The benefits of kiosks in today’s restaurants
Our Managing Director, Scott Muncaster, recently spoke to The Telegraph about how kiosks give restaurants a competitive edge in today's digital hospitality landscape. He highlighted why kiosks are so popular among operators, the many benefits they present, and also why data holds the key to making sure kiosks are right for your business. Below, we dive deeper into his insights.
Q: What are the main benefits of kiosks, and why do they work so well in specific settings?
SM: “The main benefit of kiosks for customers is that they improve efficiency of service. People are able to order more quickly, without the need for staff involvement, freeing them up to focus on other areas of the customer journey. From a business' perspective, they take pressure off staff during busy periods, as well as allowing them to have less staff on shift, improving the bottom line. You can now have four or more kiosks taking orders at any given time, as well as one or two staff manning the counters. This means that, despite reducing the number of staff, the business can still facilitate the same number of orders at the same speed of service.”
“Another huge benefit is the kiosk’s ability to deliver consistent experiences and information. Regardless of how busy a service is, or what sort of day the staff are having, if a customer uses the kiosk, they will always get the right information about menu items, ingredients, offers, allergens, nutrition, and other dietary considerations such as vegetarian, vegan or gluten free options. It is crucial for today’s restaurants, in what is an increasingly competitive market, to provide consistent experiences which are accurate and deliver what customers want. Kiosks”
“They also help by making orders more accurate. When ordering through a person, human error is a possibility. However, with a kiosk, the customer has input what they’d like to eat and drink. This mitigates wastage on making incorrect orders, both from a time and monetary perspective.”
Q: Are kiosks right for every restaurant setting?
SM: “The reality is that certain technology isn’t always right for every business. A fine dining restaurant for example, likely isn’t going to do too well if they start asking people to order through a kiosk or QR code. But, in other restaurant settings, such as Pizza Hut, this may actually be what their customer base wants. The important thing for businesses is that data is at the core of their decision making; analyse, test, learn and deploy changes faster, in turn making the process and experience more efficient."
Q: Why are kiosks so popular with QSRs, and will other types of restaurants follow suit?
SM: “The labour and skills shortage is certainly having a big impact on the uptake of kiosks in the restaurant sector. Unfortunately, there is a lack of hospitality staff, and most businesses are struggling to source and retain them. QSRs were obviously the first to adopt the kiosk model, and in those types of settings kiosks do make the most sense. However, we are starting to see the technology spill over into casual dining as well. Research we conducted in 2023 uncovered that 62% of the British public would consider trying a fully robotic restaurant experience and 56% would consider an AI or automated self-service system such as kiosks. In fact, one in 10 Brits even said they would be happy to visit a fully automated fine dining restaurant. This highlights the huge appetite from customers for kiosks and other self-service technology.”
Q: Are there any factors restaurants need to take into consideration before adopting kiosks?
SM: “When businesses change their customer interactions, there is always the potential to miss a select group of customers and alienate them accidentally, and this isn’t any different with kiosks. To mitigate this, businesses need to ensure they diversify the ways in which a customer can order, pay and engage with the brand. I have seen examples where a person has wanted to order a coffee from the counter at a QSR with cash, and they’ve been told they need to order through the kiosk. This is counter-intuitive and adds unnecessary headaches for both the customer and the staff. There must always be an option for customers to order in other ways that don't require the use of technology, so as not to exclude certain sections of a business' customer base.
Q: Supermarkets were the first to implement kiosks, but some have rolled back the technology; do you think we will see a similar trend in the restaurant sector?
SM: “Implementing technology is all about balance. In supermarkets, self-checkouts can increase productivity and allow customers with smaller shops to get in and out more quickly, and with less staff on duty. However, for people with full trolleys, the rise of kiosks could make their experience more arduous, with fewer full-size checkouts and longer queues. These sentiments have recently been echoed by Morrisons Chief Executive Rami Baitiéh, who has begun rolling back kiosks in some of the company’s locations.
“In the restaurant sector, the issue is slightly different. When someone chooses to visit a restaurant, they often select where they want to go based on their previous experiences. This is why it is so important for restaurants to stand out from the crowd, deliver accurate and efficient services, and tailor their approach based on the needs of individual customers. For this reason, I can only see more diversification within the sector. Yes, this will mean more kiosks, but also increased emphasis on having good people to uphold standards of service and help those customers who would rather speak to a person.”
If you’d like to hear more about how kiosks can help enhance experiences for your customers, get in touch with one of our team at [email protected] or +44 (0) 1865 632643 to discuss the benefits of our specialist experience management system, three rocks® XMS.
--
