This article originally published in Self-Service World magazine's special section, FOCUS: Restaurant & Hospitality Self-Service, May 2007.
Case study:
From airport check-ins to grocery check-outs, American consumers are willing to help themselves move through lines faster. The line-busting revolution is about to sweep through the quick-service restaurant marketplace for those who are ready to enjoy the benefits.
The challenge
Quick-service restaurants — think McDonald's, Wendy's, Taco Bell — are poised to transition much of their order taking to self-service kiosks. Depending on the company, the decision is up to the corporate office, a regional organization or even the individual store owner.
With a self-service kiosk in place, a restaurant can increase productivity, maximize labor efficiency and cut food costs and boost customer satisfaction at the same time. A kiosk never forgets to ask if the customer wants dessert or if they want to upsize the meal. New menu items as well as higher margin items can be presented to the customer to increase the likelihood of trying something new.
Integrating self-service kiosks into existing point-of-sale systems has been one stumbling block to widespread deployment. No restaurant owner wants to discard expensive, time-tested technology and disrupt the entire store to install a kiosk. For a kiosk to be successful, it has to integrate seamlessly with the restaurant's existing technology. In the past, proprietary POS software has made kiosk integration a challenge.
The solution
To overcome the integration hurdle, InfoAmerica, a subsidiary of NCR Corp., launched an open architecture software solution for its TouchWare system. InfoAmerica has developed a software interface for about 10 restaurant point-of-sale systems, and the latest is the system from Wand Corp.
"A common concern for the store owner is that their investment in their existing POS system will be lost." said Greg Perrill, vice president of Wand Corp., a leading technology provider for quick-serve restaurants.
"With the introduction of the combined Wand, InfoAmerica and NCR solutions, this is no longer the case. Wand will implement the InfoAmerica software with NCR hardware as an add-on to an existing system or as part of a total system installation, making the transition to a kiosk virtually seamless to the store owner."
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System providers such as Wand can use the developer toolkit provided by InfoAmerica to create their own software interface between the kiosk and a store's existing system. The two systems work well together.
As an integral part of a restaurant's system, orders placed at the kiosk are treated as orders placed by employees. Wand's system then offers Web-based reporting, with e-mailed alerts for critical events.
"Kiosk orders go through the kitchen the same way and both are recorded the same way for accounting purposes," Perrill said. "It's transparent to the POS system."
InfoAmerica also supplies a tool to manage customer-facing screens. With the software, the menu can be customized at the headquarters level, regional level or even at the store level to reflect special menu items or to remove out-of-stock items.
The results
Based on an NCR hardware platform, InfoAmerica's system offers a range of capabilities depending on the restaurant. For convenience stores, the basic order- entry kiosk delivers a receipt to the customer for food pick up and payment at the counter. More sophisticated options include payment by credit or debit card, cash and gift cards.
Paul Knight, president of InfoAmerica, expects the open-architecture solution to resonate well with restaurant owners. But restaurants have to be sure they're doing more than simply installing self-service kiosks. The restaurant needs to embrace self-service ordering as part of a larger plan to become more efficient and productive.
"You can't just drop in a kiosk and expect it to be a home run," Knight said.
"The store should have a plan that ensures that customers actually get faster and better service. If you get this right, customers will quickly understand the benefits and come back to your restaurant time and time again."
