers and sales data.
- The absence of multiple integrations needs results in reduced management and implementation costs.
- Faster decision-making with actionable accounts, reports, and statistics when you need them.
- Easy and quick information transmission throughout your company; dishes, prices, and nutrition value combined.
Using the software in the clouds is even better as you can grasp opportunities as soon as they arrive. Those who already work with cloud-based technology can adapt to the modifications even faster.
Track Customer Behavioral Changes
Lockdown threw a lot of challenges towards restaurants and enforced them to adopt the latest technology to cope with them. During the process, they lost and gained some customers and even witnessed regulars approaching them seldom. Businesses cannot ignore these customer behavioral changes. Either use this data for your benefit or you might lose the game. It is next to impossible for you to establish and foster loyalty without having data at hand. Having a suitable technology at hand can help you do predictive cost analysis, and experiment with witty menus, recipes, and varying prices. You can even spot a sweet spot and reap its benefits.
Modify your Metrics
As time changes, your methods to identify your success need to change as well, many restaurants are stuck with their old KPIs such as taking table turns as a measurement of success. This method is applicable as long as you have customers to fill the tables. The business needs to adopt some practical modifications but before that, you need to understand what is going on in your business. During this dynamic time, you need to change your metrics and get ready for consistent changes. You cannot take your current customer behavior for granted and expect them to treat you the same way in the future too.
Adopt Tools to Help You Predict the Future
Many restaurants fail to use their intelligent analysis to the fullest. They tend to rely on old data to figure out what has happened. However, little do they realize that you can only get your true intelligence value with predictive analysis. Predictive analysis contemplates a large set of data that identifies prospect changes in trends.
Using a business intelligence platform that pulls in big data can be pretty beneficial. It computes your internal environmental data with the external, and displays a clearer picture of how your customer behavior might change.
Think Long Term
An effective digital transformation centers on long-term thinking. Therefore, investing in a suitable technology is equivalent to investing in a fried system or the latest air conditioning model. In both cases, you are investing in your main infrastructure to assist your business operations. Even after covid, you cannot go back since the customer requirements will keep shifting in various directions. You need technology to cope with it and draw them to your business
Covid has made digital transformation imperative, however, you do not have to do it on your own all the time. You have the Trident Information System with you. We are Microsoft Dynamics Premium partners who have served various SMEs and large-scale businesses. For further inquiries or a demo, contact us.
