21 min read

Essential POS Features for Mid-Size Fast Casual and QSR Restaurant Chains

An ultimate A detailed guide on the “need to have” features of the POS system

Falling short on the weekend rush because of “technical difficulties”? Don’t sweat it.

There’s an inventory line-up exceeding Alfred Hitchcock’s suspense, a crew schedule straight out of a juggling act, and third-party integration resembling spaghetti junction. You don’t just need a Point-of-Sale system; you need the Ideal POS system features that stand tall under real, mid-size Fast Casual and QSR restaurant chain demands.

We’re not just talking about credit card processing.

We’re talking about swappable POS machines, easy printer redirects, and that dazzling Quick Cash feature that allows for no downtime. With your POS functioning as your restaurant’s backbone, the stakes are high. Just think – Multi-Unit Gift Cards, Loyalty, Online Ordering, Phone Ordering Automation, and seamless 3rd party integrations.

These solutions not only stave off the gnawing “Technical Difficulties” nightmare but streamline your operations, even on the most hectic weekends. Let’s roll up our sleeves and get right to the heart of what you’re missing out on.

POS Features and Integration: The Key to Seamless Operations

Say goodbye to “technical difficulties” ruining your weekends!
A POS system that adapts to unexpected changes? Absolutely possible!

No “Technical Difficulties” on Weekends: Ensuring Uninterrupted Service

Avoiding technical difficulties, especially during busy times like weekends, is no minor task for mid-size fast casual and QSR chain restaurants. Often, the disruption to business operations causes unnecessary chaos and costs. By investing in a POS system with seamless integration abilities, restaurant chains can ensure their operations run smoothly, even on the busiest weekends.

The best POS systems offer round-the-clock support, ensuring any issues are quickly rectified before they can negatively impact the business.

Advance Planning and Preparation

Advance planning and preparation are also key to avoiding system glitches. A POS solution that provides real-time reports is ideal. Not only can it help you predict traffic trends and busy periods, but it also assists in spotting possible technical issues before they escalate, ensuring a smooth weekend for your restaurant chain.

Easy Printer Redirects and Swappable POS Machines: Flexibility in Action

Restaurant operations are unpredictable. There can be a sudden increase in customer orders or even a printer breakdown. Do these scenarios sound familiar? The real question is, how quickly can your restaurant adapt to these changes?

Restaurants that used a POS with a printer redirect feature experienced a significant increase in order completion rates during peak hours.

Swappable POS Machines

Swappable POS machines take flexibility to another level. They are designed to be easily replaced in case of breakdown, without disrupting restaurant operations. This means your team doesn’t have to waste time troubleshooting hardware issues mid-service – simply swap the problematic POS machine for a new one and get back to serving your customers.

Inventory Management: Keeping Track of Your Stock

The Impact of Efficient Inventory Management

Running a restaurant isn’t simply about cooking and serving good food. It’s about systematically managing your raw materials, prepared dishes, manpower, and time.

A streamlined inventory management system can ensure that the raw materials needed for your menu are always available, preventing any hiccups in service. You’re not just avoiding the embarrassment of running out of a key ingredient; it’s about maintaining consistency in offering and optimizing consumption.

POS Features for Streamlined Inventory Management

Modern POS systems come with sophisticated inventory management features to monitor stock levels in real-time, automatically reorder stock when it drops below a certain threshold, and avoid wastage or shortages. These features provide a single window into your restaurant’s ‘larders’, regardless of how many outlets you operate.

Forecasting: Predicting Your Business Needs

The Power of Accurate Forecasting

Understanding your customer’s dining patterns, dish preferences, and peak rush hours is like having secret inside information. This knowledge not only helps you plan your inventory but also manage staffing, budgeting, and marketing.

POS Features for Accurate Forecasting

Advanced POS systems leverage machine learning and artificial intelligence algorithms to assist with forecasting. By analyzing past sales data and other parameters, such systems can predict how many diners to expect on a given day, what dishes they might order, and how much inventory is required. These data-driven forecasts can drastically improve your operational efficiency and profit margins.

Managing your inventory and forecasting future needs will make your business more efficient and proactive, allowing you to smooth the flow of operations even during the most unexpected situations. A POS system that contributes to these aspects cements the foundation of your restaurant business.

