Restaurant Touchless Menus

Using a Restaurant Touchless Menu for Customer Safety

The Coronavirus pandemic has changed the way today’s consumers think when choosing a restaurant.

While positive sentiment remains for great food and service, there has been an historic shift toward an additional important customer focus – Cleanliness, Sanitation, and Safety.

Consider these statements from Black Box Intelligence:

• One theme that continues to be top of mind for restaurant guests is cleanliness. Guest net sentiment for restaurant cleanliness has been increasing in recent months. Additionally, the overall percentage of restaurant ambiance mentions that center on cleanliness has been steadily increasing each month since April 2020.
• As guests started going back to dine-in at restaurants, a larger portion of the restaurant experience has been focused on safety and sanitation. And the good news is that as restaurant operators have had a chance to adapt to the new required heightened cleanliness protocols, the response from guests has been increasingly positive.

One way to show your customers that you care about their safety is to implement a touchless menu.

What is a Restaurant Touchless Menu?

A restaurant touchless menu, also known as a contactless menu, is a digital copy of your current menu that patrons can view on their mobile device. This keeps the customer safe from touching a physical menu that could be contaminated.

We will configure your WiFi access points to display a new WiFi connection in your list of available WiFi networks. For instance, along with your “Restaurant Name WiFi” connection, visitors will also see another option called “Restaurant Name Menu.“

When choosing the menu option, they can be taken directly to your menu, or to a captive portal like the one below.

You can also provide a QR code on table tents, in your waiting area, or have your wait staff display it for customers. They are free and easy to create using any online QR code generator.

The customer scans the QR code with their mobile device and the menu will appear on their screen.

In addition, the QR code is not limited to your physical location. You can display it on your website and in your emails too.

Bloom Intelligence can quickly and easily provide this feature for your restaurant customers – at no extra charge.

Example of a QR code

Benefits of a Touchless Menu

1. Safety

These contactless menus not only protect your customers, but your wait staff as well.

The last thing a restaurant owner or operator wants to see is staff members being diagnosed with any communicable disease.

Sick workers can lead to more shutdowns, and that could be devastating for your business and your restaurant reputation.

Even after the Coronavirus is gone, there are many other diseases that can be transmitted by close contact and touch.

Likewise, according to Binwise, physical menus are the most dirty things on restaurant tables. With about 185,000 germs per square centimeter, physical menus are about 16 times dirtier than the 2nd dirtiest thing on tables – pepper shakers.

Don’t put your customers and staff at risk any longer.

Having a touchless menu system will only become more and more popular as time goes by.

2. Save on Printing Costs

There are other benefits that are not health related. Benefits that will help grow your business.

First, you can save a great deal of money on printing/laminating costs.

The National Restaurant Association is now urging restaurants to discard paper menus after each use.

Imagine the amount of money you will be spending to abide by this recommendation. Touchless menus can eliminate that cost.

Not only will this save on operational costs, it will help save the environment by reducing paper consumption and waste.

You can also convey this information to your customers for a positive reputation boost.

3. Make Swift Changes to your Menu Items

When making decisions about menu items, you will want to execute quickly.

With physical menus, it takes time to get the new menu to the printing company and have them produce your new menus.

For instance, if you have decided to remove a menu item, you may have to keep that item in stock until those new menus are available.

Or, should you want to include a weekly chef’s special, you will want to be able to change your menu every week quickly and easily without spending a fortune.

With a restaurant touchless menu, all you need to do is update the menu once online and it will immediately be what appears to all customers.

By streamlining this process, you can save on restaurant operations costs and reduce waste.

4. Passively Build a Large, Clean Customer Database

If you choose to do so, you can give customers the option to join your mailing list prior to seeing your menu.

When customers scan the QR code or attempt to access your WiFi, they can be taken to a WiFi landing page.

This page will ask them to enter specific data, such as their name and email address. When this happens, they are adding to your customer CRM database.

Likewise, a customer profile is created for the patron and all past and future behavior data is collected for that customer.

You will know what days and time they like to visit, dwell times, and so much more.

Then, you can segment your customer list in various groups and send more targeted, engaging messaging to them.

5. Marketing Your New Restaurant Touchless Menu

Getting customers back in your doors after a pandemic can be a tough proposition.

Knowing what consumers are looking for can be a serious advantage to your marketing campaigns.

A touchless menu is one of those things. In addition, environmental safety and reduced waste are huge talking points recently.

So, tell your customers about how you care about them and the environment.

Let them know they can have a touchless menu experience. It could easily make the difference between them choosing your restaurant, or your competition.

How to Create a Contactless Menu

Creating a contactless menu is relatively easy.

1. Place a copy of your menu on your website.
2. Create a free QR code that links to the menu page on your website.
3. Begin letting customers know they can view the menu on their device by scanning the QR code.

Whenever menu changes happen, you simply update them menu on your website and all changes occur in real time.

It is a quick and simple way to begin reaping the rewards of using a restaurant touchless menu at your locations.

Bloom Intelligence Can Help

If you are interested in a restaurant touchless menu, Bloom Intelligence provides all the features discussed above in their WiFi marketing and analytics platform at no additional charge.

Build a large, clean customer database while keeping your customers and your staff safe and improving your restaurant reputation.

To see this and all other advantages of a WiFi marketing and analytics platform, call us today at 727-877-8181 to schedule a demo, or schedule a demo online here.

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