BLOGA Note from Dave PerrillOctober 27, 2016Thank you for your interest in WAND! I’m glad you are here and want to learn more about our company. We credit our success at WAND to one simple thing – outstanding people. We build everything around our organization to retain, attract, and develop outstanding talent. We seek people that are a fit with our four core values. We seek Rock Stars who work hard and smart (commitment), have a can-do attitude and make the job more pleasant and fun to go to each day (positive attitude), have an unstoppable drive to make the world better (drive), and maintain a sense of honesty and integrity above all else (integrity). As a company hell bent on becoming the standout in our industry, we are always seeking Rock Stars to join our team. We want people that enjoy being around other high performers and working with cutting edge technology. We search for individuals who challenge the status quo and truly believe that we can get better every day. We expect these teammates to hold themselves, management, and co-workers accountable to the same high standards. We also know that these Rock Stars have a choice of where they can develop their careers. Why WAND? WAND offers the following: -Our market and opportunity is HUGE! Our market is gigantic and technology stands to completely revolutionize the way the entire industry operates. This kind of growth creates development, challenges, and opportunity. It won’t be easy, but anything worth doing is worth doing well. -Our technology leverages some of the most cutting edge technology out there today and our investment in innovation continues at a rapid pace. -WAND builds high performance teams. The leadership and teams that will push you to great things. We realize it’s not for everyone, but for those of you who enjoy a results-based and high-performance work environment, you will find yourself being challenged and growing as a result. -Leadership that is committed, open, accessible, listening, and growth-focused. Put simply, we are here to win. If this kind of energy, challenge, and opportunity excites you, we would love to talk to you about joining our team of professionals. Let’s have some fun and show the world what we can do! Dave Perrill President...Read more...How Will Digital Menu Boards Save You Money?October 19, 2016Aside from creating a more visually appealing experience for your diners and increasing your revenue when used properly, digital menu boards can also save you money. What follows are some tips on how to capitalize on the best savings when using digital menus in your restaurant. As a restaurant operator, all investments should be carefully evaluated to determine maximum impact, but digital menus are picking up speed in the market because they have the potential to drive costs down and capitalize on a revenue boost, something ideal for any restaurant owner. Reduce Printing, Shipping and Staff Labor Costs When you’re considering making the switch from a static menu to a digital menu, you need to think of this in terms of an investment that has short-term benefits, as well as long-term savings offerings. Updating content digitally during any of your promotional periods empowers you with the ability to save on promotional translites and shipping costs to get the kits out to each restaurant. Over time, the cost savings for minimizing or eliminating previous shipping costs may be substantial, not just in printing and shipping (and high rush shipping fees), but also in staff time. For example, shipping out a new set of translites to 20 stores requires each store to designate a store employee to get out a ladder, climb up on it to switch the sign, repeat it four to five times depending on the number of boards in the restaurant, and put the ladder away. But with digital menus, the same process could be done across 20 stores within 15 minutes, with one person at the controls to instantly push out new menu items and promotions. Immediately Capitalize on Market Shifts Restaurant owners know customer demands change fast. From season to season (and sometimes week to week) things can change on a dime. With digital menus new LTOs, special promotional items, and new menu items are updated instantly across menu boards. But with static menus it takes weeks to develop, print, ship and install new translites. By that time, the market opportunity may have disappeared. For example, when the Pokemon Go craze hit it was practically overnight. The app launched one day, and two days later it was everywhere. Agile corporate marketing teams raced to update menus and promotional offers to take advantage of this, but a mere two months later the craze died down. With digital menus you could instantly capitalize on this market shift by displaying the Pokemon Go promo instantly in your store. Static would not give you this option. In addition, non-winning promotions or menu items that are not working can be exchanged out right away. If a promo was launched for a hot new menu item, for example, but it was quickly apparent it wasn’t in line with market demand, that product could be instantly swapped out for a better selling item with digital menus. With static boards, that process could take weeks. Ultimately, the central management platform for a digital menu is all-powerful. It allows you to reduce revenue and time loss associated with campaign, seasonal, and daily menu changes. From a central office, you can do more with less by deploying changes across multiple stores faster than ever before. Clear Out Surplus Stock or Remove Items You Don’t Have A static menu has a major drawback in the form of promoting items the actual franchise might not have in-house at any given time. Likewise, if there’s too much stock or stock expiring soon, there’s no way to use visuals to promote this. This could lead to revenue loss when relying on a static menu (and customer frustration) where a restaurant can’t deliver what they are promoting or are unable to promote anything they need to clear out. However, a digital menu allows you to promote items in surplus or to pull back advertising on a promotion or offering currently out of stock. Once again, the quick change opportunities available with digital allows for adaptable and flexible decision-making that can drive revenue while also keeping costs down. In the fast-paced business of restaurants today, speed and profitability are critical concerns. Evaluating campaigns and being able to respond instantaneously has numerous advantages for QSRs and fast casual restaurants. Franchisees can benefit from time savings as well by having a new promotion deployed to their location quickly and easily. Additionally, customers are more likely to have a better and more engaging experience with digital menus, meaning that everyone comes away a winner with the shift from a static to a digital menu board....Read more...Less Really is More: In Favor of Smaller MenusOctober 6, 2016In a world where it seems like you might reach more customers by having so much variety you appeal to everyone, it might seem shocking to consider that a smaller menu can actually work in your favor. Research, however, shows that it’s a great time to consider tightening up your menu and keeping offerings in a smaller wheelhouse. Learn from Experience In an effort to capitalize on the success McDonalds had with offering so many options, Burger King tried the same tactic to expand their menu, but watched it fall flat. So, in an effort to revive the menu quickly, management decided to narrow the menu to things that could be made quickly and preferably, with good margins. Burger King realized too many options could mean confusion or time delays with employees preparing the food, while focus on products that can be made quickly and easily allows customers to have a better experience overall. As a result, Burger King changed their menu to focus on fewer products that could be produced efficiently, and they saw the payoff very quickly. It’s not just Burger King, either. Smaller menus are definitely the wave of the future in fast casual and QSRs. Some prime examples:Tony Roma’s has gone from 92 options to 60 IHop has dropped from 200 selections to 170 BJ’s restaurant has gone from 181 options to 150 selections and hopes to cut moreOverall, the top 500 restaurant chains have decreased menu options to the tune of 7.1% in the last year alone. Fewer Options Puts Restaurants in Control When you have a select menu of your best flavorful options, you can make a bold splash and focus on key items. Fresh ingredients and tasty options make it easier to promote certain products at various times of the day or year. Maximize your statement by getting the most out of your digital menu board using pictures and animations to draw in a customer’s attention. The reality is that consumers, especially millennials, are now more focused on specialty concepts. Some restaurants are even losing market share to competitors with smaller menus. Since focusing on a smaller menu is win-win for diners and the company, now is the perfect time to re-evaluate your menu mix. Avoid Diner Decision Fatigue You’re actually doing your customers a favor if you have fewer options, particularly if you often take a big cut in the dinner crowd. Why? Research shows that humans pay a biological price making decisions, and later in the day being faced with too many options can actually make people cranky or confused. If your diners are running low on energy, you can make life easier for them by only presenting them with a few options, preferably on a digital menu board with tantalizing pictures. Plus, with a shorter menu, it’s simpler for diners to remember the dish or dishes that bring them back to your restaurant. If you’re thinking about making the switch from a static menu board to a digital one, you should know that most restaurant chains in this position use this transition as an opportunity to cut down on menu offerings. Because a digital menu is such a different medium than a static, it’s the perfect time to rethink your entire menu mix, promotional schedule and new product roll-out strategy. Save on Franchisee Food CostsAny effort to keep food costs down is worth it, but having a smaller menu means that your franchisees don’t have to keep as much food on hand. This makes it easier to ensure that all food is being used by the expiration date and means less storage space, too. Keep it simple to capitalize on a smaller menu! Debut your new smaller menu with customized options if you really want to engage and capture today’s diner. You’ll be catering directly to what the market desires and making things easier for franchisees, too....Read more...3 Ways Restaurant Operators Should be Using Digital Menu BoardsAugust 9, 2016Digital menu boards are used among restaurant operators as a tool to improve customer experience, drive sales lift, and increase operational efficiency. When used properly, these are both a valuable sales tool and a competitive differentiator. Here are three key ways restaurant operators should be using digital menus. 1. Improve Customer Experience Dining out isn’t solely about eating and drinking, it’s about the entire experience. Good food and great service will only take your restaurant so far; the overall customer experience is critical. Digital menu boards give restaurants an instant “with the times” design that’s modern and appealing — particularly to younger audiences with higher disposable incomes. When using digital menus, you need to think differently than you do with cardboard “static” boards. Static boards are there to simply display menu items; digital menus are there to tell a story and enhance the overall design of your restaurant. Use your digital menus to call out signature dishes and high-margin items and to showcase your brand’s personality. You need to think strategically about how you can best use this key real estate to not only show off your best menu items but your brand itself. 2. Drive Sales Lift and/or Adjust Product Mix Unlike static menus, digital menus are flexible and should be used to drive sales lift or to change what your customer is buying. When you add digital menus to your store, it’s important to recognize that you aren’t simply adding an electronic version of your cardboard menu; you’re giving yourself the dexterity to make instant, on-the-fly changes (or changes based on time of day) to your menu to increase profits. Here are some things you should be doing with your digital menus to increase your revenues:Adjust prices (raising items by just a nickel or dime during key periods can boost revenue significantly) Promote your high-margin items and add animations to them to draw the eyes Change menu items for weather conditions (e.g. promoting ice cream items during a heat wave) Highlight products that are faster to make during lunch and/or dinner rushes thereby improving your speed of service times Use advanced dayparts to promote certain menus at key times (e.g. late night snacks as a “mealtime” is growing in popularity)Many restaurant operators make the mistake of putting in digital menus but not leveraging as far as possible. Once your menus are in place, you should make it a point to audit your menu and make changes on a regular basis. As you are evaluating digital menu content management systems, be sure you are choosing a system that is easy to use and also one that gives you the control to do this directly in the software. Or, look for software that uses predictive modeling and digital intelligence to make automated changes based on information in your point of sale. 3. Increase Operational Efficiency All restaurant operators (and customers) know there is a huge difference between a restaurant that is run efficiently and one that is not. When using digital menus, you obviously get the benefit of not having to worry about sending someone up on a ladder to swap out static menus, but there are some other places you can use them to maximize operational efficiency as well:Promote menu items you need to move out. For example, if you have a surplus of chicken that is about to expire, you should promote a chicken dish front and center during your lunch rush all week. Test out new menu items. It’s important to keep your menu fresh, but it’s difficult to always know what customers like. By rotating out new items frequently, you can test them out to see which ones your customers respond to the most. Then, you can make them regular menu items. Performed at a concept level, this quickly reduces time-to-market for test items and allows the system to capitalize on new trends.Finally, the biggest piece of advice we can give you when it comes to digital menus is that you get out of them what you put into them. Like any technology, the more you understand it and use it to your advantage, the more you’ll benefit from having them in your restaurants....Read more...How to Make People Buy After You’ve Got Them Inside Your RestaurantJuly 13, 2016As a restaurant operator you make a ton of decisions on a daily basis. One of those decisions is how to influence what people are buying when they visit your restaurants. Many operators overlook ways they can increase customer loyalty, promote key products and incite last minute sales…right in their own restaurant. While you are dependent in many ways on the activities of corporate marketing for , no one knows your restaurants better than you do, so it’s important you optimize your in-store signage and promotional areas to your advantage. Here’s a checklist of a few areas in your restaurant where you can market directly to your customers and increase the likelihood they’ll buy: Front doors. Let’s start with the obvious, your front doors. This is a great place in your restaurant to promote whatever special is being marketed on a national level. You’ll definitely have received materials from corporate marketing to display here so be sure to do so in order to capitalize on the national promotions your customers are seeing. It may seem obvious but hanging up a promotion that your marketing team has spent millions of dollars to market will trigger recognition with the customer and make they more likely to choose that promo when ordering. In addition to displays on the front doors you’ll obviously want to have POPs displayed throughout the store on windows and hanging from the ceiling. It’s incredibly important that whatever appears on the doors and on POP displays is in sync with what is on the menu—repetition sells and even if the customer doesn’t register the promo they saw on the door, when their brain sees it again on the menu, the likelihood is dramatically increased that they will choose it. Freestanding POP at entrance to line. Once a customer makes their way inside the next thing they do is get in line. A lot of operators miss out on a chance to use a freestanding POP at the entrance to the line. This is the ideal place to either display what’s being marketed at a national level or to promote one of your highest margin items. It’s also a great area to promote a menu item that is regional and will appeal to your local audience. If you are using a digital POP it’s even better because you can choose what to market at that moment based on what’s happening locally, like the weather or the day part (e.g. iced coffee versus hot coffee, breakfast items versus late night snack items). Again, the items being promoted on this board need to be synced with the boards so it is prominent at the counter and actually influences the customer decision. Menu boards. Obviously this is what gets the most attention in your restaurant and is key for driving immediate sales and lift. A couple tips here…first, make sure you’re displaying the latest and greatest menus from corporate, whether it’s making sure you’re latest static/printed menus are hung or ensuring all your digital menus are functioning properly. The menu boards must highlight the items that are being advertised on the radio, TV and on the web, if you or corporate are employing such media. Second, do a spot-check each week to look for areas on your board that you should change (e.g. items that are sold out, high margin items you want to push more, special LTOs you want to get more attention). If you’re using digital you should be able to easily swap these out weekly (or daily) and you can empower your store managers to make these changes as well. A big advantage with Digital is that you can have fewer items on the boards, especially if you run multiple day parts. This means customers will focus on the items you want to sell them, and speed of service will increase, too. If you’re using static/printed boards and want a new POP board then be sure to reach out to your corporate team and request it; chances are if you want to market a certain item, then other franchisees do as well, so asking for it from corporate marketing directly is a good idea. Order pick-up area. Once a customer has ordered their meal they wait to pick it up so your order pick-up area is a great place to use a table-top display to promote something. Since they’ve already ordered their meal this is a great place to promote desserts and drinks. It’s also a place where you can build customer loyalty by promoting your social media channels, website or app. Or you could create a community message here to build loyalty with local customers. Some ideas; share where you source your food (if local), post a note on a local charity you support, share a local community event that’s coming up, post personal pics/stories of your store employees or management supporting local events/causes, etc. Tables. Everyone knows that tables are a great place to put promotional materials such as table-tent POPs displaying specials or promos. But the new twist with tables is the growing popularity of table-top games, whether on tablets or built into the tables themselves. These games are growing in popularity and, in addition to giving your restaurant a more modern and “with the times” vibe, they are also a great place to promote marketing messages including national web and TV ads. If you have a restaurant design that includes table top games and your guests are engaging with these on a regular basis then be sure your marketing team is incorporating marketing messages into these displays. One more tip for your in-restaurant signage. Restaurants, especially limited service, can be difficult for paper signage. Between the heat and grease of a QSR or fast casual restaurant, static/paper boards can get dirty fast. Make sure your management teams are swapping out paper signage on a regular basis so old signage is thrown out and replaced with new, cleaner signage. Or, make the switch to digital signage wherever you can and choose commercial displays designed for restaurants that will last longer and require zero staff time to update. About WAND No two industries are alike. That’s why WAND is 100% focused on quick serve and fast casual restaurants; delivering digital menu boards, point of sale and back office systems. Because we work exclusively with restaurants, we understand the unique needs of restaurant franchisees. It’s hard to turn a profit and remain financially solvent in the uber competitive limited service market. That’s why our technology is designed to give you more control over your restaurants so you can make the changes you need to ensure your restaurants are successful. Check us out at wandcorp.com....Read more...5 Creative Design Tips for Digital MenusJune 15, 2016Designing artwork for digital menus is a unique challenge. Unlike static/cardboard menus, you have the option to use rich media, animations, motion graphics and takeovers. The capabilities are practically endless! Because it’s a different kind of medium it requires a different type of creative design style. At WAND we’ve created thousands of digital menus and (besides designing them making us incredibly hungry all the time) we’ve picked up on some design tips. Here are five of them to think about as you design your menus 1.Think Strategically. First, before doing anything with your digital menu design from a creative standpoint, stop and consider your objectives. Digital menus are a strategic communication tool – both from a sales perspective, and from a customer messaging perspective. They are a key item for building your brand so you need clear objectives for your menus. The objectives for your menus will then guide your creative decisions around placement, focus of content, speed, LTOs to feature, high margin items to showcase, etc. Make sure you have a plan before you jump in. 2.Consider Placement. The upper left corner, center spot (above register) are key areas. Also highly memorable are the top couple items/last couple items in a list. So – if you are looking to drive interest to these products, call attention to them in a promotional area or list them first in your categories to increase their sales. Keep in mind the customer experience as you place your menu items. At WAND we test these types of executions live at our onsite creative lab. We can see what the customer will experience in the restaurant before the menu leaves our creative department. 