If you own a restaurant, you know that menu is one of the main things driving sales. How you name your items, what ingredients you list and how you engineer it will be the factor for bringing more sales. In short, menu management is a crucial aspect of running a successful food service operation as it impacts sales, customer satisfaction, and the overall reputation of your restaurant.
Successfully managing your restaurant’s online menu is a different game altogether. In times when many restaurants make a large part of their sales using food delivery, it is important to know the tips to manage online menus in and out! Managing an online menu requires careful planning, attention to detail, and ongoing monitoring and evaluation to ensure that you know which items sell the most at which particular time and week of the day. And a good restaurant POS system can help you with all of that.
We have curated a list of must-have POS features for easy restaurant menu management for you!
1. Easy Ordering
Make the online ordering process for your customers easy and fun with the help of a sound POS system.
i. Categorizations and Variations
A good menu properly categorizes the restaurant’s items to simplify the ordering process. In fact, ordering platforms like Zomato and Swiggy help you categorise your menu; you have to follow the correct labelling as per your POS menu!
Furthermore, you may offer add-ons, which may or may not be charged. For example, extra cheese, bacon, or avocado and sauce as add-ons to a burger, giving the customers the flexibility to make their dish exactly how they want it and increasing the average spend per order.
A sound POS system will easily categorize your menu items and create variations and add-ons with separate pricing for each customization. And so, you can offer as many add-ons as you want and regulate prices on the same without any hassle.
ii. Putting Special Notes
“No onions in the sandwich” and “make that extra spicy, please” sound familiar? Many customers make special requests while ordering their food online to include specific information or instructions, like dietary restrictions, food allergies, preparation preferences, or any other special requests that customers may have.
With the help of an exemplary POS system, you can take and manage notes and inform your kitchen staff about all such changes and requests in online orders. For example, you may create fields for “gluten-free”, “vegan”, “spicy”, etc., and associate them with specific menu items.
2. Seamless Internal Management
It can be challenging for your staff to manage the online menu on multiple food aggregators, offer varying discounts and constantly check for orders back and forth. But worry not; with the help of a POS system, you can seamlessly manage it with minimal effort.
i. Managing All Food Aggregators
Aggregator menu management can be tricky for restaurants without automation, as it involves manually verifying menu prices and item descriptions, updating menu items and information in sync with restaurant changes, and resolving any discrepancies or issues that may arise.
Any deletion or price change goes to the respective teams from Zomato and Swiggy and takes a while to be reflected. A POS system can help you integrate all aggregators, allowing you to seamlessly edit your menu items and prices and switch items on/off directly from the POS.
ii. Multiple Menus
Sometimes chain restaurants serve different menu items based on the location. Managing multiple menus in a restaurant can be complex, especially when each menu has additional items, pricing, and other variables. However, a POS system can effectively manage multiple menus and provide customers with a seamless ordering experience. With Petpooja, you can work your item mix and prices per channel or area, giving you complete pricing control over every channel to account for other costs such as service & commissions.
iii. Short-Codes for Quick Billing
Restaurant staff often use abbreviations to perform specific tasks and functions. For instance, they could assign PBB for Pav Bhaji Butter and speed up the process of entering menu items into the POS (point-of-sale) system. A POS system will incorporate these shortcuts to let the staff quickly enter the same in your online menu, and the same shortcodes will reflect on the POS screen when any order arrives.
iv. Customize Menu Timings
Does your restaurant also serve customized menus based on the time of the day? Your breakfast menu may only be available till 11:00 am. And your pastry chef comes in only at 4:00 pm. A POS system can smoothly ensure that certain menu items are only available at certain times of the day for dine-in and on aggregator platforms.
v. Combos and BoGos
Restaurants run multiple offers and combos to attract more customers. But it can be a huge pain for your staff to bill those combos, as is managing their inventory. With a POS system, you can create BoGo offers and Combos and ensure that your inventory at the backend stays in sync, consuming the right items from inventory for all combo or BoGo items.
Automation is the natural step forward for a restaurant, helping it reduce costs, maximize output and increase profits. Petpooja’s POS offers all the above features, flawlessly helping you with menu management and much more!
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