More and more people prefer eating out these days. Restaurants usually have a printed menu card containing the list of static menu items available for customers to choose from. Called sit-down restaurants, these eateries provide the traditional family-style casual dining experience.
However, with today’s fast-paced life, people are losing the patience to sit down, scan menu cards, wait for the waiter to take the order, and long for their food to come to the table. No wonder fast-food culture is catching up at this pace. Fast-food centers usually provide a menu display behind the person at the counter. People choose from the displayed menu, place order and pay at the counter and collect their food trays and settle at their tables. Seems convenient, time-saving and hassle-free, isn’t it!
Why Use Digital Menu Boards?
For an ever-demanding and experimenting consumer, static menus at a particular eatery may lose their zeal over a period of time. To keep up the consumer demand and interest, new menu items are offered on a daily basis. Sometimes, discounts are offered on ordering specific menu items on particular days. Now, multiple print-outs of menus and offers every day is not feasible. The menu hand-outs won’t be that attractive and appealing. Writing the day’s specials on a blackboard placed at the entrance doesn’t look trendy. As opposed to that, Digital menu boards seem more eye-catching and convenient to update and design.
Pros of Using Digital Menu Boards
There are software options available in the market, such as NoviSign, to create simple, powerful, web-based digital menu boards. There are ready-made templates to choose from. Making changes in these templates such as changes in price, menu items, or special offers is easy. Some settings allow videos to be displayed in the background of the menu displayed, enticing customers to order items they might not have thought of ordering – when they see videos of ice-cream melting or hot Choco-lava cake sizzling!
Some fast-food restaurants also use the digital menu boards to display advertisements, which keep the customers engaged while eating or waiting. This not only improves customer experience but also gives chance for additional promotional activity.
Some fast-food restaurants and cafes have multiple centers across the city. Digital menu boards at all centers can be controlled with internet from anywhere. This eliminates the possibility of errors done by employees at various centers and helps avoid printing errors. Thus, the owner can be sure that all centers are displaying consistent data and that all centers are up-to-date.
Yes, Digital Menu Boards require initial investment and are costly, to begin with. However, sales growth of fast-food restaurants who have installed it, have indicated that this invested money can be reaped out in near future. It’s also easy to keep up with new food laws passed like displaying calorie content in menu cards for respective food items. Not only this, menu boards can be used to display news or emergency information or even communicating with the staff members.
We adopt new technologies and start realizing their benefits with time, only to wonder why we didn’t see it earlier!