3.Create Focus. Unlike a static menu, one of the key advantages to using digital communication tools like menu boards is the opportunity to create an area of focus by aligning design decisions with your objectives. Choose to have your menus focus on an LTO or combo meals instead of the center and corners of your menu. Use techniques like takeovers to showcase a multitude of different fresh and healthy products. 4.Cycle Content. There are two types of cycling content to consider. First, there is the ability to create focus by creating promotional space to feature LTO’s and promotional items. Keep in mind that studies show that if LTO’s become stagnant (remaining longer than 60 days) customer engagement virtually stops. Changing your LTO’s and promos every 30-60 days will keep your content fresh and your customers interested and engaged. Second, cycling content can be a way to use menu space more efficiently by cycling breakfast, lunch, or dinner items through with dayparting. With digital menus the opportunity lies in the flexibility of the medium. Dayparting and flexible content fields allow your brand to showcase a multitude of different fresh and healthy products. You may feature different salads each day of the week during lunch on your POP boards and then showcase different wraps and high-protein offerings during dinner. Customers love the variety and you’ll create a better customer experience in your restaurants. 5.Use “Delicious” Product Video and Imagery. Another tactic is to use amazing imagery and video on your boards. It’s hard to deny a beauty shot of the world’s most delicious burger. You can see the steam rising, the cheese is melted just right and it’s got all of the toppings that you love. Bacon. Mushrooms. That secret sauce. Yum! It may be 1000 calories but some customers won’t care because they are brand and product loyalists. Using high quality, dazzling imagery and motion graphics gets customer attention and may drive product choice and preference. Make them say, “Yes! I want THAT because it looks so good.” Video is one of the most engaging forms of communication today. Just look at the success of sites like You Tube or how video is an integral part of Facebook and Snapchat. Customers are engaging with video everywhere that matters to them. Use it to connect customers to your menu in your restaurant! Nothing sells food like slow motion video of the item steaming on a plate, an ice cold beverage being poured into a tall glass, a stir fry being cooked, cookies slowly rising as they bake, etc. Use this to sell! One final thing; it is critical for you to measure your results. Whether it’s increased sales of LTO’s, high margin items, helping customers order more easily – reducing wait times, building your brand through community information, find ways to measure what you are trying to achieve. As we have said, the digital medium allows you to have flexibility in changing content and keeping engagement high. Use it to your advantage to constantly advance your objectives. Ultimately, what works for you, may be slightly different than others. Plan, test, measure, change/implement – do it again!...Read more...Digital Signage Versus Digital MenusMay 19, 2016At WAND we get asked the question constantly; what’s the difference between digital signage and digital menus? After all, when everything is said and done the bottom line is you have a digital menu on a screen so what does it matter if it’s from a digital signage company versus a digital menu company? Oh…where to start. Having pioneered digital menus in the restaurant industry, we know a thing or two about digital menus. And believe us, we’ve seen many companies use digital signage for their menus. Sometimes they can work (for smaller operators with one or two locations and a small menu) but for multi-unit restaurant operators it can be disastrous. Here’s why.Digital menus are designed with food in mind. Would you be more likely to purchase a cheeseburger from a digital menu that has the words “CHEESEBURGER – $3” or a menu with a photo of a cheeseburger on a toasted bun, with a succulent burger patty, cheese dripping off the side and steam rising from the burger? Most people are influenced by visuals; in fact, studies have shown that a video or motion graphic will make the consumer change their mind. I think you know where we’re going with this. When restaurants switch from static to digital using digital signage they tend to simply create a digital version of their static menu. They don’t think about where they can enhance product photos, add videos, rotate promos or add animation. When you work with a digital menu company, they should be specialists in using graphics elements to make your menu more compelling so it boosts your bottom line. And they’ll help you maximize your digital menus so you’re using this real estate strategically to drive ticket prices up.Digital menu media players support animation and rich media graphics. As we stated above, one of the biggest reasons to go digital with your menus is to use animation, rich media and motion graphics to make the food on your menus more tantalizing and compelling. You’re not using digital menus to simply list your menu items, you’re using them to create a certain customer experience, tell a story and entice certain buying behaviors. Media players that are purposefully built to support digital menus offer advanced technologies that others do not including the ability to use HTML5. When you’re using digital signage their media players are built for transactional content (think arrival/departure screens at the airport) and don’t offer the same robust graphic media support.Restaurants need a Digital Menu Content Management System. This means software that lets you effectively manage your menus across multiple restaurant locations. By far one of the most overlooked benefits of digital menus for a multi-unit restaurant operation is the ability to manage all menus across all restaurant locations with the click of a mouse from a central location, or from a tablet while you are standing in front of the menu in one location or in your HQ lab. You simply cannot get this kind of control over your menus in any other way. You don’t want to be driving to each of your locations with a memory stick updating the content. Nor do you want to FTP into each site and sit there waiting for files to copy. With static boards, you send out your kits and hope they get put up in a timely fashion. But with digital you can see what is playing at each and every store, you can upload new assets and you can push out new LTOs or roll out new menu items at all stores instantly. This type of brand control and uniformity only exists with digital menus that are equipped with the content management software that allows you to do this. Digital signage companies do not offer this type of software – their software is designed for airports or bus stations or movie theaters. It’s not equipped to handle LTOs, dayparts or multiple franchise units with unique menu items and different pricing in each store.Digital menu screens are built for restaurants. Menu boards are designed to sell. In order to sell, they need to grab the consumer’s attention! This is especially important in Mall locations but is a factor even in stand-alone restaurants. Digital menu screens need to be brighter than you are used to in your living room. Digital menus use commercial display technology that is specifically built to withstand the heat and grease of quick serve and fast casual restaurants. Commercial displays are designed to operate at least 16 hours a day, and even 24/7 on higher end units.The bottom line is if you want to use digital menus in your restaurants you need to ditch the idea of using a digital signage solution. There are a ton of vendors in the market, of all shapes and sizes, but they lack the ability to offer you the brand control, uniformity and content management you need to manage your menus, as well as the hardware to support them in a tough restaurant environment....Read more...Self-Service Restaurant Kiosks and the Millennial GenerationApril 13, 2016Self-service restaurant kiosks are booming in the limited service restaurant industry, especially among the millennial generation. There are many reasons why, but before we jump in to them I want to share a quick story. One of our WAND Rock Stars was recently at a restaurant chain standing in a long line waiting to order and he noticed something interesting and snapped the photo to the below. Looking at the photo you’ll notice there are two self-service kiosks that are not being used whatsoever by the many customers standing in line to order. Well of course our Rock Star walked over the kiosk and immediately placed his order. The reason why? He’s a millennial. Now, we’re not saying only millennials order from kiosks because that is most definitely not the case. However, self-service kiosks are increasingly growing in popularity, and one of the reasons for this is the desire to appeal to the millennial audience. As the example above proves, this audience is constantly looking for ways to use technology to make their lives easier. And kiosks do just that. Here’s what you need to know about using self-service restaurant kiosks to appeal to the millennial generation:They provide instant gratification – As the example above illustrates, the use of self-service kiosks means people can quickly place their order and then find a booth to get comfortable, relax a bit and catch up on their snapchats before their food arrives. The millennial generation is all about instant gratification; they’ve grown up with it all their lives and have come to expect it.They increase speed-of-service – We’ve all been stuck behind that person in line who has no idea what they want to order or has an endless list of questions to ask about menu items. With kiosks you can move customers through the line faster, millennials more-so than others because it’s likely they’ve already looked up your menu online and decided in advance what they are going to order before they arrive.They increase average ticket size – With kiosks you don’t have to rely on your staff to add on extra items or try to upsell customers. You can simply have questions pop up with prompts like “Add a cookie for $2?” or “Upgrade to a large for $0.50?” that allow you to instantly increase ticket sizes. For the millennial generation that it used to technology these decisions don’t slow down their order process and are an easy way to upsell.They are super user friendly – Self-service kiosks are smarter than they have ever been before, and they are also extremely easy to use, especially for millennials who have grown up with computers and technology their entire lives. Because of this it’s easy for them to use self-service kiosks since they aren’t leery of them or don’t get confused like other generations might.They are looking for them – As our opening example points out, not only are millennials using self-service kiosks but they are actually seeking them out. It’s no longer a nice surprise if a restaurant has a kiosk; it’s a disappointment if they don’t. It’s a new ballgame ladies and gentlemen.Besides the reasons stated above some of the other reasons to consider adding self-service kiosks to your restaurant include; reducing labor costs but not needing to as many staff to operate order lanes and lower hardware costs by using tablets. And keep in mind, though the millennial generation has no little issues using kiosks, other customer groups may experience problems so it may make sense to designate a self-service kiosk attendant to help walk customers through the system. The good news about that is once someone does it the first time it will be so intuitive so they will be more likely to use the system again. As you’re debating whether or not to add self-service kiosks to your restaurant think about your targeting. If you’re trying to appeal to the millennial generation then kiosks are probably a no-brainer. Want to learn more about millennials and your QSR restaurant? Read our article 5 Reasons Your QSR is Not Attracting Millennials. ...Read more...WAND Digital is Getting a Makeover! Here’s What to ExpectApril 8, 2016It’s makeover time! Well, WAND Digital style, anyway. 🙂 Our developers have been furiously working on updating the design of our Total Restaurant Management (TRM) software, and in a few weeks you’ll see some big changes when you log into TRM. Here are a few of the new things you’ll see:Login. The login page will be virtually the same, but with a nice facelift!2. Left Navigation Panel. Most noticeably, you’ll be able to select your concept and store directly from this list instead of on the top navigation bar of TRM. Price Scheduler. The price scheduler has been updated to work on a tablet and improve workflow.4. HTML 5 and Chromebox. Besides the makeover of TRM we also have had a technology facelift, so to speak. You are now able to create and play files in HTML 5 using WAND’s default media player, Chromebox. Our account teams will be working to transition customers to the Chromebox and HTML 5 over time, but if you are interested in transitioning immediately please inform your account manager as soon as possible.Makeovers are a ton of fun and this one has been a blast. It’s been a lot of hard work but we’re greatly looking forward to rolling out this new update to all current WAND Digital customers on Tuesday, April 26th, 2016....Read more...What is Your Mobile Payments Strategy?March 16, 2016Mobile payments are booming, especially for restaurants. It’s right up there with tablets in terms of being a smoking hot topic in the restaurant POS industry. The majority of consumers want to be able to order food right from their mobile device and pick it up (or, even better, have it delivered) quickly. With that in mind, multi-unit restaurant chains are introducing new mobile apps and payment systems at an incredible rate. And with good results; those restaurants using them are able to increase sales significantly and, in some cases, reduce their labor investment as a result of not needing as many clerks in the restaurants to take orders in-person. So what’s your mobile payments strategy? You may have already determined it, but if not, here are the three biggest strategies we’re seeing restaurants use:Build it yourself. The first option is to build it yourself (or hire a third-party mobile marketing agency to build it for you). In this scenario your IT and marketing teams create your app (or mobile website) completely designed with your brand and your restaurants in mind.Pros: 100% customized and you own the technology directly. Cons: It takes a lot of resources and may come to life slowly if other business objectives or internal IT needs take priority.Use a third-party service provider. The second option is to use a third-party service provider like GrubHub where customers can easily order and pay for their food and then pick it up in your restaurant. In this scenario you’re able to partner with them and not build anything in house, requiring little IT resources.Pros: It’s a well-known app many customers are using and it’s an inexpensive way to offer mobile payments. Cons: You miss out on the ability to run loyalty programs and build brand preference with your most valuable customers. Have your POS partner build it. The third option is one not many people are aware of and that is having your POS partner build your mobile payments app. Because mobile payments are considered part of the holistic payment landscape of your restaurant your POS provider should be able to create a mobile payment that works seamlessly with your current POS system.Pros: It will integrate natively with your current POS system and won’t require internal IT resources to support. Cons: The overall design may be cookie-cutter and might only be “somewhat” customizable, for example with your brand logo and colors.As you go forward with determining your mobile payments strategy take some time to think through the options above. While marketing may want one thing, the reality is IT may not be able to support it or have the time to develop it. It’s important for these two departments to have an in-depth conversation and look critically at the business needs to determine the best solution for your restaurants....Read more...Is a Tablet POS Right for Your QSR Restaurants?February 17, 2016The restaurant point of sale industry is wildly changing, with emerging tablet POS technologies at the forefront. With its elegant, user friendly interface, lower cost of hardware and simple set-up, many restaurants are considering making the switch to a tablet POS. But, as we all know, making the switch to your restaurant POS system is a big decision. Especially in the limited service industry where there are more complicated situations including drive-thru lanes, numerous menu items and multiple payment types. And, where speed and accuracy is essential. It begs the question, is a tablet POS system right for your restaurant? Use this handy checklist to find out. Are you going for a more upscale look? There’s no doubt about it, tablet POS systems look cool. They have a fast, streamlined interface and are smaller and lighter than most traditional POS systems. If you’re looking to reinvent your brand image as one that is more upscale and modern than the traditional “fast food” restaurant then a tablet POS is one way to do this. Are you trying to attract a younger audience? Studies have shown that younger audiences, particularly the millennials, are more apt to frequent establishments that accept new payment types such as e-wallets (Apple Pay, Google Wallet) and mobile payments (order/pay ahead). If you want to attract this younger audience then a tablet POS system with this technology built in is a good fit for you. You’ll have to do some more things to attract this millennial audience to your restaurant but a tablet POS is a good start. Are you having issues with order accuracy? If you’re like many other limited service restaurants your staff is moving so fast that it’s easy to mess up an order, especially during a busy lunch or dinner period. Unfortunately, one limitation of tablet POS systems is they generally do not offer customer facing order confirmation screens so your guests cannot view and confirm their orders. If you want the ability to increase order accuracy in your restaurant you’ll want to look into a POS system that incorporates both tablets and register terminals so you can add an order confirmation screen that faces the customer. Not only will it allow you to increase accuracy but it will also allow you to display promotional content when screens are not in use, so they offer an additional way for you to showcase new LTOs or high-margin menu items. Do you need to reduce your labor costs? Working in the restaurant industry you know labor costs are one of the biggest challenge facing operators. A tablet POS system can help reduce labor costs in two ways; self-service kiosks and advanced reporting. First, when you use a tablet POS system you can switch in and out of self-service mode that includes payment options. That means if you need to save on labor costs you can simply turn on a couple kiosks and therefore reduce the number of employees you need to have on staff. Second, make sure when you choose a tablet POS that offers advanced labor reports so you can more easily view labor overages, shortages, etc. and make updates to your schedule to reduce your labor costs when it makes sense. When your data is stored in the cloud in the tablet