The Secret Signifier on Your Wall
Enter into your restaurant. Put yourself in the place of your customers. See your menu.
What do you see?
When you observe a board that is motionless and unchanging and which appears just as it was six months ago, then you are looking at an anchor. And that anchor is retarding your business.
The owners of the restaurants use thousands of dollars on high quality food, quicker ovens, and finer furniture. They waste hours on staff training on customer service. They leave the greatest sales tool that they have in their building frozen in time. Unable to adapt. Unable to persuade. Unable to grow.
Your menu is not a food list. It is your employee of best. It toils diligently in each and every shift. It addresses each and every customer without becoming weary. However, when that employee is still working with the same script as last year, you are losing money of which you do not even have an idea.
The change of paper to digital signage solutions is not an issue of fancy. It is of putting your menu into action.
The Issue with Good Enough
The same is said by many restaurant owners to themselves. My menu is all right. Folks order. I get money.
But fine is no growth strategy. Too tired to change, you say fine. And in the present day restaurant industry, it is the quicker route to oblivion to be “fine.”
Consider the extent of changes in your business in the past year. Prices have fluctuated. There is delay in shipments by the suppliers. Tastes of the customers have changed. Your employees have been replaced. But your menu board has remained just the same. It continues to display the former price of chicken. It continues to offer the breakfast sandwich at 2 PM. It even conceals your high-margin items somewhere in the corner where no-one peeps.
Each day your menu is kept frozen you are putting your customers to a harder labor than they need to be. They squint. They hesitate. Their questions are questions which are already answered. Then they get something that is safe and boring since they are no longer patient.
That is no deal. It is an opportunity that has been missed.
Digital Signage Software The Super power in your hands
Here is where the appropriate digital signage software alters all that. Software can provide you with something that you can never get with paper. Control.
The power to control what is viewed by your customers. The ability to determine its viewing time. The ability to control their expenditures.
This is what that control actually will look like in your restaurant.
You are able to steer starving eyes towards lucrative things. Each restaurant has meals which are cheap to prepare and costly to purchase. Heroes are those. But on a fixed menu they are placed in the same position as all. You are able to emphasize them with digital signage. A subtle glow. A gentle animation. A little badge which reads Chef Favorite. The customer peeps there. The orders are placed by the customer. You earn more money on the same foodstuffs.
You may eliminate disappointment prior to its occurrence. It is stressful to be out of something that is in demand. Worse still, one may see a customer waiting in line and when he gets to the register, s/he hears that we are out. That is a promise that is not kept. When you have digital software, once you have sold the last portion, that item will be off the screen. The customer is not even aware that it was there. No disappointment. No awkward conversation. A mere, simple deal.
You are able to modify your complete menu within seconds. Your supplier increases the prices. You introduce a new dessert. You would like to make a trial of a lunch special in one week. Hundreds of dollars and days of waiting are required to make each of these changes with paper. Digital signage solutions mean that you only have to change once on your laptop, and all your building screens will change immediately. The printing press no longer has its way with you.
The Reason Relation You Cannot Ignore
There is more than money to make the change. Your customers are not the same.
They are more active than ever. Never have they been so distracted. Their patience is less than ever. They enter your restaurant after a long day of work, are concerned about their time, and frustrated with a million little things that went amiss before lunch.
They do not desire to work. They desire to eat.
An online menu that is well structured, clear and bright does not waste their time. It provides them with answers even before they pose their questions. It demonstrates to them what is good, what is quick and what is worth the cash. They order quickly. They are relieved and take their seats. They go away with the thought, That was easy.
It is that sense of comfort that is the key to any winning restaurant. It is the reason why people come back. It is what causes them to refer to their friends. It is what makes a difference between a place they can put up with and a place they adore.
What You Reap as an Owner
You, the owner, benefit even greater than revenue. You have peace of mind.
No longer any worry over out of date prices. No longer will there be confrontations with employees over the actual cost of the special. And no longer would you see customers walking out due to an illegible chalkboard. No longer do you have to lie in bed at night wondering whether or not your menu is costing you sales.
Your online signage program does the work as you sleep. It automatically changes into lunch and back to breakfast. It makes your specials known without your finger-raising. It will make your restaurant look up to date, well maintained and professional.
And that permeates to your customers. They are observant of a well-run place. They trust it. They order more. They come back.
Only Question That Matters
You did not start a restaurant so that you can become a technological expert. You opened it because you love food and you love to serve people. However the world is different. Customers expect speed. They expect clarity. They want a menu that will accommodate them and not one that will work against them.
The restaurants that are expanding in the present time are not the ones that have the highest budgets. It is those that eliminated friction in the ordering process. It is those that provided their menu with a voice.
Your wall is pregnant at the moment. Each day that you have your fixed menu on the wall, you are asking your clients to do more than they are supposed to. And in a hectic world that is a risk you cannot afford to take anymore.
The technology is on hand. The software is user-friendly. The time is now.