6 must-have features of a good restaurant management system

Published Mar 22, 2020

With the cut-throat competition that exists in the restaurant industry, having a helpful restaurant management software becomes a no-brainer. Each restaurant is unique and hence each one has its own set of needs. This whole scenario can make researching for an efficient, cost-effective POS system mind-numbing and the purchase decision even harder.

However, picking the ideal POS for your restaurant can help you to not only tap into new streams of business but also increase footfall. On the other hand, if you end up choosing the wrong POS, chances are you might have to work around it till you switch to a better one.

There are tons of features that every restauranteur should look for while choosing a POS software. Scroll down to check for a few must-have features your restaurant POS system should have to help you become more profitable while also helping your employees become more efficient and error free.

Table Service Management

Managing your customer's reservations is important and hence it becomes important for your restaurant management software to have a built-in table management feature.

Table service management is important to manage your front of house operations. It will help you know the status of your tables at any given time. For example, which tables are available, occupied or getting cleared at what times.

An intelligent POS system should also tie with a  reservation system, so you get a quick update around your customer reservations.

Quick Tip: don't forget to ask how seating and reservation management can be done and tell the sales person to explain the feature in detail (during POS sales demo)

All POS software doesn’t have this feature. So its best to keep it in mind while selecting your POS system (BTW, SpeQue POS does have this feature!).

Intelligent reporting and analytics

Having a good reporting infrastructure is vital to get a clear picture of your business. Most systems have pre-built KPI reports within the software, but with growing business needs you might require more detailed custom reports. So, it's better to choose a POS system that allows you to have custom reporting or 3rd party integration for more specific information.

Moreover, the analysis should not just be limited to reports. With the power of big data and the computation speed of modern systems, a present-day software must provide data-driven business insights. Data analysis plays a vital role in the decision-making process for any modern day business and it makes sense to look for a system that covers this facet even for your restaurant business.

The SpeQue POS does provide data-driven intelligence. With features such as sales forecast and predictive inventory/stock management, the system looks into the historical data and tries to give predictions into the future! (more on this during a demo)

Order Automation

The restaurant business requires speed. No matter how awesome your food is, if your customer service isn't up to the mark, your patrons will leave disappointed.

Automating the order process is a good way to make your service speed fast. Automation also allows you to manage the order taking process with a lesser staff! A win-win on both accounts.

Apart from automation, your software also needs to have an easy to use interface and the performance of the system should be good. Having a lagging user interface can be a big hurdle between you and speed.

SpeQue POS provides order automation. The SpeQue Partner App is easy to use and helps stewards quickly take order and print bills. It also helps them to cross-sell items, increasing your sales as well.

Inventory Management

Inventory management is a big dread for most restaurant owners and managers. But done effectively, inventory management helps save a lot of costs and helps make money!

It helps you keep a check on food costs and the food wastage. Unless you know and understand the costs, it's difficult to keep a track on profits.

SpeQue POS offers automated, recipe-based inventory management system that helps you keep check on stock and alerts when any master item is low on stock. The system also helps you determine the cost of the purchased stock and helps you price your dishes accordingly so as to get a clear picture of the profit margins per item.

Customer Feedback

We can't stress enough on how important customer feedback is to any business. Still, we are perplexed to see how many restaurant owners are still lagging behind in making use of technology to understand their customer’s preferences.

SpeQue Feedback not only helps restaurant owner’s to capture real-time feedback and understand customer sentiments (using sentiment analysis) but it also helps them capture customer data (name, mobile no, email id, DOB and anniversary).

Feedback is a sure shot way to interact with your customers and understand their concerns. Your business is driven by customers so doesn't it make sense to know how they feel after visiting your restaurant and spending their hard earned money?

Customer Relationship Management

Once customer feedback is captured, it becomes really important to make use of it. Knowing how frequently your customers dine with you, what they like to eat, how much money do they end up spending etc., helps you categorise them into different buckets. This further helps you run targeted marketing campaigns to make sure they are coming back to your restaurant again and again. Thus, customer data helps you send personalised emails to loyal customers for special promotions. Wishing customers on their birthdays and anniversaries and offering special offers on these days are sure shot ways to earn your customer's trust.

Communication with your customers remains hassle-free if you have the SpeQue POS solution that lets you keep customer data safe and secure.

Conclusion

Having a good quality, intelligent and cost-effective POS solution should be one of the topmost priorities for your restaurant business. So keep in mind the above mentioned must-have features before deciding on your restaurant POS. Write to us on info@speque.com for a quick demo of our products.