POS system you can do this right from your own tablet or mobile device so you and your managers can make decisions faster. Do you have a drive-thru? While tablet POS systems work great inside a fast casual or QSR dining room, the reality is trying to operate a busy drive-thru on many of the newer tablet POS systems is… challenging, to say the least! If you operate a drive-thru for your restaurant you’ll need a POS system that supports communication between tablets and register terminals so you can complete payment transactions at the first window using a register terminal and serve the food out of the second window using a tablet POS system. Trust us, your staff will appreciate the headache you save them from having tablets in the drive-thru! Do you need line-busting help during busy dayparts? We’ve all experienced that situation where a limited service restaurant gets absolutely packed with customers. Whether it’s the local sports team that stopped by for a treat on the way home from the game or the business convention at the hotel next door goes on lunch break, when a restaurant gets packed it can be a lose-lose situation if operators can’t keep up with demand. One of the best things about a tablet POS is it’s mobile. It detaches from the POS terminal and your employees can use it to bust through that line and take orders and keep people moving quickly. Keep in mind tablets will need secure outdoor WIFI or Cellular, so you can work outside in the parking lot if things get crazy at the drive-thru! Even better, it integrates with most digital menu board systems so in line busting scenarios you can quickly swap out your digital menu to feature items that are easiest to make so you can fly through orders. Do you need a new Kitchen Video System? Another limitation of most tablet POS system is they do not offer KVS systems for your kitchen. Due to the nature of being tablet based this is hardware they typically do not provide. In some cases companies do offer this but the product offer is, quite frankly, sub-par and not build for the grease and heat of a QSR restaurant. Many busy restaurants wouldn’t dream of operating without their KVS and bump bars in the kitchen. If you’re in need of a new KVS you’ll need to identify a restaurant POS/tablet hybrid built for QSRs. As you explore the different tablet POS options available to you we hope you keep this list in mind. Whether you’re sticking with 100% traditional POS terminals, making the move to go 100% tablet or deciding to go with a 50/50 hybrid, the most important thing is to find the technology that meets the needs of your restaurants....Read more...Creating a Digital Menu Board Content Strategy and Marketing CalendarJanuary 19, 2016A Digital Menu Board content strategy and defined marketing calendar is key to success. One of the biggest mistakes we see clients make is they don’t have a clear content strategy and they are unsure how often they are going to change out promotional offers, LTOs and update menu items. As you plan your Digital Menu Board campaigns, you should keep the operating schedule of your restaurants, and plan to deploy and maintain your content over that schedule. Here’s a checklist for defining and operating your campaigns:What holidays or seasonal promotions are planned? What is the timing, scheduling, and deadlines involved? Especially important is the expected frequency of Limited Time Offers (LTOs) – i.e., daily, weekly, monthly, every eight weeks, quarterly. Are there seasonal menu items? How often does pricing change? How are pricing changes handled? Are there different dayparts for different times of the year? Do you require a completely new concept or can current assets be re-purposed? What about holidays? Stay open around the clock on Black Friday? What temporary changes or overrides are allowed locally?You will want to plan ahead for language and geographical locations, too. If you need Digital Menu Boards deployed in languages other than English, be sure to document this requirement. Do the other languages impact the design? If so, how? In addition to language, some locations might have regulations like including units of measurement, calorie counts, fat content, etc. Planning ahead will save you many headaches down the road and it’s one of the best ways you can maximize your digital menu ROI. ...Read more...Six Common Digital Menu Boards MistakesJanuary 12, 2016Digital menu boards are still a relatively new technology and many limited service restaurants have yet to install them. However, for those restaurants that have made the switch from static to digital menus, we’ve noticed there are several common mistakes that are often made when deploying them for the first time. The mistakes are minor and easy to make, but they can make a big impact on whether or not you’re fully maximizing the digital menu boards installed in your restaurant.Here are the six most common digital menu board mistakes we see here at WAND: 1. Your digital menus are a digital copy of your static boards. The biggest mistake we see, by far, is restaurant operators who make their digital boards look exactly the same as a static board. One of the greatest benefits of digital menus is the ability to use animation and rich media to make your menus pop and sizzle. We’re not saying you need to animate every cheeseburger or pizza slice, but you should strategize about your digital menus and think of them differently as you do your static boards. If you have difficulty recognizing the difference between static menus in one store and digital menus in another, then it’s probably a good idea to re-work your digital menus. 2. You’ve over animated your boards. As we referred to in the above point, you definitely don’t want your boards to be so animated that customers have a hard time following everything that’s going on. You’ll want to animate your boards strategically to match your menu design, enhance your guest experience, and promote your most profitable menu items. It may be as simple as animating your highest margin items so the eye is drawn to them more quickly. Or it might be as impactful as doing a 10 second full digital takeover (all boards suddenly displaying a special promo or LTO) to really push a product hard. It all depends on what strategy will work best for your restaurant. 3. You haven’t placed your menu boards strategically. Digital menu boards are unlike static boards in many ways, one of which is they need to be placed strategically to capitalize on traffic patterns, avoid glare, provide directional/instructional signage, etc. Some of the common mistakes we’ve seen over the years are; menus not angled for optimal viewing, menus in the direct path of sunlight and glare and not enough menus (digital POPs are increasingly popular at the front of lines to push high profit or LTO items). Be sure to conduct a thorough assessment BEFORE installing your digital menus so you know exactly where and how to place them. 4. You haven’t planned out your content schedule. Another awesome benefit of digital menus is you can update your menus way more than you ever could with static. This means you can test more products, push more LTOs, include more dayparts (second breakfast anyone?), capitalize on holidays or weather conditions and much more. All this sounds great, but it doesn’t matter if you don’t have a schedule mapped out in advance. We recommend mapping your content out 3-6 months ahead of schedule to make sure your digital menus are ready to be updated easily when it’s time to capitalize on those peak promo or shopping periods. Be sure to consider when you will implementing a full menu refresh, introducing a line of new items or adding calorie counts to your boards when making your schedule. 5. You’re cutting costs in the wrong places. Digital menu boards are an investment. The good news is the return is there – studies show most companies recoup their costs in 12-18 months. Unfortunately, a common mistake we see is people trying to cut costs in the wrong places. Our recommendation is don’t cut costs on hardware (you’ll want commercial grade screens and reliable media players) or software (jump drives won’t cut it if you’re a multi-unit restaurant operator; you need an enterprise solution that lets you manage multiple restaurant locations at once). However, you can cut costs by bundling your fees (ask to pay service fees annually instead of monthly), signing a multi-year contract (usually a discount is offered when you do this) or working with an exclusive provider to secure a corporate discount. You can also save creative costs by using a software system you can easily upload your own content into, rather than having a third-party create your menus for you. 6. You’re too late to the party. Digital menus are here and they are here to stay. Not just indoors but the growing opportunity is digital in the drive-thru as well. When the FDA caloric count menu labeling mandate hit the East coast a few years ago a huge number of restaurant operators decided to make the jump from static to digital and it seems to have spread like wildfire. Additionally, many mall operators are now requiring stores to go digital. And even when it’s not required as soon as one restaurant goes digital the rest soon follow. You don’t want to be scrambling to catch up while watching the competition steal your customers.Have more questions about going digital? Download our checklist on 25 questions to ask before you make the switch....Read more...12 Ways to Boost Restaurant SalesDecember 9, 2015Tis the season…to get a boost in restaurant sales! The holidays are upon us, and one thing we count on at this time of year is that people are going to eat a lot of food! Since they are going to be out shopping and visiting relatives, and doing all the Holiday things they do, they will almost certainly be eating out more often. Multi-unit limited service restaurant operators are the best at providing great food at a fast pace and an affordable price. The day-to-day challenges of running these operations during the holidays is amplified, and controlling rising food and labor costs becomes more important than ever. In addition they have to keep up with changing restaurant technology and consumer tastes and behaviors. So here’s our list of the 12 things every operator should do to increase sales.Redesign/reimagine your stores. OK, so you are probably not going to be able to gut remodel your store between now and the beginning of January. Plus, it can be very expensive to completely redesign a store, and especially challenging for smaller franchisees. What you CAN do quickly and affordably is re-energize with some simple changes that make your restaurants “pop”, like switching to customized soda dispensers, adding Digital Menus (indoor and in the drive-thru), putting some big TVs for guests in the dining room, and changing up your lighting to more modern and brighter fixtures (such as LEDs, which will also save money due to energy efficiency). Another awesome addition is a video wall to enhance ambiance. You may even be able to get a tax break when purchasing certain things as part of a restaurant redesign.Embrace mobile technology at all levels. Mobile has absolutely exploded. You’ll want to consider accepting mobile and contactless payments by both equipping your restaurant with payment terminals that have Near Field Communication (NFC) to accept these types of payments, and possibly creating a digital wallet for customers to use as part of your loyalty app. And don’t forget the ever important mobile ordering. Making it easy for customers to order their food from a click of a button on their phone has proven to be extremely lucrative for a multitude of restaurant concepts this year. And it’s not just customers who want mobile, tons of restaurant technology companies offer mobile apps to make it easier for employees to manage technology in the store. For example, WAND customers use the TRM Mobile app to make changes on-the-spot to their digital menus as well as read back office reports.Create a strong loyalty program. There’s a reason consumers were up in arms when Subway eliminated their stamp cards years ago – customers love to be rewarded for their loyalty, now more so than ever before. The millennial and Generation Z customers who frequent QSR and Fast Casual establishments are not just pleasantly surprised when offered a loyalty program but they’ve come to expect it. If they frequent your restaurant multiple times a month (or week) they want to be rewarded by you for that loyalty. If you haven’t yet, be sure to build a strong loyalty program that incentives and rewards your guests to make repeat visits and purchase more from your stores. Start collecting customer email addresses and start sending offers. These are your best customers and one of your greatest opportunities to increase profits.Simplify your menus. Less is more when it comes to menus. The growing trend we’re seeing is restaurant concepts reducing the number of items on their menus. There are many benefits of doing this:It makes it easier for customers to see the options and choose what they want Customers choose menu items faster thus you can increase your speed of service Smaller menus means less inventory you need to supply so less food waste You can buy more menu items in bulk and lower your food costs When menus are less cluttered there is more room to highlight LTOs and highly profitable menu itemsBe environmentally sustainable. Hippie is in! Consumers are more environmentally conscious than ever before so making changes where you can increase sustainability is key to appealing to a broader base of customers. Some ideas; switch to recyclable packaging, investigate more energy efficient equipment, switch from paper static menu boards to digital (indoor and outdoor), look into installing solar panels and consider partnering with an environmental nonprofit to find ways to reduce your carbon footprint. For most organizations, environmental sustainability and social responsibility start at the top of your organization. If you don’t have one yet, create a task force or committee devoted to this initiative.Add nutrition information. The FDA caloric menu labeling requirements may have been pushed back a year (deadline is on December 1, 2016) but with the release of an updated guidelines document this fall we can expect this will be pushed through and be mandated nationwide a year from now. Regardless of the FDA’s involvement, the bottom line is customers want more transparency when it comes to their food choices so you should be adding calorie counts to your menus if you haven’t done so yet. Worried about losing sales when you add calorie counts? Don’t be. Numerous independent studies have shown there has been no correlation between adding calorie counts on menus and lost restaurant sales.Offer contactless payments. It seems like every other day a new company or credit card issuer is offering a new way to pay with a mobile digital wallet. The reason? Consumers want it. 54% of consumers said they would use a mobile wallet instead of a physical wallet to pay if it were offered in more places. Contactless payment options have numerous benefits, among them; increasing speed of service, attracting lucrative customers and increasing data protection. If you’ve thought about getting contactless payment options in your stores but keep putting it off, now is the time to take action.Use menu psychology. At WAND we are surrounded by menus and we create tons of digital menus for our customers. And if there’s one thing that’s jumped out at us, it’s that menu psychology is one of the most cost-effective ways restaurant operators can increase sales. There are a myriad of things you can do with your menu layout to drive certain customer behaviors to increase ticket sizes. Just do a search for “Menu Psychology Tips” and you’ll be inundated with ideas. Need a few to start with? Read our 3 Menu Psychology Tips for QSR and Fast Casual ConceptsEmbrace digital indoor and outdoor menus. We’ve touched on digital menus a few times already but this is a biggie. If you haven’t embraced digital menus inside your store and in the drive-thru you’re missing out on a huge way to increase operational efficiency and drive ticket sizes. As a multi-unit restaurant operator digital allows you to change your menu from your home office with a click of a button at multiple stores. When deploying that new LTO or testing out a new food item digital allows you to do it easily without having to replace hundreds or thousands of static menu boards. And in the drive-thru especially you can see big gains by speeding up your service, increasing order accuracy and promoting key LTOs to incite last-minute purchases by hungry consumers.Go local. Consumer’s in today’s world want to know where their food is coming from and they have a desire to frequent establishments that embrace local sourcing. Numerous consumer studies have shown locally grown items are important to guests when choosing a restaurant. An interesting fact is that the word “local” equates to the word “fresh” in the mind of the consumer. So however it is you do this, whether you grow your own foods or partner with local food service providers, the bottom line is you should be looking at what you can do to go local and (when you have the operations to support it) let your customers know that you’ve gone local.Make your menus more diverse. Customer palates aren’t what they used to be. As the world has shrunk in the digital era consumers are more open to trying new cuisines and different menu items than ever before. Consider experimenting with different ethnic menu items that your competitors don’t offer. When everyone offers the same thing it makes it very difficult to compete. But when you expand your menu offerings to be more diverse not only can you attract new audiences but you’ll have something to talk about as a differentiator.Use restaurant business intelligence. When it comes to increasing restaurant sales, having clean and clear data and business intelligence is vitally important. If you’ve got an outdated back office or point of sale system that doesn’t give you the metrics at either a high-level (corporate) or granular (franchise, individual stores) level then you need to go back to the drawing board and find better reporting tools. Smart restaurant business intelligence platforms can notify you of cost saving opportunities or flag areas where you can increase revenues. Many of these platforms offer mobile reporting so restaurant operators can access key insights anywhere, anytime.Well I think that about wraps that up! There are obviously lots more things you can do to increase restaurant sales and profits but this is a pretty decent list to begin with. Happy holidays!...Read more...9 Ways You Should be Using Your Restaurant POS System to Prevent TheftDecember 2, 2015A restaurant POS system is crucial to a restaurant’s financial success; it processes hundreds (sometimes thousands) of transactions daily. Unfortunately, among all those transactions it becomes too easy for employees to become thieves and steal from restaurant operators. Here are nine ways you should be using your restaurant POS system to prevent theft: 1. Use conversational ordering. Conversational ordering allows orders to be easily modified without a void from a manager which improves accuracy and ensures that actual inventory and food costs always match reports. With such an exact calculation, theft is easily detected, and the majority of POS systems use conversational ordering today. 2. Track void types. The tracking of voids can be very important in identifying potential theft or training opportunities. For example, within the WAND point of sale systems, voids are broken down into 11 different classifications depending on the way in which the item was removed from the order or the time it was removed from the order, i.e. after tender or after send to queue. The operator then has the ability to configure which types of voids appear on selected reports which, in turns, helps them determine possible theft incidences. 3. Configure void reports. You should be able to configure your void reports in your restaurant POS system to be able to show possible theft instances. The reports most easily configured for this in most systems are the Accounting Report, Void Report, Inline Void Report, Cashier Summary Report, and the Manager Void Report. Use these reports to look for thievery. 4. Use keypress tracking. The tracking of cashier keypresses is very important for further investigation of void activities. Every keypress that a cashier performs is recorded in the POS which can be reviewed for training purposes or to identify potential theft. 5. Use cashier log in/out. Make sure cashiers are required to log into a register before order taking can begin. This ensures that all register activity is tracked to a specific employee. 6. Include biometric cashier log in/out. Integrated biometric fingerprint scanners may be used to ensure employee ID’s and passcodes are not shared or stolen and used to log on to registers. Employees must present their finger to the scanner each time they are logging or clocking into the system. 