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Pickup orders, sometimes called “curbside pickup,” have become commonplace in the post-pandemic dining scene. Takeout orders soared in volume in the months following COVID-19 and subsequent restaurant re-openings. With the growth of off-premises dining, there’s definitely value in a well-organized expo window. An order ready board may just be the tech your restaurant needs.
This solution can help keep operations running smoothly as consumers, delivery drivers, and wait staff alike flock to your customer order counter to make sense of the packaged orders. In the following blog post, we’ll explore factors that help elevate an off-premises guest experience. We'll also take a close look at efficiencies and services improvements an order ready board can introduce to your restaurant.
How to Win With Off-Premises Diners
Especially if you are customer obsessed, the idea that off-premise dining likely accounts for a majority of the guests consuming your food can be maddening. After all, how do you deliver an exceptional guest experience when few or no diners stay with you through the meal?
Fortunately, the restaurant industry reacted quickly, largely out of necessity, during the pandemic through pickup orders. And two and half years later, people still prefer having the option to carry out with 87% of consumers thinking businesses should continue to offer options like curbside pickup to limit in-person contact.
Unlike delivery orders, pickup orders still offer great convenience to your customers. For starters, there is no delivery fee tacked onto the end of their bill. Pickup orders reduce the wait time between order placement and food receipt. And (assuming consumers arrive near the estimated order completion time), the food is likely fresher and ready at the right temperature as soon as it’s in hand. All of those factors add up to a more positive off-premise dining experience for consumers. And the benefits don’t stop there. Pickup orders have tangible benefits for businesses, too.
Think about it. With pickup orders you’re paying fewer people than you are with delivery. Whether you consider in-house drivers or a third-party offering, both options require additional cost per customer order. And, without added delivery fees, your consumers are more likely to tip your staff well, as the order subtotal won’t already have them balking.
Another beautiful aspect of pickup orders is you don’t have to change much to make them happen. There’s a bit of configuring involved if you want to offer online pickup in addition to orders called in by phone. However, many modern point of sale (POS) systems offer integrated online ordering solutions.
Better still, integrated online ordering allows your business to better manage orders and means inbound orders will hit your system for kitchen prep—and later, your backend reporting—in the same way. The only major difference with pickup orders comes with packaging and labeling them so they’re organized and ready to go when the consumer arrives.
With minimal investment or operational changes your establishment can be ready to embrace a new revenue stream. Pickup orders are the perfect bridge between restaurant accessibility and contactless, off-premises dining.
This avenue can help businesses like yours reach wider audiences. It can eliminate diner anxiety around wait times and order status. Ultimately, contactless pickup can provide a safe, positive experience for guests.
Kitchens already using kitchen display systems (KDS) to digitally display orders for prep and firing on the line can connect directly to an order ready board. That means there's no disruption from order placement on a POS, to order transmission to the kitchen, to customer order status updates on the order ready board. The process is fluid, ensuring fast and accurate execution of each customer order. Digital solutions like these are helping restaurants enhance their service.
Revel offers a managed KDS that provides enterprise-level security and device management at scale. This allows the KDS in your restaurant to be remotely updated, placed in kiosk mode and rebooted. It also improves Revel’s ability to support the device by providing visibility of data about the device and installation support tools for remote access. Essentially, a managed KDS removes the need for your employees to be involved in the process, allowing for unattended updates, so you can focus on other aspects of your business.
With an order ready board, consumers get their orders quickly, easily, and accurately, with visible status updates along the way. Whether the order is for delivery, available for curbside pickup, or a drive-thru option, an order ready board offers a fully-branded experience and a packaged final step in seamless order flow. The order ready board’s direct integration with Revel’s online ordering solution ensures consumers are never asking questions like, “Where’s my online pickup order? Did the restaurant receive it? Are the kitchen staff working on it yet? Where do I pick it up when it’s ready?”
And as a digital solution for order information, it eliminates the need for human interaction at the point of pickup. Reducing person-to-person touch points makes for a safer pickup experience that every customer appreciates. A final step that brings true peace of mind for every order, the order ready board is a way to leave a lasting positive impression with guests.
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