We have all experienced it at one time or another... You are travelling, hungry and are looking to grab something to eat quickly at a fast food restaurant.
Imagine walking into your chosen restaurant and being greeted by a number of modern food ordering kiosks that are ready to take your order. It is a refreshing change to the customer experience offered by many food outlets.
Each fast food self-service kiosk has an interactive menu that you can browse to find your favourite sandwich, baked treats and drink. Once you have selected your items you can easily pay for your order on the integrated chip and pin payment terminal. Your food order can be placed with a few simple taps on the screen without having to queue or explain your order to the already busy restaurant employees. The restaurant employees are immediately informed that an order has been placed and start preparing your order. Ordering food has never been easier or quicker with the convenience offered by a food ordering kiosk.
Self-ordering kiosks in restaurants are becoming ever more popular and you can now find them in restaurants of all types. Self-service food kiosks are a great choice for almost every food outlet and can introduce a number of significant benefits to your restaurant. Food ordering kiosks secure a greater number of orders at a higher average order value, which ultimately results in increases sales and profits for your restaurant.
The recently renovated Subway restaurant in Troisdorf, Germany recognised the many significant benefits of fast food self-service kiosks and decided to implement them into their modern restaurant. Pan Oston collaborated with software specialist, Smoothr to develop innovative self-ordering kiosks for Subway restaurants. Subway customers in Germany can now enjoy the great customer experience that each food kiosk delivers with no or reduced queues and a significantly faster food ordering experience. Subway customers are not the only party to benefit from the new kiosks; Subway themselves are delighted at the impact they have had. Timo Eisenhardt is the franchisee of Subway Troisdorft & Acahen and has shared how the new self-ordering kiosks have helped his business.
Each restaurant or fast food restaurant will have its own reasons for choosing to adopt food ordering kiosks. Subway Troisdorf & Aachen chose to adopt kiosks after noticing that Coronavirus (COVID-19) had a significant impact on their customer flow. Timo Eisenhardt says: "Usually, at Subway, we have close contact with our customers because they order at the counter and choose their products on the spot. With keeping of 1.5 meters distance, we noticed that this slowed down the customer flow and our guests became a kind of bottleneck in the service and production process. Therefore, we had to find a way other than ordering at the counter." Eisenhardt contacted Smoothr, who, together with Pan Oston, developed an innovative and interactive solution to the problem: a food ordering kiosk for Subway restaurants.
So what have self-order kiosks yielded in concrete terms for Eisenhardt's Subway restaurants? Four months after the installation of the kiosks, the first figures have been extensively evaluated. "We would have thought that we would save personnel costs and that our profit per hour would increase because we could serve more customers," says Eisenhardt. "We have noticed that about 50% of our guests adopted the self-order kiosk and now buy their food at the kiosks. Those guests have a 15% to 20% higher order value compared to other guests. This is something you really notice in sales. For the future, we expect the kiosks to have a greater impact on our business, leading to increased profits and success."
As with any new system that is implemented in a restaurant, it is important to gain feedback on them so improvements can be made. Subway Troisdorf have been asking their customers about their experiences with the new self-ordering kiosks. The store remains a test store, so they strive to quickly identify even small problems in the food ordering process or customer journey so they can be resolved quickly.
Although they have a clear process for resolving problems and issues, the new kiosks, which are part of a system that makes Subway Troisdorf a self-service restaurant, have been running smoothly and have helped to improve customer satisfaction. Eisenhard highlights: "In general, our guests are pleased with the self-ordering kiosks. They don't have to stand in line. This frees up time to do other things while they wait for their food to be prepared. This works really well because we are in a petrol station here in Troisdorf. You see guests making a phone call, paying for their fuel, or getting something else from the petrol station store. Of course, we also have guests who need personal service and contact with our employees. We can help those too because you can still go to the counter and order there in the traditional way."
At Pan Oston, we are confident that self-service food ordering kiosks are the future. They help restaurants to provide the best possible customer experience and meet the high expectations that the customers of tomorrow have. For forward thinking restaurants that strive to stay ahead of their competition, they are a key feature of a successful restaurant. Eisenhardt is passionate about the impact that kiosks have had on his business and offers some advice for restaurants that are looking to open a new store: "As a future store, I would add a pre-order or a self-service food kiosk right from the start. If you ask me, self-service is just as important as personal service. It just goes with the three modern service methods that allow customers to order: [1] through an app or the Internet, [2] ordering in person from an employee [3] ordering from a self-ordering kiosk. It just belongs to the mix. It should be something that every business should integrate in the future."
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