With summer coming into full swing, venues offering outdoor dining, music, and games are having a field day. But one of the largest drawbacks of running a large and/or outdoor venue is that customer service becomes more difficult the farther away your customers are from your KDS(kitchen display system), or the kitchen itself. Flagging down waitstaff becomes more difficult for the customer, lines become long, and miscommunications become more frequent. Having to get up and walk to an area to place an order while your friends are enjoying themselves is also a nuisance. These factors lead to decreased customer satisfaction, smaller tips and check sizes, longer wait times, and more chargebacks.
So the question becomes: how can I continue to operate outdoors without sacrificing customer service? Or better yet, how can I allow my customers to order whatever they want, whenever they want, no matter where they are? The latter of the two not only applies to outdoor restaurants, but sporting arenas, festivals, and concert venues. Amazingly, a single solution can solve all these problems, for all of these types of businesses. This is where GoTab and ePaymints come in.
Although the Covid-19 pandemic was a very difficult time for us all, it forced us to think in new ways to solve new problems, and the resulting solutions were not only very creative, but solved problems everybody had even before the pandemic started. The problem with ordering food or drinks at restaurants during the pandemic was the issue of consistent, close contact with somebody outside your party with which you arrived. The problem with these environments before the pandemic was that you had to either wait until a waiter/waitress walked by, or stand in a very long line(or packed bar area).
In both scenarios, getting what you wanted required a one-on-one verbal conversation with a staff member. This is where the problems arose. So by cutting out that interaction completely, you would have no wait time, miscommunication, or frustration. Now, you can do it all on your personal device. Just scan a QR code wherever you’re seated, order whatever you want, whenever you want, and you’ll only have to pay once – to close your (Go)tab.
In conjunction with ePaymints, GoTab allows a customer to sit down at a venue, order through their phone, and be brought their items – the only waiting you’ll have to do is waiting until your burger is cooked to perfection, or your beer is poured. Is your friend running late? Text them a link to your tab, and they can order their own food to be ready for when they get there. Is your bill getting bigger than you anticipated? Split it with your friends through your phone(no app download required). Walked away by accident without closing your tab? We’ll close it for you automatically.
This solution not only works at traditional dining establishments, but can scale up to venues as big as NFL stadiums. In sporting arenas and large venues, waitstaff would either bring you your food, or you would stop by a designated pickup location once your food is ready – no waiting in line whatsoever. We’ve integrated two way communications between vendors and customers to let people know once their order is ready. We put the power in your hands, to control your own dining experience, all with a few taps from your mobile device.
From a vendor standpoint, it makes even more sense to make the switch. By not needing to spend time walking to and from the kitchen to take orders, staff has more time to prep, cook, clean, and engage with their customers on a personal level. This all leads to customer spending going up – by around 23%. Yelp reviews go up – by an average of .5 stars. Transactions at peak times go up – by 3 to 5 times as many. Last but not least, credit card processing fees go… down, as do labor costs – by 15%. As a vendor you can remove items from your menu at the drop of a hat. You can change the menu a customer sees depending on where they are seated. It is easy to integrate promotions and special deals, across your whole area or operation, or segmented by section.
Basically, it’s everything you could dream of as a vendor, and it’s everything you would desire as a customer. Now, only one question remains – what are you waiting for? No matter the type of business you operate, we have a versatile, comprehensive plan for you that will propel your business to new heights, and make things easier for you on all fronts. Get in touch with us to see how we can integrate our system into your business today!
