Food & Beverage (F&B) (restaurants, bakeries, and food) has always been considered a highly competitive industry. Nowadays, thanks to the advancement of technology, F&B companies have evolved in different types and services. What differentiates them from other competitors is no longer just the taste, but also how great their in-store customer service is, what loyalty programs they offer, or even how fast they deliver the orders to customers’ doorstep. Hence, businesses with a tailored, customer-centric approach are more likely to win customers’ hearts. In this article, we would like to discuss how POS helps customize the delivery services in F&B industry.
Power of Magento and POS to create outstanding delivery services in F&B
When it comes to online presence, in terms of the customizability to build their website, Magento is surely a top-of-mind option for every business owner. This e-commerce platform has always been known for its customizability. Plus, it offers a wide range of extensions that allow business owners to design a unique customer experience with ease. On the other hand, the owners should not overlook the physical existence by having a dine-in restaurant or bakery, quick-service establishment, or just a small takeaway food stall.
As the customers are now becoming more and more demanding, a smart approach would be having a solution connecting both online and offline systems. One of the solutions would be to use a POS. The POS plays a role as a connecter, integrating the restaurant’s website & physical location. Whenever customers place new orders on the website, they can select the expected time they would it to be delivered. At the same time, the staff (either the cashier or waiter) use the POS on their Ipad to receive the online order notification, summarize the orders, then transfer to the kitchen to start cooking. The detailed process would vary from business to business.
How delivery services vary in:
1. Food delivery services
Besides the dishes’ taste, delivery time is regarded as an important competitive advantage. Some committed to cooking, preparing, and delivering the orders within only 1 or 2 hours or even within a shorter time.
A chef is the one using the POS, seeing new orders coming, and starting preparing them immediately. As they update the order status, they will have their own tailored mode to log in. (The following images are taken from a customized POS we have built for our F&B customers).
There is a sound notification whenever new online order is placed, showing the countdown clock till the time the order needs to be delivered to the customers’ doorstep so that the chef is aware of it.
And they are also the ones who update the orders’ status until the orders’ are packed and ready to be delivered to their customers.
In the meantime, as the POS is native to their Magento website, the customer is also seeing, tracking their orders’ status, and getting ready to be served with a delish and hearty meal.
2. Dine-in restaurant or bakery
They may share the above-mentioned workflow at some points. However, in a high-pressure environment like in the kitchen, preferably, the waiters take the orders using an iPad, summarize the orders then hand the order list to the kitchen to start preparing.
Whenever the dishes are being done, the chef can notify the waiter to serve using their internal communication systems, or simply by updating the orders’ status on the POS. The waiter will be notified and take the orders to their customers.
In the situation of COVID-19, many eateries have reinvented their restaurant online ordering system to better serve customers. You can find more interesting facts in another article on restaurant customer experience.
W hope that this information will be helpful for you when designing the experience that can satisfy the most difficult customers. For more information about our POS system, you can refer to Magestore POS for Magento.
