How Hospitality Technology Increases the Level of Service
Running a restaurant or business in the service industry is not easy, and one of the more difficult parts of the job is making sure that your customers are receiving the level of service that they deserve. While the pressure is often on the servers and cashiers to try to provide a higher level of service, the most effective way to increase the level of service that customers receive is actually to improve the technology that guides your employees through their jobs.
The effective use of hospitality technology is one of the key factors in providing stellar customer service, since the proper implementation of this technology helps to ensure that key aspects of service are not accidentally forgotten or avoided. Below are a few ways that the implementation of hospitality technology can drastically increase the level of service provided by your restaurant or service establishment.
One of the most basic ways that hospitality technology can increase the level of service offered to customers is the use of a point-of-sale or POS system in your restaurant or establishment. These systems are designed with a touch-screen interface that allows servers or cashiers to simply press the buttons that identify the items being ordered or purchased with new windows opening up if there are additional components that need to be ordered as a part of the initial purchase. This ensures that the cashier or server does not forget anything vital to the order, as it cannot be completed until the appropriate selection has been made.
Making sure that all parts of an order are taken is not the only way that the use of a POS system can help to increase the level of service in your establishment, however. Additional prompts can be placed inside the POS system, giving your employees additional reminders such as reminding them to smile at the customer when they begin taking an order or letting them know current specials for suggestive selling. A well-structured POS system can take all of the guesswork out of order taking, covering every possible angle and suggesting questions to your employees that they may not have thought of on their own.
Another form of hospitality technology that can greatly increase the level of service that your customers receive is computerized hospitality training. This training offers several advantages to standard training techniques within the service industry, which often consist of simply having new employees review an employee manual or by shadowing an existing employee or member of management to learn the job functions that are essential to their position. By using computerized training as a supplement to this type of training, your employees may have the benefit of being able to review videos of the correct way to perform different tasks while being given additional training information. This helps to ensure that each new employee that is hired receives the exact same training, removing any doubt as to whether they have been properly trained in the art of hospitality so that they can better serve the customers.
Related to computerized training, a computerized system can be utilized to offer testing as a prerequisite for advancement or raises. These tests may be integrated into the same training system that is used to provide basic job information in the first place, and can be used to keep track of the scores of employees for easy reference by management. This testing can consist of basic questions in regards to job functions and hospitality issues, presented in a multiple-choice format with one clear answer to each question. A specific percentage of correct answers must be reached in order to pass the test, with the employees receiving instant feedback on how well they performed on the test by the computerized scoring system.
Other forms of hospitality technology can also be integrated easily into your restaurant or establishment, including self-service kiosks, which allow your customers to access some essentials such as condiments and drinks without the need for one of the employees to assist them. Self-service checkout lanes can also be implemented in a number of ways, using a variation of the POS system to allow customers to scan their own items and present payment for them without the need for direct interaction with a cashier at all. It is always important to have a cashier or customer service employee nearby just in case a customer has a problem with the system. The customer may also have special needs that prevent them from using the self-service features effectively; in addition to preventing potential problems with the self-service features, having a trained employee accessible provides yet another increase in the level of service presented to your customers. There are many ways that hospitality technology can be beneficial to your business especially if implemented correctly.
About the Author:
Brian Jenkins is a freelance writer who specializes in writing about topics concerning the Food, Beverage and Hospitality industries, often discussing specific products such as thermal" target="_blank">www.transactsupplies.com">thermal paper.
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