You can have the best restaurant with the best menu, best ambience, best staff to take care of your customers. But what if your customers have to wait long times just for their check? Even more, after the hard wait, the time taken at the Point of Sale (PoS) terminal in a long queue is even more agonising for the customer. All their happy experience till the previous 10 minutes vanishes in thin air. It’s important for private and independent restaurants to look for ways to improve and speed up their checkout process. Here are some tips on how restaurants can get this done:

1. Point-of-Sale Terminals on the Tables or Handheld PoS devices

Renowned food chains have already gotten along using the PoS terminals on the tables to enable customers to place orders and make payments. The advantages of this are twofold – it speeds up the ordering process as well as the payment process. Statistics estimate that PoS systems can save up to five minutes per customer on every table. For the customer, they need not compromise on the safety of using their credit card as they will be the ones using it. No more need to stand in long queues to pay the bills!

If you feel setting up table PoS devices can be costly, handheld PoS devices come to you at cheaper costs. Having just one or two handheld PoS devices again would mean clogging during peak hours. You can possibly hand over a couple of them to your waiters and leave a couple on the front desk so that the guest checkout process is quicker and smoother.

2. Easy bill splitting options

There may be diverse groups of people visiting your restaurant – families to young kids coming over to celebrate a party or a group of colleagues joining in for dinner, and so on. In these cases, people may prefer to pay their check by splitting it among themselves. Ensure that your PoS system (handheld or table mounted) has the bill splitting option so that waiters can split the checks on different cards as per the customer’s request.

3. Accept payment through Cashless Payment Apps

As the world moves towards digitalization, the need for cash is not the same as it used to be a few years ago. Mobile wallets and Unified Payment Interfaces (UPI) are now changing the way how people make payments. With the number of mobile phone users in the world is expected to pass the five billion mark by 2019, customers are making the move towards using their smartphones to make payments. This eliminates the need to carry a physical credit card at all times and getting worried about compromising the security.

When it comes to Cashless payments, the major players include Apple Pay, Google Wallet, Android Pay and so on. However, in the last few years, there have been lots of cashless payment apps that have come into the market. For instance, in the Indian market, apps such as PayTM, Google Pay, Phone Pe, etc are cashless payment apps or mobile wallets that have earned more prominence. Most retail outlets have started to accept payments from these mobile wallets in an effort to move to a digital future.

This is a huge opportunity for restaurants. With this option, either on the table or on the front desk, diners can easily pay for their food without any hassles. Also, with irresistible offers from these cashless payment app providers such as cashbacks, 50% off on the first five payments, etc., means more customers are tempted to use this facility. Overall, it’s a win-win situation for both the restaurant as well as the customer.

4. Customer Feedback

Most restaurant businesses fail to listen to their customer feedback. Moreover, few restaurants never take the step to get feedback from their customer. Feedback helps to emotionally connect with the customer – both in case of a positive or a negative experience. Feedbacks make customers feel that you care for them. You can either incorporate a feedback app within your PoS system that shows up once your customer pays the bill. Otherwise, never mind! Go the traditional paper way! It’s better doing it rather than not. Ask your customers about their experience, and leave out any comments. Feedbacks help you in finding out the star performers in your team and earn them an appreciation or even a pay rise.

Win Repeat Customers

Ideally, everyone who walks out of your restaurant should have had the most satisfying experience. Serving delicious meals in a timely fashion and keeping the FOH moving swiftly are musts for a restaurant's success. Following the tips provided above will ensure that you take the right steps towards generating as much positive word of mouth about your restaurant as possible.