Your Ticket to More Restaurant Sales

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There is an interesting trend happening in restaurants. As we become more comfortable ordering food from our phone through Door Dash, GrubHub and Uber Eats, many restaurants are having us order food and pay from our phone at the table as well.

In this week’s edition, we explore this trend that would potentially eliminate point of sale systems long term. We will also discuss the unique, smart QR Code solution created by Retail Cloud called Tickt that is both processor agnostic AND POS Agnostic, meaning you can sell it to any restaurant without swapping their point of sale system or trying to integrate with it.

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Few businesses have been as hard hit by the coronavirus pandemic as restaurants. Forced to shut down table service, restaurant owners had to pivot to new service models or risk shutting their doors for good. Now, even with inside dining restrictions lifted, restaurant owners continue to struggle with rising food and labor costs, along with worker shortages.

 At the same time, ISOs and agents are struggling to fend off encroachments into restaurant verticals by technology companies like Toast, DoorDash, and Square. While the tech companies have made gains, the game isn’t over. By selling Smart QR Code solutions, ISOs and their sales reps can change the game by helping restaurants transition from delivering traditional dining experiences to dining that is more convenient, safe, and experiential. 

 retailcloud, sponsor of this Merchant Sales Insight, has developed a Smart QR code solution for restaurants that is both POS system and processor agnostic. With Tikt, restaurants can create contactless, customized dining experiences that diners navigate by scanning tableside QR codes using their mobile devices. It saves restaurants money, streamlines operations, and drives more sales.

 Tikt is a cloud-based order management and fulfilment solution that ISOs and agents can leverage to attract new restaurant accounts and grow existing accounts. Like Toast and other ISVs in the restaurant vertical, Tikt digitizes the dining experience. Unlike ISV solutions, it doesn’t require investments in proprietary hardware and software. There are no complex integrations or apps to download. All a restaurant needs to do to use Tikt is swap their kitchen printer for a cloud-based printer and post QR codes tableside.

 What is a Smart QR Code?

 QR codes have been used for about thirty years by retailers in a variety of settings and contexts. But when Covid-19 struck, many restaurants turned to QR codes as an alternative to reusable paper and plastic menus. 

 The National Restaurant Association found about half U.S. fine and casual dining restaurants had adopted QR codes in place of menus during the first full year of the pandemic. 

 Smart QR codes do more than simply display menus. They are a dynamic interactive tool that allows guests to engage with restaurant staff digitally. 

• Once seated, diners scan the QR code to read the menu and place orders directly to the kitchen, where they get routed for preparation. 
• Special requests are communicated straight to the kitchen or the bar. 
• When an order is ready, the server is notified.
• The order is delivered. 
• (If an item runs out, the kitchen simply deletes it from the menu, so no one orders it.)  

 Smart QR codes are the future of dining. 

 If you don’t want to lose processing volume to companies like Toast or DoorDash, you need a technology solution that can drive efficiencies while improving, rather than sacrificing, customer service. 

 Tikt is a Smart QR code solution that offers restaurant guests more control over their dining experiences. And it comes with robust reporting, enabling restaurants to tailor experiences to individual guests.

 Let’s take a closer look at the benefits a Smart QR code solution delivers to restaurant owners and how it can be an ISO/agent’s ticket to more profitable restaurant accounts.

 Top Three Reasons Smart QR Codes are Good for Restaurants

 Smart QR codes are a smart play for restaurants large and small. While especially well-suited to restaurants with table service, they can have much broader applications. “We built this on the rails of what we use for online fulfillment and in-seat ordering at stadiums,” Retail Cloud CEO Kevin Colaco said in describing Tikt.

 Here are three improvements a Smart QR code solution delivers to restaurants.

 1.  Improved customer service. Consumers are increasingly savvy about how and where they spend money and the service they receive in return. With Tikt, diners take control of the ordering experience; there’s no need to wait for busy servers. Because orders are sent directly to the kitchen by guests, they can be delivered faster and free of errors. With a dynamic menu, it’s easy to make adjustments on the fly to address customer preferences and supply issues. These solutions also provide more data about customers and their order histories, allowing restaurant owners to tailor dining experiences to individual customer preferences.

2.  Improved efficiencies. By eliminating the hassles around table hopping servers, restaurants can increase table turns.  Thus, workers are free to handle more orders per hour. It also streamlines kitchen and payment workflows. 

3. Improved financials. Improving efficiencies means restaurants need fewer servers to achieve the same or better customer service. 

• Dynamic digital menus eliminate printing costs.
• Restaurants can easily adjust menus and pricing, – based on availability of products, time of day, or other criteria. 
• Restaurants will see a lift in average tickets – Tikt customers are seeing lifts of between 9% and 14%, Kevin said. 

Future-Proof Your Portfolio with Smart QR Codes

 Merchant services is not a transaction business; it’s a relationship business. The best relationships, the most profitable relationships, are built upon solution sets that address real business challenges. 

 Restaurants today are being challenged like never before. Solutions that deliver faster, more convenient, and touch-free customer experiences address many of these challenges. ISVs, like Toast, understand this and have been actively pursuing restaurant clients with integrated solutions – from ordering to payment – just for restaurants.

 A Smart QR code solution can be your ticket to competing with Toast and other ISVs that have their sights set on your residual stream. 

 Chances are that restaurants in your portfolio know about Toast. Some may even be considering it. If you intend to retain those merchants, you need to offer a solution that addresses the most pressing challenges facing restaurants large and small.

• Labor shortages
• Rising costs
• Supply chain challenges
• Boosting revenues 

retailcloud’s Tikt digitizes the dining experience, improving customer service with a fun and contactless way for customers to order and pay. And it requires no changes to the POS or processing arrangements.

 A Smart POS solution, Tikt addresses the most pressing challenges restaurants face. It’s a powerful weapon that ISOs and agents can use to fend off potential competitors like Toast and DoorDash. 

 Restaurants pay a small monthly fee for Tikt (which ISOs can markup), along with transaction processing fees, with residuals continuing to flow to ISOs and agents. Restaurants can cover those costs by adding “convenience fees” to transactions.

 “We’re not a processor. We’re processor agnostic and integrate seamlessly with any POS,” explains Kevin. “Our full-service program is popular with ISOs and agents because it eliminates the headaches around support.” There are also ongoing revenue shares.

 retailcloud has a 90-day free-trial offer running on Tikt. That means an ISO/agent can sign-up restaurants for free now, allowing them to spend summer reaping the benefits of Smart QR technology. Retail Cloud is betting that once restaurants use Tikt, they won’t want to go back to the way things were. 

 For an ISO/agent, it’s a safe bet that adding Tikt to your solution set will help win and retain more and more profitable restaurant accounts. 

 retailcloud Makes Restaurant Sales Simple

 retailcloud, the company behind Tikt and sponsor of this Merchant Sales Insight, specializes in cloud-based point of sale solutions that run on Android and Windows devices. 

 retailcloud provides retailers of all sizes and in multiple verticals with ways to increase sales, better manage inventory, collect valuable data on the shopping preferences of customers, and more. Retail Cloud solutions like Tikt support API integration with ERP, POS, and ecommerce platforms.

For more information, please visit yourtikt.com/go