7. Implement EMV and payment encryption. Use EMV terminals with encryption to ensure data is not stored in the restaurant POS. In addition, make sure your EMV terminals include Near Field Communication (NFC) technology so you can accept contactless payments. These two things will help you make a “payment unaware” POS system. 8. Track pull drawers. Use your POS to ensure the entire “pull drawer” process is managed and tracked automatically by the system. When a “pull drawer” is initiated by a manager, the cashier is automatically logged out, and the cash drawer is open for the manager to replace. All drawer declarations are then entered and tracked in the system to ensure cash control throughout the entire process. 9. Review paid ins/outs. Paid ins and paid outs are used to track non-sales transactions when cash enters or leaves the cash drawer. Paid Outs can be done directly from the cash register, or from the back office safe, whichever is preferred or allowed by policy. All paid out activity is tracked to a specific “Chart of Accounts” for easy reporting and reconciliation. If you’re having a problem with theft in your restaurants, the bottom line is it is most likely employees. Be sure you’re using your POS properly and looking at back office reports regularly to prevent future occurrences....Read more...WAND Software Team Update: Continually ImprovingNovember 30, 2015A special guest blog by Erik Hanson, VP of Software Development at WAND Corporation It has been quite a year for the WAND Software team and since it is the time of year where many people look back and examine how things are different now than they were a year ago, I thought now would be a great time to post a brief update. In short, I am proud of how far we have come, and incredibly excited for what we are doing next. First off, we have kicked off development of two brand new green-field development projects. We have built new teams of developers, product owners, UI/UX designers and QA analysts to build the next generation of restaurant management applications. These teams are using leading edge technologies such as AngularJS, TypeScript, Cordova, hBase, Spark and Kafka just to name a few. These projects were just ideas a few months ago and it has been extremely exciting to see the teams come together to bring these ideas to inception, and I am thrilled to grow these teams and these products even further in the New Year. Another exciting development this year has been our ability to release our existing applications more frequently, thus allowing us to more quickly deliver value to our customers. We have been able to release to production twice as frequently in 2015 as we were in 2014, and through our embrace of automation and our goal of truly being able to treat our infrastructure as code in 2016, we are planning to increase our rate of release by another 40%. This will continue the trend of delivering value to our customers faster, and closing the feedback loop to ensure we are delivering the best solutions for them as well. One of the biggest reasons we have been able to start these new projects and deliver updates to our current projects more frequently is our refinement of our practice of Scrum. I plan on writing a whole entry on our use of Scrum and where we have found success with it, so I won’t go into too much detail now, but one thing I will highlight is the increased collaboration. Development, QA and Product are collaborating on User Stories; Dev and QA are collaborating on testing the application; and discrete product teams are collaborating on shared architecture. This collaboration is spawning innovation which in turn is creating an energy that leads to further collaboration and innovation. A truly virtuous cycle. And it is that environment that makes me the most excited. Everyone I work with is excited to celebrate our successes, but at the same time look for a way to do better. Each team member is looking for a way to continually improve, be it the process, the product, or their own performance, and that is an exciting environment to be in. I cannot wait for what is next. Erik Hanson is one of WAND’s many Rock Stars and leads the software development team at WAND. Erik and his team focus on developing restaurant software to expand WAND’s capabilities in the digital menu space, as well as increase its point of sales and back office restaurant management features. Outside of work Erik enjoys spending time with his wife and daughters and pursuing the perfect cup of coffee. ...Read more...How to Use Mobile and Contactless Payments to Increase QSR and Fast Casual Restaurant SalesNovember 11, 2015Mobile and contactless payments are definitely the cool new kid on the block when it comes to restaurant technology. Apple Pay, Google Wallet, Pay Pal, Samsung Pay…let’s face it, it feels pretty awesome to pay for something just by swiping your watch or phone through the air. Not to mention how awesome it is to order and pay for your meal on your mobile phone and simply pick it up with no hassle at the restaurant. But besides being “cool” there are some very smart ways QSR and Fast Casual restaurants can use these payment types to drive sales. Let’s explore. Four Benefits of Mobile and Contactless Payments in QSR and Fast Casual RestaurantsIncreasing Speed of Service. If nothing else, mobile and contactless payments are FAST and for the quick service and fast casual restaurant world, speed is critically important. For merchants, contactless-equipped phones can enable fast transactions. All forms of payment have friction points: cash requires change and credit cards require PINs or signatures; but contactless payment requires only a card or device to be placed near on a compatible reader. And mobile payments are even better since the order is already bought and paid for before the customer even shows up. Ultimately, the faster people can pay, the more quickly you can move them through the line and the more orders you can process.2. Improved Data Security. Adding contactless payment terminals to protect data and prevent security breach liability is a huge reason so many retailers are adding EMV terminals that accept contactless payments to their existing Point of Sale systems. With contactless payments no credit card numbers are stored in the POS making it what we call “payment unaware.” Right now there are already millions of contactless-ready payment terminals globally; out of the tens of millions of terminals in use around that world. Over the course of 2016 that base is likely to see a significant increase, particularly in the US where merchants are replacing their terminals to comply with the EMV mandate. Getting EMV terminals is a win-win for retailers who can now protect themselves from EMV liability and also get contactless payment technology added to their registers, all with one device. 3. Attracting Affluent Customers. Installing mobile and contactless payments in your restaurant also gives you the ability to attract a consumer base with higher disposable incomes. Consumers with Apple watches and the latest and greatest technology have extra money to spend, and it’s quite likely they are in the millennial generation that frequents QSR and Fast Casual establishments often. Hundreds of millions of smartphone owners have already submitted their credit card data (one or multiple cards) to a range of vendors so as to be able purchase apps, or download songs, or purchase additional cloud-based storage. Tens of millions of consumers have become acclimatized – over the course of many years – to the idea of contactless payments using their credit and debit cards. Also from a behavior perspective, consumers are far more likely to be holding their phone than their wallet. A few may decide to pay by smartphone to signal their status as early adopters. With some approaches, a smartphone may offer a higher payment limit than a regular contactless card. 4. Provide Personalized and Proactive Marketing. One of the biggest benefits of adopting mobile payments in your restaurant is you can offer guests a more personalized experience. Loyalty programs offered are especially important to customers, particularly those in that millennial audience who expect to be rewarded for frequenting the same restaurant. You can offer specials and promotions to customers who use your loyalty app or pay with a mobile payment type. Sending personalized messages based on their buying behavior is a great way to draw them in for a repeat visit. You can employ very customized mobile ordering options to make it even easier for customers to place their order and for you to increase sales. And you can capitalize on peak food periods – even sending a simple digital message to the right audience at the right time can drive a nice sales boost for your restaurant. Promotional Strategies for Mobile Payments Let’s dig into that last one a little bit more. There are all kinds of fun things you can do with mobile payments and programs but let’s focus specifically on loyalty programs and coupons. Loyalty programs. Loyalty programs are booming across QSR and Fast Casual restaurants. As stated earlier, millennials and generation z expect to be rewarded for their loyalty. Having a loyalty program customers can sign up for on their mobile device, or automatically opt into when they download an e-coupon, is a great way to drive sales. For customers paying with mobile payment types you can track what they are buying and how much they’ve spent and reward them on-the-spot for their return visits (e.g. You qualify for a free shake today as a thank you for your loyalty!). Or, much like the Subway stamp cards of days past, you can give them points each time they use their mobile device to pay and reward them when they’ve reached a certain amount. And the best part about using loyalty programs with those people using digital wallets are you can send new rewards and incentives to their phone instantly. It’s a marketer’s dream; being able to deliver promotions directly into the hands of loyalty customer within minutes in order to boost sales. Coupons. Coupons are also a fantastic way to capitalize on mobile payments. Running coupons and discounts for digital wallets is a great way to promote your brand and also allow potential guests to save theses coupons to their phones for use in your store. The days of traditional couponing are certainly not over, but technology now allows for a new generation to coupon in a whole new digital way. In addition to creating mobile digital coupons and incentives that you can promote on digital wallet services you can go a step further and turn your one-time coupon into a loyalty program. For example when a customer downloads a discounted pizza coupon on their smartphone and uses it in the store you can reward them with a Pizza Point, noted on their digital coupon. When they’ve reached 10 Pizza Points that’s when you reward their loyalty with a free pizza and hopefully you’ll have turned a passive customer into a loyal one. Mobile and contactless payments are coming…it’s time to get excited! Let’s end by throwing a few stats out there from the 2014 National Restaurant Association Technology Innovations Consumer Study:33% of 25-34 year olds say they expect to use their smartphone to pay at restaurants. 27%of consumers order from a restaurant’s website or app at least once a month. 31% of consumers use mobile devices to view menus at least once a month. 35% of QSR and 20% of Fast Casual restaurants currently offer mobile payment options.The bottom line is for consumers and quick serve restaurants, contactless adoption is behavioral. Using contactless-equipped smartphones to make payments will be adopted BECAUSE it can make the payment process simpler and sleeker. The good news is the more contactless payments are adopted by consumers, the more opportunities you have to increase sales in your restaurant. ...Read more...10 Ways to Increase Sales with Digital Menu BoardsNovember 4, 2015As you know, one of the most powerful tools in your restaurant are your menu boards. Customers spend valuable minutes looking over these boards searching for their perfect meal or dessert. A great menu board can make or break your business which is why so many restaurants have made the switch from static to dynamic digital boards. Digital menus allow you to customize your menus and make changes on-the-spot to increase your sales and profits. Here are 10 ways you can increase sales with Digital Menu Boards: 1. Display the right promotions at the right time. Got a holiday coming up? A heatwave on the way? A new product launch? Take a look at your calendar in advance and map out exactly what promotions you want to display. Then complement those with on-the-fl y updates as new promos come out. 2. Make critical price changes. Once a quarter (if not more) analyze your menu prices to determine how profits are looking. Is there a price you may need to bump up or decrease? Sometimes just a small price change can make a huge impact over time. 3. Make the FDA (and customers) happy – be calorie compliant. Follow the FDA’s mandate to display calorie counts on menu boards and be sure to update your boards with calorie counts. Not only will you make the FDA happy but customers will be happy as well. An added bonus is customers will spend more time looking at your menu boards as they determine how many calories to consume, so any special promotions or deals you have will jump out even more to them the longer they look. 4. Manage product recalls ASAP. Ugh. Product recalls, not a fun task for anyone. Be sure to update your menu boards ASAP as soon as you get word of a product recall. Make sure to set up a process for your store, if you don’t have one already, for how to immediately pull product recalls off your menu. Be sure to communicate this process to all store management. 5. Adjust menus based on product availability. When a product suddenly runs out and becomes unavailable it can be a nightmare for management. During your closing inventory check add a step for store management to update your menu boards if you are out of a product or close to running out. 6. Correct mispeelings. Be sure to do a spot-check of your menu boards each time you update them and check for any misspellings. It only takes about 10 minutes but will save your staff from countless customers pointing out the spelling mistake on the menu. 7. Update product images. They say you eat with your eyes so take a look at your menu board from the customer perspective and look for any product images that should be added, updated or removed. Choose product images that are the most mouthwatering, irresistible images to display. 8. Display your ingredients. Most customers like to know what goes into their food. Take a look at your menu board and determine if there’s room to display ingredients. It might not work for everyone but if you’ve got a health-conscious, organic-loving clientele then it can make a big impact. 9. Share daily features. Got something to share with your audience? A new product, store anniversary, employee birthday? Don’t be afraid to use space on your menu boards to show a daily feature or share something that’s important to you and your store 10. Complement guest buying habits. You know your guest better than anyone else so be sure to audit your menu board and make sure it truly appeals to your customer. Not sure what they want? Get out of the office and spend some time chatting with customers as they’re looking at the boards. Getting direct customer feedback in the moment is invaluable. When you make the switch to invest in digital menu boards make sure you’re using these tips to get the best return on your investment possible....Read more...WAND CORPORATION: A Day In The Life in Software DevelopmentOctober 29, 2015A special guest blog by Erik Hanson, VP of Software Development at WAND Corporation One of the most common questions that I get asked during the interview process is “What does the typical day look like?” I struggle to answer that question, because while we definitely have a routine, each day is a bit different, and each team member has a little different day. For example, we are flexible in our daily schedules. I have one team member who gets in around 5:30 and leaves by 2:30. Others get in much later and leave later. Also, we practice Scrum, so we have stand-ups every morning for each team where we cover the three questions. Then once every two weeks each team has a day of Scrum ceremonies, Sprint Review, Sprint Retrospective and then Sprint Planning. And from time-to-time there may be a meeting on TypeScript best practices, AWS automation or automated testing tools. Or, a team member may request an in person code review as well to get some help or to demonstrate a new technology. However, when it comes down to it, my team spends most of their time on two things: Code and Collaboration. Software is what WAND does, and it is critical the Software Department focus on building the best Restaurant Management software on the market. WAND works hard to allow the development teams to focus their efforts on this crucial job, for example:Every morning we have what we call “studio sessions” where we eliminate outside distractions from the development room. Each team member also has a light at their desk to indicate if he or she is in the zone (red) or if he or she is available for a conversation (green). Collaboration within each dev team, however, is always encouraged. Each dev team is co-located with developers, QA analysts, UI/UX designers and others all sitting together. Each team’s product owner is also in close proximity in case any questions arise.Every day I see team members working together on designing, developing, testing, validating and iterating on our applications, continuously working to make them the best. And that is the constant: the comradery, the collaboration and the passion for killer technology. An individual team member may do different things from writing code to reviewing user stories to developing automated test cases to automating the deployment of our application. But the teamwork, the intense passion for the work, and the joy of well-crafted code; that is a day in the life of a Software Development Team member at WAND. Erik Hanson is one of WAND’s many Rock Stars and leads the software development team at WAND. Erik and his team focus on developing restaurant software to expand WAND’s capabilities in the digital menu space , as well as increase its point of sales and back office restaurant management features. Outside of work Erik enjoys spending time with his wife and daughters and pursuing the perfect cup of coffee....Read more...5 Ways You Should be Future Proofing Your Restaurant POS System TodayOctober 28, 2015The restaurant POS system of today doesn’t look anything like the restaurant POS system of tomorrow. Advancements in technology and new customer behavior means POS systems are rapidly changing and we all have to keep up. Here are some things restaurants should be doing today to future proof their POS systems so they will be able to be used in the future as technology changes. 1. Accept contactless payments. With the launch of Apple Pay, Google Wallet, Softcard, PayPal, Samsung Pay and CurrentTC (MCX) customers are expecting and embracing the use of mobile payments. Getting near field communication (NFC) on your POS system today will ensure you’re prepared as the use of this technology continues to boom, particularly with younger Millennial and Gen Z audiences who are frequenters of limited service establishments. 2. Build in loyalty applications. Speaking of younger generations, loyalty programs are huge with QSR and Fast Casual establishments, with repeat Millennial and Gen Z customers using these on every visit. The use of loyalty programs at limited service restaurants is growing as people now expect to be rewarded for being a loyal customer. Your restaurant POS should be built to support a concept’s loyalty application so cashiers can quickly recognize and reward customers for their frequent visits. 