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Guest Blog: How a Mobile POS Can Increase Restaurant Revenue

Restaurant365
Restaurant365
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Your servers are constantly on the go – every second matters when it comes to turning tables and providing high-quality service to your guests. A mobile POS can help any restaurant looking to improve server productivity, increase revenue, and overall streamline their front of house operations.

What is a Mobile POS?

A mobile POS (or MPOS) is a handheld version of a standard cloud-based POS terminal. Your servers can fire orders right to the kitchen, get a real-time list of 86’d items from the chef, and accept payments from guests right at the table – all of which give them more time to provide exceptional service to your guests. Unlike a tablet POS, a mobile POS can fit in the palm of your servers’ hands and in their pockets, giving them more maneuverability to multitask on the fly.

In addition to the convenience factor, a mobile POS also has the ability to increase revenue in your restaurant in a number of ways.

4 Ways a Mobile POS Can Increase Revenue in Your Restaurant

1. A Mobile POS Helps Your Servers Upsell More Often

Your servers have a hundred different things to think about at once. If they’re trying to remember all the refill requests and extra sides of ranch, they may forget to upsell items while taking a pen-and-paper order. With a mobile POS unit in hand, the upsell prompts will pop up as the server is entering a guest’s order, reminding them to offer an upgrade from regular fries to sweet potato fries, adding two more dollars to the ticket. A report on mobile POS devices from SoftwareAdvice.com estimates that upselling even one dollar more per check can have a huge impact on both revenue and tips.

2. A Mobile POS Speeds Up Service and Decreases Table Turn Times

The data scientists at Upserve found that their restaurant customers using a mobile POS saw a 50% quicker order-to-table time. When guests get their drinks sooner it gives them time to order more rounds, providing you with more revenue-per-table.

Your guests will also see a shorter wait time between courses and won’t have to wait around for their credit card to be returned when they pay. By shortening their time in the restaurant, you can seat more tables on even your busiest nights without making guests feel rushed out the door.

3.A Mobile POS Increases Order Efficiency

A mobile POS can increase order efficiency in two ways – time and accuracy. With a mobile POS, the server doesn’t need to scribble down orders or memorize them as they walk back to a POS station to input the order. Even if it is a short walk to the POS, dozens of things could pull them aside in that time, breaking their concentration and causing them to forget a detail or two.

With a mobile POS, orders get fired right to the kitchen from the guest’s table, both decreasing their wait time and increasing order accuracy. When your server can input orders along with cook temps, substitutions, and upsells right at the table, the odds of them forgetting a detail decreases and every guest gets exactly what they asked for.

4. A Mobile POS Creates More Repeat Customers and Advocates

Many of the points above also help create repeat customers, who tend to spend up to 67% more on average than first-time guests. Using a tableside mobile POS to provide faster service and deliver more accurate orders delights customers, creating more of those high-spending regulars who also become advocates, recommending your restaurant to family and friends.

These guests are also more likely to leave a positive review of your business, become a member of your loyalty program, and share photos of their meals and experiences on social media.

Three Additional Benefits of Using a Mobile POS in Your Restaurant

In addition to increasing revenue, a restaurant mobile POS can help you protect customer information, decrease staff turnover, and delight more guests.

1. Increased Customer Security with Tableside Payments

A mobile POS not only takes orders at the table, it also takes payments. By removing the trip back and forth to a POS station with a guest’s credit card, you minimize the chance of it getting dropped, misplaced, or put down somewhere visible to other guests. When you lessen the chance of a guest’s credit card being stolen or lost you can also decrease chargebacks, poor online reviews, and headaches that come along with trying to rectify the situation. This is especially helpful to servers when a large group wants to split the check multiple ways.

2. Help to Decrease Staff Turnover

Staff turnover is a major issue in the restaurant industry. Every time a staff member leaves, you incur the additional cost of hiring and training a replacement. While a mobile POS alone won’t solve the issue, it is one of many factors that can help. Most notably, as a handheld device increases revenue, it also increases your servers’ tip amounts per table. When they are making more money, they are more likely to stay on board.A mobile POS will also help decrease fatigue in servers by saving them trips back and forth to a station or the kitchen. Saving trips is especially helpful for servers in large restaurants, restaurants on multiple floors, or locations with an outdoor patio.

3. Servers Have the Most Up-to-Date Information

When an item is 86’d, there is a change to a menu ingredient, or a new dish is added to the POS, your servers will have all this information available to them in real-time. This eliminates misunderstandings between guests and the kitchen, helps servers provide accurate information quickly, and creates a better experience for both guests and staff.

Is a Mobile POS Right for Your Restaurant?

From the front of house to the back of house, a restaurant mobile POS has the ability to make everyone in your restaurant operate with increased efficiency. While implementing a mobile solution will be an investment upfront, in the end it will pay off with increased revenue, lower staff turnover costs, fewer chargebacks, and happier customers.Stephanie Resendes is a content marketer at Upserve, a restaurant technology company. Upserve offers the market-leading cloud restaurant POS, actionable insights, transparent processing, automated inventory and ordering, workforce tools, and mobile restaurant management.