Scheduling and Clockset Management: Streamlining Your Workforce

Optimize team organization with the help of a Schedule Feature for Crew.
Keep track of every second to your advantage with Clockset Management.

Scheduling for Crew: Organizing Your Team

Efficient team management manifests in seamless business operations. The crew scheduling feature lightens the burden of planning and organizing shift schedules. It allows managers to create and assign shifts to team members remotely and offers a centralized view for everyone – a feature that fosters transparency.

Consider the situation where the establishment is extremely busy and an employee calls in sick. The scheduling feature allows managers to make instant changes on the go and call in a backup, ensuring that the operations do not experience any disruption.

In addition, it creates a space for direct communication between employers and employees. It promotes cooperation, reduces absenteeism, and ultimately results in a high-performing workforce.

Clockset Management: Keeping Time on Your Side

Imagine having an eye across all your stores – something as simple as knowing exactly when your employees start their work can have a significant impact on your bottom line. The Clockset management feature arms you with this vision.

These features allow you to track and record employees’ clock-in and clock-out time, giving you an accurate measure of labor costs. Control is at your fingertips with real-time monitoring, which aids in detecting any discrepancies. It leads to better management of overtime and breaks, whose inefficient handling could inflate expenses.

While the immediate benefit is cost control, in the long run, accurate labor data leads to efficient scheduling – one that balances the need for adequate staffing during rush hours and minimizing wage costs during slower periods.

Using Clockset management mitigates the risk of wage theft and ensures adherence to labor laws, providing you with a sense of security and smoother operations.

POS System with Staff Scheduling & Clockset Management features: The Powerful Synergy

When you combine the strength of a crew scheduling feature with a clockset management system, your restaurant chain gains a formidable defense against common workforce management challenges. You’ll have access to accurate labor data and a powerful scheduling capability, which leads to cost-efficiency, improved employee performance, and satisfaction, secure labor law compliance, and overall streamlined operations.

Such a comprehensive approach to workforce management puts mid-size restaurant chains on the path of sustained growth.

Multi-Unit Loyalty and Gift Cards: Enhancing Customer Experience

Customer motivation through Multi-Unit Loyalty.
Bringing smiles with Multi-Unit Gift Cards.
How both features can amplify your brand reputation and boost profitability.

Multi-Unit Loyalty: Rewarding Your Customers

Just as clockset management steers your staff efficiency, a well-structured multi-unit loyalty program can act as a driving force for customer retention. They’re not just loyalty points; they are potent tools to mold customer behaviors favorably for your restaurant chain.

Loyalty programs encourage customers to stay committed to your brand while offering them a sense of being valued.

The Business Boosting Impact of Loyalty

Don’t underestimate the role loyalty programs play in enhancing customer lifetime value. For many, accruing points becomes a compelling reason to choose your restaurant over competitors. It can increase the frequency of visits, enhance ticket sizes, and promote new product trials.

Crafting a Successful Loyalty Program

Think beyond points for purchases. Incorporate elements like tier-based rewards, partnership perks, or birthday bonuses. A unique, thoughtfully crafted program not only attracts customers but also amplifies word-of-mouth publicity. It’s all about finding the right balance of attainable and desirable rewards.

Multi-Unit Gift Cards: Spreading the Joy

Gift cards have taken over traditional gifting methods, and it’s high time to leverage this trend for your mid-size restaurant chain. More than a gift, it’s an invitation to an exquisite dining experience, making it valuable both for the giver and receiver.

Why They Work

Gift cards do more than just increase immediate sales. They bring in new customers, prompt more spending, and can even result in repeat visits. They also work as an effective tool to clear out excess inventory during off-peak seasons.

A POS system should have Gift cards and Loyalty Points enabled, if not ready to integrate with your Loyalty and Gift card solution providers. Both innovative strategies offer a unique blend of enhancing the customer experience, prompting increased sales, and forging a stronger bond between your brand and your customers. And that’s an advantage worth having in your hands.

Third-Party Integration: Expanding Your Reach

A good POS system is not an island. It works hand in hand with third-party entities.
Integrating with digital menu boards, timers, and CCTV improves operations and security.
Understand why these integrations are worth your investment.

Integration with Third-Party Delivery Services: Delivering Convenience

Third-party delivery services like UberEats, GrubHub, and DoorDash control a significant market share of online food delivery. Integrating these services into your POS system means convenience and increased reach.