3. Integrating with your digital menus. Your restaurant POS system should synch with both your indoor and outdoor Digital Menu Boards so you can ensure all prices and items are displayed properly in all locations. Having a highly profitable popular food item displayed prominently on your menu is great, until the cashier can’t find it in the POS system. The use of digital menus continues to explode across the country so making sure your POS integrates with yours is key. 4. Using EMV readers. Many restaurants are taking a “wait and see” approach when it comes to installing EMV readers in their stores. If you’re looking to have a restaurant POS that is future proofed we can’t stress enough the importance of having EMV terminals. Credit card companies are issuing cards en masse and running huge customer education campaigns so more customers use these when they shop. Before long everyone will be looking to dine where EMV cards are accepted, so better to be ahead of the curve on this one. 5. Mobile Apps. Mobile apps create operational efficiency in the restaurant, performing tasks like line busting, employee scheduling, and tracking Key Performance Indicators. And of course, they also allow customers to order from you while they are on the go! While it may seem there is a lot to think about and many changes happening at once with restaurant POS systems, this may be the perfect time to examine how you are handling this mission critical aspect of your business. In fact, an abundance of options and competition in the payment process marketplace means that somme payment processes are offering incentives as they aggressively vie for new customers. The bottom line is if you’ve been avoiding the “is it time for a new POS system?” question then it probably means it is time....Read more...4 Reasons Your Restaurant POS is Slowing Down Your Speed-of-ServiceOctober 21, 2015When it comes to restaurant POS systems, speed is the name of the game. The faster you can process orders accurately, the more money you can make. When looking for a new POS, a user-friendly interface is a feature that potential buyers consistently place at the top of their list of requirements. . A user-friendly POS is a register interface that is simple, intuitive, and easy to learn. The expectation, and often part of the return on investment analysis, is the easy to use interface will lower labor costs by reducing training time, eliminating errors, and improving overall speed-of-service. A well designed POS interface should certainly be able to live up to those expectations. Unfortunately, with so many POS systems to choose from – many of which have interfaces that look nice and feel user-friendly – it is not always easy to identify the ones that are actually well thought-out and can deliver on improving speed-of-service. Here are a few things to consider when evaluating a user-friendly point-of-sale interface.Too Many ButtonsA common technique to improve ordering speed is to “flatten” the design by increasing the number of buttons on a single screen. The rationale is that cashiers then do not have to navigate down through multiple layers of menus to make a selection. Unfortunately, interface designers can take this concept too far – especially those using the number of “clicks” or button presses as the primary gauge of speed. This can result in buttons that are too close together, too small, and with inadequate descriptions that force the cashier to slow down to find items and avoid making errors.Too Many IconsAnother pitfall is an interface that relies too heavily on the use of icons. This is common with many tablet point-of-sale providers that build incredibly elegant designs using beautifully handcrafted icons to designate the various cashier functions and activities. Often the design decision made here is to eliminate helpful text labels in favor of a clean, more aesthetically pleasing look and feel – potential sacrificing speed of use in the process.Ignoring PerformanceThe evaluation of a POS interface for usability and speed of use should take into account the entire interaction with the device. A well designed user interface that is easy to learn, easy to find items, and effective at reducing errors – yet is not responsive to touches or is sluggish overall – will likely not translate into improved speed-of-service. The POS interface should be designed for the devices it will ultimately operate on.Designed for One Type of UserMore often than not when a POS provider asserts that their interface is user-friendly, they have in mind the ease of which new users can learn the interface and become productive on the system. While an intuitive interface is important for driving down training costs, its ability to improve the speed of the most tenured users should not be ignored. Design decisions that negatively impact “power users” for the sake of the less experienced users could adversely affect speed-of-service. A well designed POS interface will have kept both types of users in mind and therefore be able to deliver reduced training costs while still improving overall speed-of-service. Speed-of-service is a critical component to limited service restaurant success. Be sure your restaurant POS is designed for speed and accuracy. Have an old POS system but dragging your feet to make an upgrade? Be sure to read our blog post to understand the four hidden costs of an aging POS system....Read more...Awesome Section 179 and Year End Spending Ideas for RestaurantsOctober 21, 2015When we think of end of year spending we typically think of the hustle and bustle of the holidays and the multitude of trips to the mall to find the perfect gifts for the special people in our lives. But there is another kind of spending this time of year; businesses making end of year purchases to max out their budgets or take advantage of Section 179 for tax season. At WAND we focus exclusively on the restaurant industry and there are generally two types of spending pushes we see restaurants make this time of year: 1. Those making one last end-of-year push. On the corporate side of things we see people making one last effort to spend the rest of their budgets. For those who manage a function that eats up a big part of their companies’ budget (such as marketing, technology or operations) they know they need to spend their full budget in order to get the same budget next year so it’s critical to spend the full amount. Also, these last few months of the year gives companies one final opportunity to make an end-of-year push to finish the sales year strong or start the New Year off on the right foot. 2. Those spending to take advantage of Section 179. On the franchise side of things, we see smaller franchisees and restaurant operators making purchases in order to take advantage of Section 179 of the IRS tax code that allows businesses to deduct up to $25,000 of qualifying equipment purchased or financed during the tax year. Some of the things included are; equipment (machines), business vehicles, computers and software. We see a lot of people this time of year making investments in restaurant technology they’ll use to increase sales in the next calendars year in order to receive the benefit of the tax deduction in 2015. Need to burn through some cash and not sure where to spend it? We’ve come up with a few ideas to help you out. Ideas for Corporate Restaurant ChainsLoyalty app, digital wallets and/or mobile ordering. 2015 seemed like the year of mobile. It was popular before but this was the year it seemed to boom across the industry. You may not have full development time you need to launch an app, digital wallet or mobile ordering for your brand by year-end, but you can make headway in choosing your development company and paying up front or making a nice down payment with your developer of choice. Need more info? Sign up for our webinar on Mobile and Contactless payments. FDA caloric counts. In a little over a year all menus will be required to have calorie counts on them. If you already have your calorie counts in hand you can have your marketing agency of record or menu board partner (static and digital) get started redesigning your menus to add the calorie counts. Not only will you be able to pay for the cost of the redesign in 2015 but you’ll be ready to easily deploy them in early 2016 and get ahead of the game.Menu redesign. Speaking of menus, many restaurant concepts are redesigning their menus to shorten the number of items, employ menu psychology tactics and feature more profitable menu items. The last few months of 2015 could be a good time to commission a menu strategy study or contract with a menu design consultant to figure out any menu redesign strategy you’ll be employing in 2016.End of year promotion. Many of you probably have already planned for this, but if not, you should plan for year-end promotions to capitalize on the holiday shopping season. Customers will be flooding into mall food courts and retail stores and will most definitely be hungry after all that shopping. Decide on a strong, profitable promotion to run during those busy holiday months and be sure to promote it heavily in store as well as in your other marketing channels.Social incentive. If you’re looking for a way to boost last-minute sales then offering an incentive through a social channel is one of the best ways to do it. Not only will you benefit from the sales you bring in for the short-term, but you’ll also get longer lasting engagement on your social channels. If you’re going this route one of the most effective things you can do is offer some sort of tangible item as a prize or free gift. Since people are out on the market searching for the perfect present already their ears and eyes will perk up when they see you offering some sort of gift they really want. You can offer it via a social contest or a social coupon type promotion. Just remember to make them do something (e.g. sign up for emails, Instagram us, follow us, etc.) in order for them to participate so they get what they want and you get what you want.Ideas for Franchise Restaurant OperatorsOffice equipment. Office equipment such as computers, printers, back office software or manager workstations are some of the most common items restaurants purchase when taking advantage of Section 179 during the tax season. These are typically all higher ticket items but are needed to run the business so a good choice for this particular tax break.Kitchen equipment. Closely following office equipment are actual kitchen equipment such as stoves, refrigerators and kitchen video systems for the restaurant. These last few months of the year are a great time to buy these because many suppliers are running end of year specials so you may already get big discounts. As you’re looking to purchase new equipment be sure to make sure you’re looking at energy efficient and sustainable models. Not only will you save money on energy efficiency, but sustainability is becoming increasingly important to consumers.Digital menu boards. The last few years more and more companies are going digital with their menu boards, both inside their restaurant and outside in the drive-thru. Digital menus in the drive-thru particularly increased in popularity this year as technology became more cost effective and consumer demanded changed. Not only do digital menus help increase ticket sizes and operational efficiency but they also involve various technology components; screens, media players and software, all of which should be covered under Section 179.Customized soda dispensers. Customers love to have things their own way so purchasing customizable soda dispensers is a no-brainer if you haven’t yet. It’s an easy way to attract and satisfy more customers in your restaurant.Point of sale. In desperate need of a POS update? While you probably won’t be able to deploy an entirely new POS system by the end of the year you may be able to make a sizeable down payment on a new system or install new contactless payment technology to make your current system more modern. The hardware and software required for this should be covered by Section 179 and will not only help you run your business more efficiently but also prepare you to be EMV compliant.Hopefully this list helps give you some ideas of where to spend up the rest of your budget. Please note that you should be sure to double check all the requirements of Section 179 prior to making any purchases to ensure your items are covered. Happy shopping! Looking for more ways to boost sales this holiday season? Register for our webinar....Read more...Updated FDA Menu Labeling Requirements for RestaurantsOctober 14, 2015...Read more...Ensuring Digital Menu Board Uptime – Tips for SuccessOctober 7, 2015Ensuring Digital Menu Board uptime is one of the most important aspects of this unique medium. Your menus are tools to drive revenue, and as such, they need to be up and running with the appropriate content on the screen, at all times the restaurant is open. This blog post is written to help better explain how to create digital menus with the best uptime possible. Here we go! Have a Robust Internet Connection Enterprise Digital Menu Board deployments use the internet to deliver content to the many restaurants in the network. It’s important to have a robust internet connection at your site. Some sites even use cellular or satellite data technology to back up content delivery in the case of land line internet outages, or in rural areas where wired service is unavailable. Don’t Use Streaming Services Using media players that store content and continue to play when the internet goes down is better for content uptime than solutions using streaming services where the content must be flowing over the network to play. Configure Your Firewalls Carefully The security of your menu boards is also a high priority checklist item. If you use firewalls on your store network, you’ll need to carefully configure the access to the media players so they can function. Media players need to be protected from hacking or denial of service attacks, just like the other computers in your operation. It sounds funny, but displays should also be “locked down” so, for example, a person with a remote control can’t turn off your displays or change the input, causing a content outage condition in the restaurant. Be Strategic When Making Software Updates As with all software, updates are regularly made by software developers. The media player–and today’s sophisticated displays– each may have software updates to be installed periodically. These should be performed remotely, without any staff intervention. They should be done during off hours, so there is no impact on the operation of the boards during business hours.In the case of 24/7/365 restaurants, they should be performed one board at a time, during the least busy daypart. Prepare for Display Fails Media players and displays are both extremely reliable these days. However, we all know machines do fail on occasion. Working with top vendors, you’ll have access to a variety of support plans for diagnosing and troubleshooting equipment and software. You’ll also have choices of service plans, including onsite technician visits, advance exchanges for displays and media players. Redundancy between media players (also known as “Failover” configurations) is also great temporary backup solutions for when equipment fails and you are waiting for a technician to arrive, or for an overnight delivery of a replacement display or media player covered by an Advance Exchange service contract. If a Failover-enabled display goes out, the content of that display can play on the display next to it. If a Failover-enabled media player goes out, its neighbor will take over the display it was driving and menu content will continue uninterrupted. If you’re experiencing many issues with uptime be sure to contact your digital menu provider immediately. Often times there is a simple solution but there are instances where it may mean you are overdue for a hardware refresh or there has been a change in your security or software that is preventing menus from displaying properly. The bottom line is if you’ve installed your digital menus optimally you should be seeing a high uptime. And if you continue to see repeated digital menu failures, be sure to reach out to your menu boards partner to develop a fix....Read more...What exactly is Total Restaurant Management (TRM)?September 30, 2015At WAND we throw around the term Total Restaurant Management (or TRM for short) quite a bit. Since we’re totally focused on restaurants we often have to remind ourselves that not everyone speaks in terms of TRM. So we thought it’d be good to take a moment and share exactly what Total Restaurant Management is, and how it benefits restaurants. What exactly is TRM? At the highest level, TRM gives you visibility and control of the most important aspects of your restaurant operation from any device, anywhere in the world. Who uses TRM? Part of the magic of TRM is that it works the same for a Franchisor, a Franchisee, or the manager in an individual store—the difference is how much of the restaurant enterprise you have permission to see and control. So what exactly is it? Drilling down, TRM is a cloud-based SaaS solution – a website where you login and then have complete access to your restaurant including your Digital Menu Boards, Point of Sale Systems and Back Office. What can you see in TRM? When you log into TRM you can view:What’s being shown to customers on the digital menus in your stores and/or drive-thrus Sales results from POS systems in any restaurant or across all of them, along with comparisons and statistics Current food costs and inventory Updated labor management forecast and payrollWhat can you do in TRM? You can conduct a variety of activities in TRM. Here are the top ones:Change your menu prices (instantly on both your indoor and outdoor menus and in your POS) Change your menu content (swap out LTOs and promotional content) Run reports to see your current food and labor costs Create weekly schedules and look for areas of improvement Reduce your food costs using advanced restaurant business intelligence Identify and prevent instances of theft in the restaurantHow long does it take to get TRM set up? It depends on the size of your restaurants, the type of menu you have and the number of integrations you have. Multi-unit restaurant concepts with simpler restaurants such as coffee or ice cream shops can be up in running in a week or two. Quick serve restaurants with multiple LTOs, complicated combos and more meal choices may take longer to plan and install. What’s the biggest reason to use TRM? To gain a single point of visibility and control. Managing a restaurant concept can be incredibly challenging because of all the different types of system and technologies that are used. With TRM there’s a single point of control so you don’t have to manage your menus, POS or your back office separately. What can you do with TRM mobile? At WAND we often refer to “TRM Mobile” which is simply TRM used on your mobile device. It is the same platform that is used on your desktop. However, we know people in the restaurant industry are constantly on-the-go so the mobile version allows you to change and manage your restaurant easily wherever you are. One of the biggest opportunities in the restaurant industry (and in all industries actually) is the need to streamline technology. TRM is built to make it easier for restaurants to do this....Read more...Digital Menu Boards – Just Starting Out, or Going All Out?September 30, 2015Getting Digital Menu Boards installed is an exciting thing for restaurant concepts. They look awesome, you can swap out LTOs and test menu items faster and you save money by not having to print and hang static menu boards. There are two approaches when it comes to installing digital menus and it all comes down to whether you’re just starting out with them or if you’ve decided to go all out. Let’s explore them Just Starting Out If you are just starting out, a lab is a great way to go. Pick a room in your HQ, and install the menu boards in a configuration that closely duplicates the setup you envision you’ll want in a store. If you have a lot of stores, vendors will bend over backwards to help you do this. This phase should last no more than 60-90 days. The lab provides the opportunity for you to get to know the hardware and software, and your vendors. It’s here where you can test out the operation of the boards, and begin to make important decisions like what content to use on which boards. This is a great opportunity to test new creative ideas, and you should show the setup to as many people as possible, including potentially testing with consumers. The goal of a lab is to be ready to succeed in the first stores right out of the gate. Pilots should be more than one store. If you have a lot of locations, then you already know evaluating critical operations infrastructure must be done at more than one site to get a true picture of how equipment and procedures will function day-to-day, week-to-week, year over year. This should last a maximum of 6 months. Consider piloting in multiple regions: North, South, East and West. This will ensure you get a clear picture of how your menu boards will work when fully deployed. It’s worth the investment. If you have different shapes and sizes of stores (e.g. activated versus legacy, or mall store versus stand alone, outparcel versus urban) make sure you have each footprint represented in the pilot. Going All Out If you’ve already conducted a successful pilot, apply lessons learned for all stores. If you have especially complicated IT system, networking or security needs, or integration with other systems, your installations could be more complex and you’ll want to plan ahead and engage with any partners who will be involved in the rollouts early. If you have diverse geography (or even more to the point, international locations) you’ll want to take into account all the special requirements those areas or countries may introduce to the mix. These could include things as obvious as language, but can also range from minutiae like country-specific power cords for displays to show-stopper situations like taxes and tariffs that might be encountered. Economies of scale are important in the QSR and Fast Casual restaurant industry. If you run a multi-unit restaurant operation, you can benefit from economies of scale– discounts on equipment, resource availability, and potentially efficiencies in scheduling when you build out several at once. When it comes to digital menus everyone moves at their own pace. Some people launch ten stores at once and …rely on their partners’ implementation expertise to achieve success, others like to take a one-store approach to understand the ins and outs to the fullest they can. In the end, our advice to use is to do what feels right for your concept. ...Read more...3 Menu Psychology Tips for QSR and Fast Casual ConceptsSeptember 23, 2015Menu psychology can make a big difference in how much money QSR and Fast Casual restaurant operators make. At WAND we are constantly looking at restaurant menus and we’ve learned quite a bit about how to create smart, money-making menus. Here are a few simple menu psychology tips to make sure you’re using them to drive the most sales possible. 