According to Medium, “If you decrease your customer wait time by 7 seconds, you increase your revenue by 1 percent.” 

Shorter wait times through a reduction in the length of your cafeteria dining line result in happier customers and more pleasant check-out experiences. They also ensure that temperature-sensitive foods can be enjoyed while they’re still hot – or cold! 

It’s lunchtime. You’re at the cash register frantically trying to complete customer transactions quickly so they can enjoy their hot meals, cold drinks and lunch breaks. It’s hard, especially without the technology that enables efficient payments and check-out processes. 

Let’s dive into the tools that you can add to your cafeteria or quick service restaurant set-up to help you ring more people through more quickly and effectively – shortening the lines and improving customer satisfaction.

If you have the staff, use handheld line-busting tablets.

If you have extra staff members available, using line-busting tablets is a great way to move people through your line more quickly. If you have a dining area where orders are placed before payment, line-busting tablets can take payment and send orders to the kitchen so meal-prep can begin.

If you’re looking to add line-busting tablets, be sure to choose commercial-grade rugged tablets that support your customer account payments as well as credit cards, so you can process all types of payment methods. 

Add digital ordering to allow people to place orders in advance.

While this doesn’t directly shorten the transaction time itself, it can reduce wait times by managing the flow of orders and by allowing customers to pre-pay and avoid entering the line at the cafeteria. With 60% of restaurant patrons ordering delivery or take-out through apps and online at least once a week, digital ordering is not only a line-busting strategy, but also an important revenue stream for your business. 

Enable mobile wallet payments.

As reported by Foodservice Director, the average cash transaction takes 10 to 40 seconds, whereas the average mobile wallet payment takes less than 8 seconds. By enabling mobile wallet payments such as Apple Pay and Google Pay, you can process more quickly and give patrons more ways to pay, so it’s a win-win.

Add customer-facing displays so errors can be detected more quickly.

Customer-facing displays are a great addition to POS terminals as they allow customers to see their totals as they are being rung up. This eliminates the need for cashiers to repeat orders back to customers – saving valuable seconds in the check-out process. Customer-facing displays can also display promotions, help upsell customers, and tell diners about upcoming events and specials making them a great way to increase customer interaction and information.

Let’s discuss other ways to improve the technology landscape in your dining area to help you lower wait times, shorten your lines, and drive revenue.