The restaurant business is not only about food; it’s also about customer service. When a customer places an order, they want it delivered fast and hot. And that is precisely what these delivery services do. They enable you to keep your kitchen focused on cooking, not logistics.

Not just that, integrating with these services enhances your visibility – when your restaurant pops up on these popular apps, it’s like a direct advertisement to a potential diner. They can browse through your menu, place an order, make a payment, and track delivery – all in one place. It’s having a delivery operation without the delivery headaches.

The Magic of Integrated Delivery Systems

When your POS system talks directly to your delivery service, you save time and reduce the chance of errors cropping during manual order entry. Updated menus, accurate delivery times, and instant order confirmation can all increase customer satisfaction and return visits.

Integration with Digital Menu Boards and Timers: Modernizing Your Operations

In this digital era, having an electronic menu board where the display of delicacies, beverages, and pricing can be controlled centrally gives an edge.

Utilizing digital menu boards integrated with your POS system allows automatic updating of prices and offers across all the outlets. This means a uniform customer experience, reduced possibilities of manual errors, and improved operational efficiency.

If you have a kitchen timer system in your restaurant, integrating it with your POS system reduces manual data entry, speeds up the kitchen workflow, and probably helps cut down those waiting lines during peak hours.

The Benefits of a Digitally Streamlined Kitchen

Imagine a world where the moment an order comes into your POS, it pops up on the kitchen display with a timer. Your kitchen runs like a well-oiled machine with no orders slipping through the cracks and happy customers on the receiving end of prompt service.

Integration with CCTV: Ensuring Safety and Security

A restaurant isn’t just about food and service; it’s also heavily about safety and security. An integrated POS-CCTV system is not just a surveillance tool but a security power tool. It becomes a multifaceted device to monitor staff, prevent theft, and even help in dispute resolution.

Integrating your POS system with CCTV can tie transaction data to video footage, providing a transparent and accountable system to deter any potential fraudulent activities. The POS system can tag video recordings with transaction data, allowing you to quickly review specific incidents or times, making it flexible and user-friendly.

Security Meets Customer Experience

Though security is the primary purpose for integrating CCTV with POS system, there’s more to it. By monitoring customer traffic, you can adjust staffing needs during peaks and troughs, optimize layouts for maximum efficiency, or spot customer service superstars in action. In this way, security upgrades equate to an enhanced customer experience.

Credit Card Processing and Quick Cash Feature: Facilitating Transactions

Effortless payment experience enhances customer satisfaction.
Quick cash feature ensures uninterrupted service even during transaction hiccups or offline periods.

Credit Card Processing: Making Payments Easy

In our digital age, customers are drawn toward businesses that provide swift and painless payment options. Especially in fast-paced restaurants like fast casual and QSR (Quick Service Restaurants), the efficiency of credit card processing plays a crucial role.

Customers no longer want to wait in queues for long durations or fumble for cash while making payments. Businesses that lag in streamlining their payment processes risk frustrating customers, leading to decreased customer satisfaction and worse, loss of business.

This is where seamless credit card processing comes into play. A Point of Sale (POS) system tailored to your restaurant’s needs should have the capability to process credit card transactions efficiently and securely. A reliable, secure, and quick credit card processing setup not only improves the customer experience but also enhances the operational efficiency of your business.

Why Quick Payment Processing is Essential

Quick payment processing is vital because it directly impacts the overall customer experience. In a fast-casual or quick-service restaurant setting, expedited payment processing can enhance table turnover rates and ultimately impact business profits.

Quick Cash Feature: Ensuring No Downtime

The quick cash feature is a lifesaver, particularly when facing network or system disruptions. This feature ensures that your business does not have to halt operations due to failed internet connections or server issues.

In such instances, when a traditional credit card transaction isn’t available, the quick cash feature allows your business to switch to a cash-based transaction mode instantly, ensuring no loss of service. This feature equips your restaurant to manage unexpected disruptions while providing consistent service to your customers.

The Implications of a Quick Cash Feature

Implementing a quick cash feature in your POS system ensures customer satisfaction by providing uninterrupted service, regardless of technical failures. This readiness to switch between operational modes safeguards your restaurant’s reputation and ensures your customers continue to receive the swift service they’ve grown accustomed to.