1. Use anchoring to increase ticket size. Restaurants often give two options for a drink size – medium or large. Let’s say the medium is $3 and the large is $4. However, when a third, more expensive option is offered (extra large at $5) it anchors the price points in the minds of the consumer and now that $4 doesn’t seem quite as steep. By simply offering a third option you can increase your ticket size. You can also use decoys, which is promoting a more expensive meal, to make the other meals seem more reasonably priced. Since people like to order something in the middle of the menu (not too low a price and not too high) adding a decoy can increase their likelihood to buy something more expensive than they might otherwise. 2. Use a smaller menu to increase speed and reduce food costs. As restaurants like Chipotle and In-N-Out Burger have demonstrated, having a small and simple menu can be extremely successful. The less choices a menu has, the easier it is for your customers to choose what they want. Not only do they decide what they want faster so you can move them through the queue quickly, but restaurants can also train more efficiently since their employees don’t have to learn as many menu items to make. Plus there is the added benefit that you also don’t have to stock your inventory to produce everything under the sun; you only need to purchase a small amount of ingredients needed to deliver on that small menu. 3. Promote your best LTOs and specials in the upper right corner. Many restaurant studies have found the first place a person looks on a menu is the upper right corner, so this is the ideal spot for you to place your best LTOS or promotional specials. It’s also a great place to promote your most profitable menu item. If you’re using Digital Menu Boards use animation or motion graphics with your menu item in this space to draw people’s eyes to it even more quickly. When you use a dynamic image with movement people are more likely to look at it longer than they would other items. There are many more menu psychology tips out there that can make your menus much more profitable. If you’re going through a menu redesign or adding new items be sure to think about how you can use these simple tips and tricks to drive ticket prices up. And don’t forget to add your calorie counts!...Read more...Five Reasons Your QSR Restaurant isn’t Attracting MillennialsSeptember 16, 2015If you work in the QSR restaurant industry, you know how fierce the competition is, especially for millennials. This buying segment is large, hungry and very brand loyal. Unfortunately, they can also be difficult to attract. The most fundamental thing you can do to attract millennials is offer high quality food and great customer service. Beyond that, there are also some simple things you can do with current technology to attract this coveted buying group. Beyond your food and customer service, here are five biggest reasons your QSR restaurant may not be attracting millennials:You Aren’t Offering Free Wi-Fi. Let’s start with something basic, yet often overlooked. Millennials are on their mobile and tablet devices constantly, so having an immediate, free Wi-Fi connection is an easy way to attract them. If you don’t offer free Wi-Fi, get it. If you already have it, promote it. Post it on signage in your restaurant, on your website and even via your social channels.You Don’t Offer Digital-Loyalty Rewards. A whopping 50% of millennials say having digital loyalty and rewards programs is important to limited service restaurants. In short, millennials want (and expect) to be rewarded for frequenting your store. This is the video game generation; they are used to getting points for performing repetitive actions. The more you can reward them for visiting your store, the more millennials you are going to attract.You Aren’t Using Digital Menu Boards. Customers walk into QSRs and expect to see digital menus, millennials more so than others. Not only do they like digital menus because lines typically move quicker and orders are placed faster, but also because they expect to be entertained. Digital menus, especially in the drive-thru, offer a new way for millennials to engage with brands longer and enhance the overall dining experience.You Don’t Have Mobile Ordering. More than a third of consumers look at restaurant menus on mobile devices once a month. That’s a huge audience. The millennials in that audience not only want to look at your menu but they want to make their order immediately, right there, on the spot. This is an audience that has had immediate gratification their entire lives. Give it to them by giving them an option to order right online and easily pick up at your restaurant.You Don’t Accept Mobile Payments. Contactless payment technology is booming right now. Companies are employing EMV readers with NFC (Near Field Communication) technology to accept contactless payments like Apple Pay and Google Wallet. Millennials are more likely to use mobile payments than other demographics so it’s important to offer this technology. Again, post the fact that you offer mobile payments on your website and on signs in your restaurant.When you embrace technology in your restaurant it goes a long way towards attracting millennials. Fortunately the QSR and Fast Casual restaurant industry is more advanced than most when it comes to technology, but there’s always room to improve....Read more...Why TV Screens Don’t Work As Digital MenusSeptember 9, 2015One of the most common questions we get about digital menus is whether or not someone can simply purchase a TV, plug in a jump drive and run a menu off Power Point or some easy to use application. Three steps and voila! Sigh. If only it were that easy. Skipping over the jump drive and Power Point conversation (we’ll save that for another time, though it’s a solution that may work extremely well for small operators, it will not work for large multi-unit restaurant concepts) if you’re using Digital Menu Boards you need to invest in commercial grade screens. Let’s go ahead and dive right into the reasons why you should use commercial grades screens versus TV screens:Built to Last. The old adage “you get what you pay for” doesn’t break down when we talk about display technology. A consumer grade display needs only have components that will allow it to provide 20,000 hours of operational time before failure to receive a UL listing (UL is ISO standards for display technology), whereas a commercial grade display generally needs to provide 3 times that. Looking at this as a value proposition, that means you’ll go through 3 of those “cheaper” displays in the same span of time as you would with just one of those “more expensive” options. In the long run, those cheap options are going to end up costing you more than investing in quality that will go the distance with you.TV Screens Aren’t Built to Withstand Heat and Grease. One thing we all know about the restaurant industry is it gets hot and greasy fast! TV screens are made to be viewed from the comfort of our living rooms or other leisurely places and aren’t designed for the heat. As a result, TV screens will only last a couple of years in a setting such as this and will get dirtier faster, whereas commercial grade screens will last 5-7 years and hold up extremely well under QSR and Fast Casual restaurant conditions.TV Screen Warranties do Not Cover Commercial Use. The majority of TV screen warranties spell out the fact that they will not cover damages if the TV is used in a commercial setting. They also usually place the responsibility on the consumer to bring their TV into a repair service if it needs repairs, versus coming out to the consumer to fix it. The last thing you want as a busy restaurant operator is to have to find the time uninstall your TV, bring it to a store, have it fixed (which could take days, IF they’ll even fix it under your consumer warranty), drive it back to your restaurant and remount and install it. Most commercial grade screens offer a warranty program to cover repairs and to ship and install replacement or temporary screens.TV Screens Have Too Many Settings. Good old regular TVs have lots of different settings that can be used to control color, brightness, channel labels, inputs, etc. If you’ve ever accidentally stumbled into the settings menu on your TV and somehow turned everything green you know what we’re talking about. A restaurant manager may be extremely confused how to set up their TV settings properly to display their menu boards or an employee may unknowingly change them and not know how to get the menu back on the TV. This is frustrating when it happens with one TV, what happens if you have three TVs with menus, or five? Total headache. Commercial screens, however, include a special user interface allowing the operator to set up the screens, to ensure they are programmed accurately and continue to display correctly.So there you go folks, the top reasons why you should use commercial grade screens over consumer TVs. Oh and one final reason…using commercial screens means you won’t have to go battle the crowds at Sam’s Club on Black Friday to get your new TVs....Read more...Is the FDA Menu Labeling Requirement Going to Hurt my Restaurant Sales?September 2, 2015One of the questions we are frequently getting from customers is how the FDA menu labeling requirement mandating caloric counts on restaurant menus will hurt their sales. It’s a tricky question, but here’s our answer. Because the FDA caloric bill has not yet gone into effect for compliance nationally, research is relatively sparse in this area. While states like New York and California have had this requirement in place for many years now, much of the sales data is proprietary and very specific to each brand. That said, there are several ‘self-published’ findings from many large brands. These should be taken with a grain of salt since these findings are published by the brand, but by and large they generally show no decrease in revenue after introducing caloric labeling. The findings also indicate a drop in average caloric value of an order, which would indicate that customers are generally opting towards lower calorie options, even if they are equivalently or more expensive. Also, as we mentioned in the webinar we did on this topic, this information is very brand specific – brands like Starbucks cultivate an image of healthy options, good for you foods, and generally healthy offerings, and have seen no drop in reported revenue. Conversely, brands like Chipotle have embraced their high caloric values, and are self-reporting that this has actually increased their revenue in the long run in states where compliance is already mandatory. The advice we’ve given all clients is to develop a strategy around adding caloric counts to your menus that works for your restaurant. Every restaurant concept is unique with different customer expectations. Do some strategizing to figure out what will work best for you. Need more details on the FDA menu labeling requirement? Check out the National Restaurant Association’s comprehensive resource center....Read more...7 Awesome Things You Can Do With Outdoor Digital Menu BoardsAugust 26, 2015 With the recent influx of outdoor digital technologies into the market, we thought you needed to know just what a great opportunity outdoor Digital Menu Boards present. Outdoor digital menus are something we know well, having been working with them for more than a decade now, and with the launch of two new WAND outdoor digital solutions, now’s a great opportunity for us to share some of the things we’ve learned! Here are seven awesome things you can do with outdoor Digital Menu Boards to improve both your customers’ experience….and your bottom line.Direct Traffic: If you operate a drive-thru, you know that getting folks to follow the ordering process, and to queue efficiently can have a big impact on a customer’s perception of quality. Digital menu boards can be used to display informational text to customers, telling them how to order, which service area to move to, and even how long they can expect to wait to be served. Integrating way-finding into outdoor digital menu boards can not only increase your speed of service, it can help send your guests away feeling like you’re on top of your game.Influence Decision Making in Your Favor: Digital menus provide the unique opportunity to promote the right items at the right time. This holds true nowhere more than in the drive-thru. Do you have a line of 15 cars waiting to progress through the queue? Change up your signage to promote items that can be prepped quickly and easily to speed up service. Is it 3pm, and your drive-thru is almost too quiet? Promote items that carry the highest margins to make the most of a slow time of day.Engage Your Guests with Your Brand: As you have probably seen in some of our other blogs, we know how to help you up your margins with digital menu content. The drive-thru presents the unique opportunity of playing to a ‘captive audience’ – sitting in line is always boring, but sitting in line in your car will have you looking for anything to entertain your eyes. Capitalize on the ever-growing consumption of digital media to let your guests get to know your brand – show off your amazing recipes, educate them on your brand, and take the opportunity to let them get to know you a little better while they’re visiting.Install Quickly: Five years ago, I would have been crazy to put this in a blog post! Outdoor digital hardware was large, heavy, and required specialized equipment to install. Today, two people can install an entire digital menu system in a matter of a few hours. If you can operate a socket wrench and a measuring tape, you’re officially qualified to install an outdoor Digital Menu Board.Spruce Up Your Order Confirmation: Did you know that you can integrate with a POS feed to display order confirmation on a digital menu? Even better, when you’re not using that space to make sure your customers get exactly what they’ve ordered, we can use it to promote items, deliver messaging, or let your customers see what’s going on inside the restaurant.Engage Your Customers as they order: Indoor Digital Menu Boards are great. They let you engage your customer right at the point of purchase, influencing their behavior in a remarkable way. But here’s the thing….the things that are great about indoor digital menu boards are magnified with outdoor digital menu boards. In an indoor ordering scenario, your guest is likely to look away from the menu board and face the register operator to place their order. In an outdoor ordering environment, that guest is going to continue staring at those beautiful digital displays the entire time, which means you can use techniques like suggestive upselling, guided ordering, and customer influence to their maximum potential!Enhance the Look and Feel of Your Restaurant: This one’s a no-brainer – Digital Menu Boards make a restaurant look more appealing to potential guests as they drive by. 29% of consumers report to MARC Research that they will bypass an unknown restaurant if it does not look visually appealing, regardless of the quality of the food they serve. That’s money out of your pocket, simply because your storefront doesn’t entice customers. By leveraging animation, vibrant colors, and brightly lit outdoor displays, you can entice more consumers into your restaurant with a beautiful look and feel that costs less than hiring a contractor to reface your entire building.So there you have it folks – outdoor Digital Menu Boards are becoming more cost friendly, easier to install, easier to use, and above all else they can help your bottom line in the segment of your business that accounts for more than 2/3 of your overall revenue, and delight your customers at the same time!...Read more...5 Quick Tips to Help You Prepare for Outdoor Digital MenusAugust 12, 2015If you haven’t heard in some of our earlier blog posts affordable outdoor digital menus for QSR and Fast Casual are here to stay. As hardware prices continue to come down, systems become more modular, and installations get easier, more and more brands are adopting outdoor digital menu systems to help increase revenue in the most prevalent sector of their business…and that means you need to be ready for outdoor digital menus sooner than later! Here are five quick tips to make sure you’re ready for outdoor digital menu systems when they arrive:Integrate Your POS System. While they look great, drive revenue, and engage customers, outdoor digital menu systems are really all about adding operational efficiency. If you have to send an employee outside to change prices, update menu slats, or direct traffic through the drive-thru, you’re losing money every time they go out that door. One of the best steps to preparing for outdoor digital menus is to integrate your POS system with your digital menu system now, so that when those outdoor menus get installed, they’ll begin automatically updating pricing from day one. How much would you save on operational expenses if you didn’t need to send someone outside to manage your drive-thru menus ever again?Identify Your Digital Menu Strategy. Brand engagement opportunities with outdoor digital menu system are vast, but to truly engage your customers you need a digital menu strategy. A few questions to ask yourself when planning for digital menus:Does your displayed menu mix vary between indoor and outdoor? What items do you want to feature most heavily in the outdoor space? Do you prefer to focus on the money makers, or the quickly served bundled items? How can you maximize the use of the existing brand content you already have? Can you re-utilize content from your indoor signage system, or do you need to plan to create unique content for your outdoor space? What items may need to change on the fly? Do you promote hot or cold drinks that may not sell as well in inclement weather? Do you have promotional items that drag down your speed of service during peak hours? What about items that don’t serve well through the drive-thru (ever had hot chili cheese fries spill in your lap? I have!)Set Goals. We evangelize strategy planning every chance we get. Having goals for your strategy is important, but even more important is having the RIGHT goals. Here’s a few metrics you may not have considered when thinking about how to measure ROI from your outdoor digital menu system:Sales Lift: This one’s pretty obvious. Tracking sales lift on key items is a great metric for tracking the success of a digital menu program. Operational Costs: Make sure you’re tracking your overall operational costs as you track the outdoor digital signage program. This is an often overlooked metric that can provide a great return over time. Speed of Service: Because there’s no sales number directly tied to your speed of service, you may consider this an unimportant metric when measuring the success of a menu program, but truth be told, the speed at which you serve your customers directly impacts their willingness to return and order again, and outdoor digital menu boards play a direct role in that. Order Accuracy: Just like speed of service, tracking your order accuracy doesn’t necessarily provide a direct financial metric (other than throwing away incorrect orders), but can be a very strong indicator metric for the overall success of your outdoor menus. Average Check: Let’s go back to a metric that gives you a direct ROI value. Measuring your average check before and after the implementation of outdoor menus will tell you just how effective the content you’ve selected is.Plan to Measure. Before the sales orders are signed, work-orders completed, and outdoor Digital Menu Boards are powered up, have a solid plan in place on how you measure the success or failure of your digital menu program. Measuring one or two metrics at a single restaurant won’t give you an accurate picture of how successful your investment has been for you, and might lead you to decommission a program that is actually providing more ROI than you think. Set up a spreadsheet, define the intervals between measurement, and measure with enthusiasm! Even more importantly, take some time to track those metrics BEFORE you implement outdoor digital menus – this will give you an excellent baseline to which you can compare your results after implementation.Measure to Plan. This is another area where we see some brands fall a little short. Pilots and field tests may generate some encouraging initial results, leading you to assume that the program is a success (or vice versa, but we hope that’s not the case!). Truth be told, no single metric can truly measure the impact of such an important system, and the planning of a digital menu program should include constant changes to measure how different strategies affect your brand. Outdoor menu boards are