Restaurant companies are possibly the ones benefiting the most from the emergence of digital signage. Honestly, it has been around for almost a decade now. However, only the top restaurants and hospitality businesses were privy to its advantages. Although...
Restaurant companies are possibly the ones benefiting the most from the emergence of digital signage.
Honestly, it has been around for almost a decade now. However, only the top restaurants and hospitality businesses were privy to its advantages. Although the industry is about to hit 32 billion dollars by the end of 2023, the cost of installation of these LED screens has gone down to about $1500.
For smaller businesses, that might seem steep, since we are more inclined to think about hard return on investment or hard ROI. We believe how fast an investment can break even, and it often keeps us from achieving more significant goals. We like to keep our investments and profits restricted to spreadsheets, but there are factors you cannot determine in black and white. Today, restaurant businesses are more about the soft ROI, and electronic message boards are a huge part of this movement. These are the many almost invisible factors that increase business.
Let us start with the most obvious ones –
Efficiency
Traditionally, managers and the maître d’ have had to take care of the kitchen and the customers. That was indeed a huge responsibility. If you have seen a single episode of Hell’s Kitchen, you know what we are talking about! Their responsibilities included checking the daily menu, checking the delivery of new signs, proofreading them for errors and make sure that final prints were out and ready before the diners arrived. Well, things are not that hellish anymore with digital signage to help you out.
It uses remote CMS platforms to deliver the relevant data. Therefore, you can change the spellings, names, and details in real time even from your mobile device, if you are the owner or the manager. This has increased the efficiency of service in multiple restaurants across the world, by providing nifty accuracy. You could say, narrowcasting indeed relieve the maître d’ of all useless distractions and allows them to pay attention to a perfect evening’s service.
Employee Satisfaction Levels
Digital screens are not only useful for entertaining and informing your customers. You can also train your staff using them. Some corporate establishments and hospitality organisations are already using digital signage to train their employees. Keeping the orders, tickets and the tables digital always helps the chefs and busboys to deliver the correct order to the right table. It increases the throughput of the entire process. Employees do not need to think about order accuracy and the bill calculations. Everything can now be automatic thanks to the immaculate CMS platforms and database integration systems.
You can ask a professional to install digital signage at your restaurant and then integrate necessary software programs for the smooth running of your business.
Customer Satisfaction
Isn’t this obvious?
When you have happy staff and seamless service, you are bound to have satisfied customers. Each satisfied customer leaving your restaurant is the best advertisement in itself. Happy customers tend to tip better. They are also the ones to check you out online later to leave a compliment. You can use these customer testimonials and reviews as a part of your digital signage content.
Including new content from social media and business directories is now so much easier with the new digital signage plugins from the leading CMS platforms. Digital signs ensure up selling your best dishes, creating a dedicated fan following and ensuring that your business breaks even before you can sit down with your next spreadsheet.
Now a few less obvious ones –
Testing The Waters
You can always experiment with new dishes during lunch or dinner hours. You can inform your diners about exclusive offers and timings for the upcoming holiday season through your LED sign boards. This completely discounts the process of designing brochures or print ads, then testing the print ads for mistakes and reprinting them before a tight deadline. Digital signage is the best platform for A/B testing of new items.
You can cast different offers at different locations for significant durations and check for your customer response. You can collect your client response when they come back to dine with you. Imagine changing a front page print ad on a daily that has cost you upwards of $1000!
That is impossible, even though you have spent some pretty bucks on it. Digital signage makes that possible. No more physical printing process, no more running about and no more last moment hustle. Just take out your mobile phone and change all you need to, in real time, to get ready for the next big event in town.
Helping The Environment
This is not such an obvious point, although it should be. It is quite simple. You are saving on tons of paper by not printing tester menus and new offers.
Did you know?
About 350 million plastic ink cartridges go to the US landfills each year. Plastic takes hundreds of years to decompose, and it ends up clogging the natural flow of life in many ways. On the other hand, LED screens are eco-friendly. LED displays do not consume much energy. You can also decide to run them on green energy. This is great if you have customers who are environmentally conscious.
Digital signage is long-lasting; it has 7.5% less carbon footprint as compared to traditional methods of advertising. It will withstand the tides of time, and it will not go out of fashion any time soon. Therefore, you are not only going to make a smart investment, but you are also going to invest in the greener earth. This is an intelligent, sustainable choice that each restaurant owner needs to make at some point in their lives.
These soft ROIs are more important for every restaurant owner and food lover in the country. Digital advertising is not only helping those who need a break in their business, but it is also helping the environment. Hopping on the digital display bandwagon is quite easy. All you need is some creativity and a good amount of patience.
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