What is Eats365's Self Service Kiosk and How Can it Benefit Your Business?

What is a Self Service Kiosk?

Self Service Kiosks, also sometimes known as an interactive kiosks, are automated devices that allow customers to place their own orders at a restaurant without additional staff required. Ideal for quick-serve businesses like fast food restaurants, a Self Service Kiosk usually takes the form of a large screen upon which the restaurant may customize what they want customers to see and interact with. For example, restaurants like McDonald’s use their Self Service Kiosks to advertise new deals, cycle through images of delicious best-sellers and promote seasonal items. Customers then tap and select the food and drink items they desire and can even pay on the spot through localized, integrated payment systems. 

How are Eats365’s Self Service Kiosks Different?

Eats365’s Self Service Kiosk does not exist on its own. As one module that makes up a larger, fully-integrated ecosystem of products and services, Eats365’s Self Service Kiosk can be used in conjunction with other Eats365 modules so that a restaurant’s entire chain of operations is highly-automated and optimized under one system.

This means that once an order has been entered into Eats365’s Self Service Kiosk, the relevant order data can immediately be fired to the correct kitchen stations via Kitchen Display Systems. The order will also be received on the restaurant’s POS system for checking and can be tracked and managed by staff until it is ready for pickup. By automating the process, not only is your business able to reduce staff and boost turnover, but there is also the additional benefit of making fewer mistakes due to human error. In addition, all purchases are easily trackable, meaning that your business’ accounts are always up-to-date and you can benefit from informative real-time reporting. 

Eats365's Self Service Kiosks are also able to be integrated with pagers, which is ideal for food court businesses. After placing an order, customers can pick up a pager and be alerted when their meal is ready.

Eats365 also provides a number of other Self-Order Solutions that can benefit your F&B business.

10 General Benefits Eats365’s Self Service Kiosks

1. Safer, Contactless Experience

Given the health hazards that exist currently around the world, the less interaction customers have with staff, the better. Kiosk surfaces can easily be sanitised regularly, providing a safe and convenient way to place orders and pay for goods and services. Not only is the ordering experience contactless, but the payment system is, too. This quicker ordering system makes fast food and quick serve restaurants operate at greater efficiency and with lower operating costs, all while being safer.

2. More Accuracy, Less Errors

Customers are given a high degree of autonomy and freedom to place their own orders exactly how they choose. Given that there are no errors between a customer's order input to the order being delivered to the kitchen, it is unlikely for human error to lead to incorrect orders. In a fast-paced, quick-serve environment, order consistency is key; and Self Service Kiosks provide that high level of consistency by being highly reliable.

3. Smaller Queues, Less Waiting

Even though Self Service Kiosks are usually used in a quick-serve setting, that does not mean that the customer experience should suffer. Just as with table-service restaurants, customers will remember the type of experience they had and will use that to determine whether to return for repeat business in the future. With the ease-of-use that comes with Self Service Kiosks, customers can punch in orders quickly, pay immediately and have a faster and smoother experience. This, in turn, reduces waiting times and shortens annoying queues. 

4. Improve Profits

Automating your business leads to lower labor costs and reduced overheads since fewer staff are required to perform menial tasks. By reassigning your staff to perform more complex tasks, your restaurant business can become more efficient, which leads to a higher profit margin.

5. Higher Average Spend Per Order

Your Self Service Kiosk can be customized to naturally upsell and pair items together so that customers increase their initial spend amount. While serving staff must be trained to do this and can easily forget to upsell in busy service situations, Self Service Kiosks can utilize pictures and built-in deals to give customers a greater selection of enticing choices when making their purchase.

6. Save Customers’ Time

Without the need to interact with a member of staff to place orders, customers have a higher degree of autonomy and can quickly place their orders. This process allows customers to save time as no conversation is needed when placing orders and payments can be completed near-instantly. By reducing the time it takes to order, customers may even perceive your restaurant as having superior service as they will ultimately get their food faster. 

7. Adaptability With New Items

Instead of having to train all your staff to present new items to customers when they are introduced, you can simply add new menu items to your Self Service Kiosks remotely and have them update across all your restaurants. This not only saves time, but allows for greater adaptability across all your businesses enterprise as you can change menu items, amend errors and alter item prices swiftly and without downtime.

8. Easier Accounting

Accounting shouldn’t be a hassle you have to stress over. Fortunately, Eats365’s Self Service Kiosks are part of a larger ecosystem of products and services, which means that all transactions made are stored in the same place as any orders taken through other means (eg, from the Eats365 POS by a member of staff). This centralized approach to accounting ensures you have full visibility of your accounts through all sales channels at any time you need. Why fuss around with multiple systems and different accounting software, when it can all be done for you?

9. A More Comfortable Experience for Customers

Social anxiety can often lead to customers placing smaller orders. Things like accents and speech impediments may actually deter customers from placing orders and may even lead to errors when taking orders in a traditional manner. However, with Self Service Kiosks, the social anxiety of placing an order is removed and actually leads to larger orders being made. This is especially the case if a business has products with names that are hard to pronounce. 

10. Multilingual Capabilities

Finding multilingual staff is not easy. Many regions around the world, like Hong Kong and Singapore, have segments of their population that speak in different languages and would require a member of staff to speak their language to place an order. With a Self Service Kiosk, your business can easily add in as many relevant languages as required so that all customers can place their orders easily and without hassle.