Cafes and restaurants around the world make name and attract customers with three things—good coffee & food, good staff and quick service (delivered through a POS system).
To achieve this, businesses need to meticulously choose winning ingredients for coffee & food, human resource, and business systems.
If you are running a cafe or restaurant and wish to grow your business, then it is best to draw a process that will help you attract new customers and retain existing ones.
For cafes, after brewing the best coffee, all you’re left to do is manage your staff well and make your service and operations more efficient. You can use a good cafe POS software to take care of the latter two tasks. The same goes for restaurants, too.
Good cafe and restaurant POS software solutions help you make order processing efficient & fast, manage staff better, manage inventory, engage customers, etc.
Here are features of the best POS software for coffee shops and restaurants, which help businesses grow:
Quick order management
Sales and service staff can quickly take orders from customers at counters or tables. Mapping of orders to individual customers and tables makes it easy to process orders without errors. This also helps in collecting relevant customer data. Each ticket is processed by individual staff members, so that their sales contribution can be tracked. Orders or tickets can be parked and retrieved, in case orders are abandoned mid-way and then continued later.
Set up order screen
You should be able to create a customized menu with relevant order items and categories. Bookmark favourite items to process orders quickly. This helps sales staff to quickly find popular things frequently ordered by customers and even modify them, in case patrons make personalized orders. Items in Add-on category allow staff to make changes to orders by adding complementary items and ingredients. A well-planned POS screen can help you cut down your checkout and order processing time.
Retain your customers
A good POS software helps cafes and restaurants record customer data in real time. Customer contact information and data on preferences and buying behaviour can help send them relevant marketing messages and offers. This helps cafe and restaurant owners send marketing collateral which their customers actually value. This increase the chances of customers returning to outlets and also promoting outlets among their friends and family. You can even offer Loyalty reward points to customers who return to your business often. Reward points delivery and redemption can be managed seamlessly with your POS system.
Integrate orders with kitchen and service
Cafes and restaurants can use a good POS software that helps transfer information from order counters and tables to kitchen, in real time. Orders can be processed to kitchens as per table numbers and priority. This helps all staff members to be on the same page at all times. Order sheets can be accessed by kitchen and service staff to check which orders are pending and which ones are complete. This helps deliver right orders to right customers. It also helps timely prepare and deliver each drink and food item to customers and tables.
Manage inventory
Outlets can manage inventory of items available on the menu using their POS system. Stock of each item can be added to the product management section of your POS software, so that sales and production staff are always updated about the items that are available in stock and can be allowed to be ordered by customers. This helps fulfil all orders placed, so that customers are not disappointed. Having proper records of how inventory is dispensed and available also helps in preventing inventory loss, overstocking and under-stocking.
Manage staff
Restaurants and cafes can manage their staff with the help of their POS software. Each order processed can be mapped to individual sales staff to understand their contribution. Staff has to check-in and out, which helps keep log of their work hours. Order load handled by each employee can be assessed to see that the cafe floor is optimally staffed at all points to allow smooth and quick handling of all orders. POS software solutions help cafes to manage and appraise their staff efficiently and scientifically.
Scale your business
Cafes can add more outlets of their business to their POS system to centrally manage all the branches. This helps managers and owners to understand how each outlet is functioning. Data from each outlet helps understand what can be improved in every outlet to reach potential revenue for each branch. More registers and staff can also be added in each outlet to enable smooth functioning of sales and other operations. Managers can access data from all branches in real time through cloud-based POS systems.
Analytics for growth
Food businesses can access valuable customer data on what customer prefer, what time they like to visit outlets, what prices they prefer and more through POS software solutios. Managers and other decision makers can access such data from anywhere, anytime, using cloud-based POS software, so that sound decisions can be made to maximize revenue and satisfy customers. Data on staff, sales, inventory, etc. helps in optimizing each department for growth. Data is the most valuable asset for businesses when used right.
Hardware-independence
Good cafe and restaurant POS software are available in different formats, so that they can be installed on different kinds of devices to suit a business’ needs. Many restaurants and cafes are using POS kiosks and tablets for self-ordering, so that they can save money spent on manpower, information transfer and more. Hardware-independent POS software are cost-effective, as they can even be installed on mobile devices like smartphones, allowing businesses to enable all departments to use POS systems to streamline selling and other activities.
Such winning features can help restaurant and cafe POS systems to be successful in helping cafes and restaurants grow, as they allow efficient and smooth functioning of cafes, engagement of customers, retention of customers, successful management of staff & inventory, and scaling of businesses.
You can employ a restaurant or cafe POS software with such features to create room for growth for your business.