great because they allow you to make changes to roll out updates system wide, plan out A/B testing in similar markets, test different price points, and collect previously not possible metrics to further refine your product marketing strategies....Read more...Three Awesome Ways to Use a Video Wall in a RestaurantAugust 5, 2015Video walls are cool. I usually spot them at places like the mall or airports, and when I do, I can’t help but stop and be mesmerized by them. The really exciting thing is that with recent technological advancements, video walls now cost far less than they used to, can now be used pretty much anywhere. This opens the door to their use in many more establishments! Here are some fun ideas for how you can use a video wall in a food locale such as QSR and Fast Casual restaurants, grocery stores and even convenience stores.Showcase your latest television ad. Ok this one is pretty simple but it’s fun and effective. Your company has spent millions on advertising and branding campaigns. Usually these campaigns hit consumers for just 30 seconds at a time so why not use the space in your restaurant to capture customer’s attention longer when they are waiting in line or dining in? A video wall is a great place to increase that brand preference and loyalty by running your current marketing campaign ads.Represent your brand personality. You can use your video wall to showcase your brand’s personality. It could be a video showing off the fresh ingredients you use in your food. Or chef’s preparing the yummy dishes you serve. Or maybe you’re targeting thrill seekers and it’s just a montage of craziness showing people skydiving or base jumping or doing extreme sports. Think about your brand differentiator and use your video wall to show it off.Transport your customers. You can enhance your restaurant atmosphere and add to the ambiance by using your video wall to transport your customers to a different locale. Perhaps you’ll show a view of a relaxing beach or a serene mountaintop or a tropical rain forest. As restaurants compete for business creating an atmosphere where people want to spend time is key to success. Consumer attitudes have changed and instead of the typical grab-and-go they want to sit down and enjoy a dining experience. Bonus! We think video walls are so cool we came up with an extra two ways you can use them:Make another sale. If the video wall is in the dining room of a restaurant, you can use it to promote deserts, drink refills or even merchandise, to go options, and catering services.Promote your services. You could also promote services your restaurant offers that beat out the competition such as mobile ordering or delivery services. Anytime you can focus on your restaurant differentiators, the better.Video walls were made to captivate people. Be sure to use them to their full advantage....Read more...Frequently Asked Questions about Restaurant EMV ReadersJuly 29, 2015We’ve been getting a ton of the same questions around EMV readers from many WAND QSR and Fast Casual restaurant operators so we thought it’d be good to use this post to answer them. Here we go! 1-What’s the timeline? When do I need EMV readers in my stores? Will the deadline be pushed back? The liability shift for restaurant operators occurs on October 1st, 2015. We strongly recommend having EMV readers in your store by that date. However, installing EMV readers isn’t as easy as it sounds because it involves a lot of moving parts. We do not anticipate the deadline to be pushed back so the sooner you can get started on this, the better. As a first step you should designate someone on your team as the EMV champion for this project. 2-The cost to add EMV readers sounds expensive. How much are we talking here? It depends. They are typically about $250-300 depending on the model and how many you’re buying. Obviously if you’re buying in bulk you’ll get a nice discount. You’ll need one per POS terminal in your restaurant, including your drive-thru. Another way to fund the new hardware is to switch your credit card relationship. If you change providers, there is a really good chance they will help you pay for the EMV readers. It is also possible that if you tell your current provider you are thinking about switching, they might consider funding the new equipment. 3-Do I need a reader for every register? What happens to the swiper that is already built into my register? Yes you need one EMV reader for each register in your store. The swiper (Magnetic Swipe Reader, or MSR) in your current register will no longer be used. It won’t be taken out of your POS or go anywhere, it’ll just stay there and collect a fine layer of dust. Built-in MSRs could potentially still be used for gift and loyalty cards, but it is better to get everyone in the habit of using the new terminal. Your next POS terminal won’t have one built in (but it may have an EMV reader built in.) 4-Can my new EMV hardware still accept credit cards that don’t have chips? Yep. It will accept all the transactions and data that your current POS uses. You’ll use the EMV reader slightly differently of course because it’s a new way to pay, so you’ll want to plan a bit of extra time when you purchase your EMV readers to educate staff. 5-In the drive thru, are we going to have to hand the customer the credit card reader out the window and has WAND thought about weather and the hardware (ie rains, snow)? More importantly, what will prevent the EMV reader from dropping out the window? This is an excellent question! First, the EMV reader will be attached to your restaurant POS with a cord (think a phone cord from days past). Second, the EMV readers are built to sustain throughout inclement weather and should not be damaged in the case of rain or snow, though if there is very heavy weather you should train your staff to collect the card from the customer instead of holding the EMV reader outside the window. We’re sure we’ll continue to get many more questions about EMV readers in the coming months and we’ll tackle all questions here on our blog. Look for more fun FAQ posts!...Read more...Marketing Agencies: Tips for Creating Digital Menu BoardsJuly 20, 2015Many restaurants are making the switch from using static menu boards to creating Digital Menu Boards to increase sales. As they are doing this they may be engaging their agency of record to create and manage their digital menu board content. If you’re an agency who finds yourself in this situation, congratulations! Digital Menu Boards are a powerful medium and allow you to do some awesome things.Here are some tips for creating Digital Menu Boards content for your clients: 1. Use Existing Assets. One great thing about digital is you don’t have to allocate huge additional budgets to get great content. Use your current campaign or brand assets (static imagery, broadcast files, online videos, etc.) to create dynamic in-store experiences for your customers on your menu boards. If you’re running a 30 second TV spot for a limited time offer, consider creating a companion promo that runs in store on your client’s menu boards. With very little design and editing effort you now have an additional touch point driving clients to conversion. 2. Incorporate Motion Graphics. Motion graphics can be a powerful stimulus that attracts attention to individual products or zones of a digital menu board. When you’re designing boards for your clients, identify key products and/or desired behaviors and put emphasis on those items and spaces via animated content. These special animated treatments on daily specials, add-ons, or combo upgrades can really grab customer attention and are intended to increase average check. 3. Create Big Experiences that are Meaningful. If you’ve got a number of screens and some exciting content consider executing a full digital menu board takeover. During this takeover you can run one 10-15 second promo in unison across all screens for a big impact or you may choose to use each screen individually, featuring a message build approach. It is important to really understand your target demographic and the delicate timing balance between showcasing product/pricing versus promotional messages. Understanding this “sweet spot” will ensure your clients get the big idea without interrupting the ordering process. 4. Discover the Power of Video Walls. The use of video walls is a rapidly growing concept and incorporating a full video wall can be a huge opportunity for brands to look fresh and modern. Video walls are a great delivery mechanism for brand and product messaging and they also upgrade the look and feel of the restaurant environment. This is truly a product where form meets function. 5. Understand Compliance Needs. The FDA caloric menu-labeling requirement may have been extended but it is really only a matter of time. Be sure you’re designing with caloric fields in mind for your clients as you make the switch from static to digital. They’ll appreciate the proactive efficiency effort and that will make your agency look like a bunch of superheroes....Read more...Why You Should Wait to Upgrade to Windows 10July 20, 2015**Update (2/23/2016): Beginning February 1st, Microsoft began marking Windows 10 as a “Recommended” update for all Windows 7 and 8 users. Prior to February, Windows 10 was marked as an “Optional” update which meant that the upgrade was not automatically downloaded unless users specifically requested the upgrade. However, now Windows 7 and 8 users may find that the Windows 10 upgrade is downloaded automatically as part of Window’s automatic updates process. This does NOT mean that Windows 10 will automatically be installed, rather, only that the upgrade files will be downloaded and users may be prompted to proceed with the actual upgrade. We continue to strongly advise our clients to refrain from performing an upgrade to Windows 10 at this time. We continue to be very optimistic about Windows 10 and are actively evaluating it as a platform for our various POS systems and devices. We will keep clients informed of WAND POS devices that we have successfully certified with the Windows 10 operating system. Windows 10 is finally here! Microsoft has recently announced that this widely anticipated next generation of the Windows operating system will be available beginning on July 29th. In addition to many new features, Windows 10 will attempt to deliver an updated interface optimized for both touch and traditional mouse and keyboard users – the lack of which has been attributed to the lukewarm reception of Windows 8. Much of the buzz around this release, however, stems from Microsoft’s announcement that for a limited time it will offer a free Windows 10 upgrade for those that have a valid Windows 7 or 8 license. In fact, on many Windows 7 and 8 devices a new taskbar notification has already appeared giving users an option to reserve their free Windows 10 download. All-in-all there are many reasons to be excited about the upcoming release of Windows 10. Unfortunately, there are also reasons to hesitate before jumping in and upgrading your Windows systems. In fact, we believe these reasons are substantial enough that we are advising our clients to take a wait and see approach and to not upgrade their POS manager workstations to Windows 10 at this time. At the top of the list is the potential for compatibility issues of your applications and devices with Windows 10. There are a lot of moving parts on a typical POS system (think registers, back office systems, credit card terminals, biometrics, kitchen displays, etc., etc.) and any of these components could be negatively impacted with a hasty upgrade. By holding off on upgrading, you will be allowing WAND, and your other vendors, an opportunity to evaluate and certify our applications and devices on Windows 10 before you upgrade your mission critical systems. In addition, there are still many unanswered questions surrounding Microsoft’s free upgrade that should give you reason to pause before upgrading. Questions such as: • Do users who upgrade receive a license key? If so, can this be transferred to other devices? This is an important question to consider for devices under maintenance contracts that may be “swapped” out. • Since Windows 10 is only free for current devices, how much of a PC can be repaired or upgraded before Windows thinks you have a new PC and Microsoft asks you to pay? • How much will Windows 10 cost for new devices? What about existing devices after the promotional period? Many of these questions will likely be answered over the coming months. However, at this point we strongly advise our clients to refrain from upgrading their POS systems to Windows 10. In fact, it is likely that devices upgraded to Windows 10 will not be able to be supported by our technical support, service, and repair teams. Although there is reason for much fanfare surrounding the release of Windows 10, we here at WAND recommend a wait and see approach. Over the coming months we will certainly be evaluating Windows 10 as a suitable platform for our POS applications and devices. In the meantime, if your organization has a significant business reason for upgrading sooner, let us know so we can work together to address your needs....Read more...QSR and Fast Casual Labor Scheduling Tips to Manage Restaurant Labor CostsJuly 15, 2015One of the biggest challenges of managing a QSR of Fast Casual restaurant labor costs is scheduling. You’re dealing with a lot of employees with different scheduling requirements and you need to balance coverage with peak times so you’re not wasting money on labor or understaffed when you need your crew the most. Here are some tips for how to improve labor scheduling at your restaurant. • Schedule by position. When working in your back office system you should schedule positions based on their certifications. When you do this it sets up controls so managers can’t schedule wrong people in the wrong roles. Doing this will help you reduce the amount of errors in scheduling because the system won’t let you schedule the wrong type of person for a shift. This way you won’t be wasting your time creating a schedule only to find out you’ve accidently an employee to work a position that they are not certified to work on. It’s a simple way to eliminate some scheduling headaches. • Schedule backwards. We all know there are good times to work and bad times to work. You want your best employees to work the best shifts. Instead of starting from the first slot open in the schedule and building from there, start with filling the best spots first with your best talent and working backwards from there. A simple trick is to use the bar graph function in your labor scheduling software to take a full look at your schedule once it’s complete and spot check it to make sure you are giving the best employees the best shifts and that no one is getting stuck with all the bad shifts as well as ensure that you have proper coverage every hour throughout the day • Share the schedule. Long gone are the days where the only way to communicate a schedule is to hang it in the employee lounge. When your schedule is complete be sure to share it via email with your managers and employees. Be prepared to get feedback from the team of shifts they’d like to change, but don’t change the whole schedule right away. Give everyone a few days to get back to you before you make any changes and resend the schedule to the team. We know how challenging it can be to create a schedule that makes everyone happy. Be sure to make the most of your restaurant back office software to make scheduling a bit easier in your restaurant. Good luck!...Read more...How to Lower Your Food Costs to Better Manage Your Restaurant ProfitabilityJuly 8, 2015As a restaurant operator you know one of your biggest challenges is managing your food costs and increase your restaurant profitability. Today I want to share a few tips for using your restaurant back office software to lower your food costs and better manage your profitability. 1. Know your food costs. It all starts here. First and foremost you need to know how much your food costs are so you can then identify areas of issue and make plans to adjust where necessary. We recommend doing a quick check of your food costs on a daily basis and doing a more thorough analysis on a weekly basis. 2. Tighten your controls. One of the first things operators do to remedy high food costs is to tighten their controls. You can do this using the prep and production charts that are based off past history and projected sales which will tell you to prepare a certain amount of product. This will help you more accurately prepare food during the day and week so you can reduce waste. 3. Manage your portioning. Portioning can be a huge source of loss in the restaurant industry. Just like an over pour in the bar industry can ultimately cost a business thousands of dollars, over proportioned food items can be disastrous for your bottom line. Use portion control techniques with your cooks to make sure they are measuring everything. Train your staff well and hold them accountable for measuring portions correctly. 4. Be on the lookout for thieves. Not to be negative but the reality is there are thieves among us. The employee walking away with 50 pounds of beef every other week could be costing you some serious money. Use food inventory tools to view areas where things are not adding up. For example, if beef comes in 40 pounds per case, and you regularly run out, yet your daily beef sales aren’t adding up week after week. Take a look at your inventory controls and your labor schedule to see if you can determine patterns and find the culprit. 5. Order the right amount. Use the suggested order guide in your restaurant back office system to only order enough food to meet your sales projections. The last thing you want to do is throw out expired food, as you’re well aware, that’s money you can never get back. While these are some tips to help you lower your food costs the best advice I can give you is to stay on top of the numbers. It may seem overwhelming but the more organized you are and the more routinely and closely you analyze your data, the more you’ll be able to lower your food costs and increase your restaurant profitability....Read more...Four Major Project Management Tasks for Installing Digital Menu BoardsJune 26, 2015Digital Menu Boards are one part marketing, one part IT and one part operations – a powerful combination. As such, they require strong project management to get up and running. Whether you’re installing digital menu boards yourself for the first time or you’re working with a company specializing in them it’s important to understand the tasks needed to install properly. Here are the four major project management tasks of Digital Menu Boards.1. Planning. During the planning stage you’ll want to establish a schedule for multiple store installation and scope out the work for each site. Remember, each site can vary considerably based on their location, layouts and needs. A good rule of thumb is it takes 30 days to deploy domestically and 50 days internationally. Always plan for the unforeseen (inclement weather, contractor no shows, etc.) when making your schedule. 2. Construction. Work on this stage will start with a detailed site survey where you will want to obtain photos and take physical measurements, including where you expect the displays to be positioned and where the computer hardware will be located. An infrastructure should also be conducted to verify power and data infrastructure, Internet reliability, structural integrity, air flow and network connectivity for data lines. Be sure to confirm orientation (vertical or horizontal) and that the boards are positioned for optimal viewing angles. 3. Installation. After construction is done, the next step is to plan for the installation of the displays and accompanying gear. It is helpful to get drawings and specs from the equipment provider and make sure that the order is accurate for things like display size, mount type, pole, unistrut, rail length, and cable length (CAT5 and HDMI). Be sure the appropriate tools and hardware are used and all items are installed correctly (your partner should be able to manage this). 4. Content. With planning, construction and installation complete now it’s time for the fun stuff – getting awesome content on those boards! Be sure to start with a content strategy. Everything that is displayed in your store needs to align with a purpose. What are you hoping to achieve with your displays? DMBs can be used to:Expedite speed of service Educate customers about your brand Promote high margin/specialty/easy to make items Enhance the customer experienceA board displaying bright, high-definition video or hi-res pictures is your best bet to catch their eye. Video showing close-ups of one of your hot menu items is very effective in whetting appetites and influencing purchasing behavior. Be sure to also inform customers about choices, limited time offers (LTOs) and promotions.What other tips do you have to add for installing Digital Menu Boards?...Read more...Four Options for When Stuff (Restaurant Technology Hardware) BreaksJune 17, 2015It’s a topic no one wants to discuss, but the reality is sometimes stuff breaks. With Digital Menu Boards the thing that usually breaks is the restaurant technology hardware (screens, players, cabling). There exists some confusion amongst customers of what options you have when stuff breaks. Let’s hope it never happens to you, but in case it does, WAND Partners have four options if you find yourself in that worst case scenario.1. Buy New. With this option you will pay for the new equipment and you may receive a credit for old equipment turned in (depends on the type of equipment). Why pick this option? This is the best option besides using Advanced Exchange (explained below). Why pay for costly repairs on 5-10 year old equipment when you can get brand new faster equipment that will save you money in the long run? Also all units come with at least a one year warranty versus the industry standard of just three months. 