Ultimately, as a mid-sized fast-casual restaurant chain, your goal should be to provide efficient and swift service – part of which involves a seamless payment process. Implementing credit card processing and a quick cash feature in your POS system not only improves customer satisfaction but also ensures the smooth running of daily operations. A well-equipped POS system, therefore, is not just a transaction tool – it’s your partner in elevating your restaurant service to the next level.

Future-Proofing Your Restaurant Chain with Voice AI: Embrace Innovation

Businesses can future-proof themselves with a Point of Sale (POS) system that is Voice AI ready.
Integration with Voice AI order-taking provides a glimpse into the future of commerce.
POS systems adapt to innovations, making them an invaluable asset for any mid-size restaurant chain.

Integration with Voice AI Order Taking: The Future is Here

POS systems are constantly evolving, leveraging emerging technologies like Voice AI. The rise of Voice AI order-taking is a testament to how innovations can streamline business operations.

When integrated with the POS system, Voice AI order-taking transforms the customer service experience. It automates the order-taking process, reducing labor costs, and human error. Incorporating such technology into your restaurant revenue model and overall business strategy can significantly improve margins and boost overall customer satisfaction.

The Role of Voice AI in POS Integration

Voice AI doesn’t just accept orders – it also acts as a virtual assistant, providing customers with menu or restaurant information, answering queries, processing payments, and improving customer loyalty. The integration of Voice AI with POS systems allows restaurants to track metrics and collect data that can be analyzed for improving services.

Voice AI and POS integration can also support various payment methods, from credit card transactions to mobile payments, offering customers a hassle-free checkout experience.

The powerful integration of Voice AI with POS System

Up to 70% Reduction in operating costs
Enhanced customer experience through intelligent personalization
Seamless payments and quicker checkouts – credit card, gift cards, promotions
Detailed insights into customer behavior with customized reports
Call to Order Conversion – More than 95% on average
25% rise in orders by reducing abandonment
99% Order Accuracy
Increase in average check size by 15%
35% increase in Customer Lifetime Value

These statistics are reported by the Customer Success team of VOICEplug AI after working with multiple restaurant chain brands.

But as beneficial as Voice AI is, it’s important to note that implementing it is not a one-size-fits-all solution. Restaurants should customize their Voice AI system to meet their unique goals and needs, ensuring they make the most out of the integration.

The integration of Voice AI into the POS system represents a significant leap in restaurant technology. It underscores a shift in restaurant technology landscapes, where convenience, efficiency, and automation define success. By embracing such innovation, mid-size restaurant chains not only keep up with current trends but also future-proof and gear up to compete with the large fast-food chains.

Conclusion

Nurturing faster checkout times, enhanced customer experiences, and data-driven decision-making are just a few benefits unavailable to QSR and fast casual restaurant chains without the right POS features. If you’re not using these tools, you’re leaving much-needed revenue and growth potential on the table.

Isn’t it time your business maximized the advantages of a properly equipped POS System? Your transactions become smoother, your staff more efficient, and your customers happier. A good POS can even provide that critical market insight to maintain a strategic advantage.

So, where do you start? Begin by reassessing your current POS setup and identify areas for improvement. Consider those crucial features outlined – are they present in your existing framework or are you pressing on the brake when you should be on the steering wheel?

What’s the one feature in your current POS system that you wish could be better managed? Maybe it’s reliability or a specific function that’s not quite hitting the mark. Take a break. Make that assessment. Swap a subpar POS system with one better suited for your restaurant. It’s not just a business move, it’s a growth step.

Remember, your POS is not just a cash register, it’s your business compass. Govern it or it will govern you!

VOICEplug AI’s Phone AI, Drive-Thru AI, and Kiosk AI products are compatible with over 50+ POS systems, Online Ordering, Loyalty, and Marketing Automation systems. To know more about VOICEplug AI applications and benefits, reach out to us – [email protected]

AUTHOR BIO Soumya Singh

Soumya Singh leads the marketing efforts at VoicePlug Inc., where she combines her expertise in digital, field, and channel marketing to drive brand growth and engagement. She has a knack for spotting market trends and creating strategies that make an impact. When she’s not at work, you’ll likely find her traveling, discovering new cultures, or diving into a great non-fiction book.