2. Send it in for repair. In this second option you send us your equipment and we repair it and send it back. We provide a three month warranty on all repairs sent to us. Why pick this option? This is the cheapest option on the list in-terms of a one-time cost. It’s not an ideal long-term solution but it won’t cost you much in the short-term. 3. Swap it for a refurbished unit. With this option you can swap your broken piece of equipment for one that has been refurbished. You will pay for the equipment. Why pick this option? This option is cheaper than buying new but more expensive than a repair. You can also conduct the swap quickly and not need to wait as long as you will have to for a repair. 4. Use Advanced Exchange. WAND’s Advanced Exchange program means that we’ll ship you new hardware as soon as a failure is verified. You don’t have to wait around for us to receive failed hardware, by the time the failed hardware hits our loading dock, the new one is already at your store ready to install! Why pick this option? This options provides the quickest turn-around time for hardware failures, and ensures you’re back up and running as quickly as possible. To sum it up, if it were us in your shoes and something broke; our first choice is to be covered by Advanced Exchange. If uncovered we’d choose buying new first, followed by swapping for a refurbished unit and, finally, repairing a broken piece of hardware would be our last resort. Frankly our ideal choice would be to have nothing break in the first place! Broken restaurant technology hardware – ain’t nobody got time for that!...Read more...Marketing Agencies: What to Look for in a Digital Menu Boards PartnerJune 15, 2015One of the fastest growing mediums at QSR and Fast Casual restaurants is Digital Menu Boards. As a result, many concepts are reaching out to their agency of record to help find a Digital Menu Boards partner that is right for their brand. If you find yourself in this situation and as you look for the right partner to meet your clients’ needs, here are some points to consider. 1. Scalability. The first thing you’ll want to consider is the number of locations the brand has. It doesn’t matter if your client has three stores or 300+ stores, every brand has a plan for market domination and growth. If you’re working with a huge national brand with more than 100 locations you’ll definitely want to find a digital menu board provider who has experience implementing at that scale and beyond. As you do your research you’ll find there are companies that are capable of supporting wide-scale operations and others that say they can accommodate but don’t have the experience. 2. Digital Menu Board Configurations and Messaging. An important consideration for agencies and brands is how, where and when product and brand messaging will be delivered. A few brands are completely streamlined but most allow franchisees some level of control over the number of Digital Menu Boards installed onsite, where they get installed and even the left-to-right customer ordering flow. These variables absolutely impact a customer’s exposure points and overall experience. You can get the same number of product and messaging impressions out of a three board setup that you can out of a suite of six if you employ content zone and day part strategies. Look for a vendor who understands user-centered design concepts like user flows and journey mapping. 3. Corporate vs. Franchise Mix. Consider the numberof corporate versus franchised stores for the concept. If, like most brands, you have a combination of both corporate and franchise stores, you’ll want to look for a partner that allows the corporate brands to maintain their brand compliance at the corporate level, but also allows franchisees some control (or perceived control) to update what is displayed on their local menu boards. When the majority of the investment resides with the franchisees, it’s important their needs are heard while still ensuring that corporate clients have their key messages and promotions intact. You’ll want to find a partner who understands how to please both audiences. 4. Frequency and Admin of Content. Finally, you’ll also want to consider how often your brand rolls out Limited Time Offers (LTOs) and makes changes to messaging, pricing and products. One of the biggest differences between digital and static menu boards is it allows operators to swap content out more easily and thus, more frequently. Look for a vendor that will architect a system that can be managed efficiently by your agency, by a corporate-designated admin or in-house if that is preferred. Plus, mobile is everything now, right? You’ll want to find a partner who offers the ability for clients to make changes to their menu boards on-the-go, so busy field marketing managers or franchise operators can easily change pricing or imagery from anywhere. As you do your research, be sure to examine all options carefully to understand and find the right partner for your situation. Experienced Digital Menu Boards Partners should be willing to outline workflows that accommodate your specific needs and make your agency look like a bunch of resourceful rock stars....Read more...Digital Menu Boards Content Management: The Unexpected ElementJune 10, 2015As restaurant operators make the switch from static to Digital Menu Boards there is an unexpected element they quickly discover. They find out that it’s not just about screens and players (in fact, that’s the easy part) but it’s the Digital Menu Boards content management system that truly drives success. With static boards it’s a relatively straight-forward process; you design them, print them, send them to the store and hope they get put up. With Digital Menu Boards you’re working with rich media, such as movies and animated graphics, which make boards extremely compelling. However, they also require increased attention from the creative side, an easy interface to support operations, and serious technical horsepower to pull off in the restaurant. All these elements are managed through a content management system that you, your team, your agency and store franchisees will be using at various levels. As you’re looking at digital menu board alternatives be sure to look at the screen, player AND content management system to find something to best meet your needs. Here are a handful of things to consider:Usability – Is it a difficult system to learn? What training is available? Dayparting – How does dayparting work? Can I define my own dayparts or are they predefined? Automation – Will content automatically deploy to the stores? Can deployment be scheduled? How long does it take until new content is displayed in the stores? Content – How is my content created? Is it easy to upload existing content? What are the specs and formats required? On-the-Fly Updates – Can store managers make updates themselves? Can I control what they can or cannot change?Some actually believe you can manage content updates screen-by-screen, location by location, by shipping thumb drives around, or sending zip files by email, but you’ll quickly find that doesn’t scale. Who has time to deal with this complexity in a fast-moving restaurant? This is actually more labor intensive, and error prone than printed, static menu boards. Like most strategic initiatives in today’s world, this is a combined business and technology decision. From inception to completion, you can decide the amount of effort your internal team takes on, versus effort that can be accomplished by partners. Involve marketing, operations and technology teams to work together to determine the optimal approach for your company to take advantage of the best Digital Menu Boards content management system for your concept....Read more...Four EMV Liability Shift Myths DebunkedJune 8, 2015The EMV liability shift has been one of the hottest restaurant POS topics of 2015. With the looming shift on October 1st, 2015 many retailers are now taking steps to install EMV readers in their restaurants. As a restaurant POS provider we’ve closely followed this topic as we’ve prepared our own products for this shift. We’ve found there are many misconceptions in the market about it and wanted to debunk four of the most common myths. Myth One: EMV Prevent Credit Card Breaches. One of the biggest myths is if you get an EMV reader it will automatically protect your restaurant against the credit card breaches that have plagued retailers in recent years. This is simply not the case. In reality, EMV does little to prevent a data breach. What it actually does is make any stolen EMV credit card data virtually useless to the hackers. Therefore, EMV readers are certainly the first step towards reducing the likelihood of credit card fraud but in order to truly become secure you need to also implement basic security measures as outlined in the PCI DSS, including firewalls, network segmentation, tokenization, and end-to-end encryption to protect your data. Myth Two: Chip Cards Don’t Matter to Consumers. Another rumor circulating is it’s not consumers who care about using chip cards; it’s the credit card companies that are pushing them. Again, this is false. Customers are extremely wary of their information being breached and, as such, will take steps to ensure their data is protected. A chip cards study by MasterCard found that 75% of consumers agreed chip cards help protect their data and they expect to use these cards at merchants they frequent. Myth Three: EMV is Something New. EMV chip cards have actually been around for many years, introduced in the European market as early as 1999. They are standard in much of the world already and, in fact, the United States is one of the last countries to begin using them. Myth Four: The Cost of Adding EMV Readers is Greater Than the Cost of Fines from the Liability Shift. Many companies believe they are saving money by not adding EMV readers to their restaurants. They reason that fines they could potentially incur from having fraudulent credit card transactions after the October 1st liability shift are less than the cost to purchase EMV readers. While a valid point, the bottom line is the cost of having a credit card breach is measured in more than just a few fines incurred. There’s huge loses that can occur when a brand’s reputation is damaged. After Target’s infamous Christmas credit card breach of 2013 its profits fell by 40% and the company is still feeling the effects of the loss of consumer confidence in the brand. And given that 75% of consumers expect to use EMV readers when they shop, restaurants that aren’t catering to this audience could potentially face those customers going to the competition instead. When it comes to updating restaurant POS systems for the EMV liability shift my strong recommendation is to be proactive versus reactive. Your company and customers will thank you for it....Read more...EMV Liability Shift Info for QSR OperatorsJune 3, 2015Recent headlines about data breaches and credit card fraud have only reinforced what has been a troubling fact for a long time: traditional credit card transactions contain vital personal data that are targets for theft. In the United States alone, the cost of credit card fraud will top an estimated $10 billion in 2015. One measure taken by QSR and Fast Casual restaurants to control these costs is to step up their use of EMV cards with their restaurant POS in preparation of the EMV liability shift. If you haven’t seen one from your own credit card company, expect to get one soon. EMV cards (“chip cards”) were designed to reduce fraud associated with these transactions. EMV involves using secret cryptographic keys and chip-card capable point of sale (POS) terminals to authenticate credit and debit card transactions. Because EMV supported restaurant POS terminals encrypt the transaction information before transmitting, the information is never stored in unencrypted form at the terminal and the risk of fraud is eliminated. When implemented with PIN for cardholder verification, EMV limits the risk of lost/stolen/never-received fraud. In countries where EMV has been deployed, there has been a measurable and significant reduction in face-to-face fraud. Counterfeit Card Liability Shift Currently, when a criminal makes a purchase with a counterfeit card, the credit card issuer assumes liability (or cost). To encourage the use of EMV technology, the liability for fraudulent transactions made with EMV-compliant cards on non-EMV compliant devices (old magnetic strip reader), will shift to the merchant. After October 2015, if your restaurant accepts a fraudulent transaction paid with a chip card on a non-EMV compliant device your business may have to pay for the fraudulent purchase. To protect your business against this liability, you need to install EMV compliant devices. What the “Liability Shift” Means to You Since a typical ring-in at the register of a QSR restaurant is below $25, the actual money risk of accepting a counterfeit card is pretty low. Instead you run the greater risk of making headlines for being targeted by hackers who could gain access to financial information stored in your POS system. Equally unappealing is the prospect of getting in a dispute with your credit card provider over fraudulent transactions. In fact, in another attempt to control the costs of security breaches, many banks may impose fines or fees in the event of fraudulent transactions accepted on non-EMV systems Benefits of EMV Compliance Devices The bottom line is you want to avoid this liability in your restaurants and the easiest way to do this is to install an EMV compliant restaurant POS. When you do this you will: • Eliminate your liability in the event of a fraudulent transaction made with an EMV card, after October 15, 2015. • Reduce your risk of having your transaction data being hacked and the associated damage to your brand. • Reduce the risk of financial penalties levied by credit card issuers if you continue to accept payments on a non-EMV terminal or register with Magnetic Stripe Reader (MSR)....Read more...5 Restaurant POS Mistakes to AvoidJune 2, 2015Restaurant POS mistakes can make or break your business. Whether you’re a 20-location Fast Casual concept or a 200-location QSR concept, if you’re in the restaurant industry you’ve got a Point-of-Sale (POS) system all your restaurants use. We’ve made an extensive study of how restaurant POS systems are used and have observed thousands of transactions taking across hundreds of concepts. Unfortunately, we’ve also observed a few mistakes being made that can be avoided. Here are the five biggest mistakes to avoid with your QSR or Fast Casual restaurant POS system: 1. Overcomplicating it. The success of many newer restaurant concepts is based on the simplicity of their menus. The same goes for success with a POS system. Your POS can get very complicated very quickly and unfortunately in our fast-paced world that can mean lost sales and profits. When evaluating how to choose and setup your POS be sure to look at things from the front-line employee and GM perspective. The most important metrics are speed, accuracy and efficiency. If the system is overcomplicated, it will be difficult for employees to learn how to use it, and for managers to get the information they need to run the store. 2. Not making it customer friendly. It’s incredibly important to make sure you are using a POS that is customer-friendly. The best way to do this is by making sure your POS uses Conversational Ordering. This POS strategy allows the customer to speak their order with all the details that matter to them, in any order they want. Then, once they’ve stopped talking, the employee can easily make changes, recommendations, upsell to larger sizes, suggest a dessert, and collect a coupon or loyalty card. The customer gets to order with their style, and you get additional revenue– everyone is happy! 3. Ignoring PCI (Credit Card Payments) compliance. Security has always been important. No one wants to be the next story in the media about credit card fraud or identity theft. This year, the Payment landscape is changing due to highly publicized incidents but also because of new consumer-driven technologies like Apple Pay (which may improve your security and decrease your liability.) Making sure you are up to speed on Payment Card Industry (PCI) compliance is something that cannot be ignored, and something that your POS partner can help you understand and potentially capitalize on moving forward. 4. Using a system that doesn’t integrate. In the technology world we know how critical it is that systems talk to each other and integrate as seamlessly as possible. Be sure to understand how your POS system integrates with other technology such as your Digital Menu Boards, Online and Mobile Consumer Ordering, Food Supplier Integration, back office software and more. 5. Not conducting proper training. To start with, if your system requires more than a half day of training for someone of average intelligence to successfully take an order, you’ve got a problem. Proper training begins with making sure you have someone experienced with the POS scheduled to work with new employees so they can help them learn the process throughout their first day and also help back them up when things get busy. The more complex tasks in most POS systems that may require in depth training are those which are done less frequently– like managing shifts and individual employee schedules, and making maximum use of reports. Be sure to allocate time for GMs to participate in, and/or conduct regular POS training sessions as you roll-out new upgrades and make major changes in your system or to your offerings. If you’re in the market for a new restaurant POS be sure to avoid these five mistakes. And if you think your POS system is making many of these mistakes then it may be time to start looking for a new restaurant POS partner to meet your needs....Read more...How Many Digital Menu Boards do you Really Need?June 1, 2015One of the most frequently asked questions we get at WAND is how many Digital Menu Boards does my restaurant need? Here’s a general guideline we give clients for QSR restaurants: A stand-alone QSR restaurant with one to three registers (lanes), should have a minimum of two paired boards. For a store with heavier traffic (5 + lanes), 5 or 6 boards are recommended: a pair of boards can be positioned to serve each pair of lanes. Large restaurants can benefit by adding POP and pre-sale boards (additional displays located where the line starts in the store), and another one or two in the dining room. These displays warm up customers, and get them thinking about your current LTO and/or promote today’s high margin, easy to prepare lunch item (just as one great example). The dining room is a great place to run dessert items to get consumers to return to the counter. In a very large store or one with multiple entrances, consider eight or nine boards: three sets of paired displays and POP boards at each entrance and one in the dining room. Increasingly, QSRs are recognizing the operational efficiencies and increased sales enabled by Outdoor Digital Menu Boards, so you should consider pre-sale boards at the entrance to the lane(s) as well as one to three menu boards at the point of ordering. Restaurants in Mall Food Courts Nowhere are Digital Menu Boards more effective at increasing sales than in restaurants in mall food courts. No matter what the concept, sales will benefit from bright displays, with large food items—preferably with subtle motion, steam, pouring drinks, moving ice, and other video and/or animations to attract the consumer’s eye and help them gravitate toward your restaurant instead of a neighbor’s. The strategy here is to put up as many displays as possible within the constraints of the size and layout of the restaurant. Make sure you have really “vibrant” content, displayed on top quality extra bright commercial screens. This will create an overall experience/perception driver that says “we’re modern and clean”, and crushes the competition. Fast Casual Most new Fast Casual concepts have one to three registers/lanes. Menus tend to be simpler, so the emphasis should be on imagery and benefits— for example, “healthy” is a big motivator. If menus are simple enough, choose larger displays and hang one or two from the ceiling above and behind the counter at an appropriate sight line, height and viewing distance. Depending on the store layout, you may not need multiple boards for each lane. From an installation perspective, it’s worth noting that we’ve done some really classy and “organic” looking installations that fit in well with a “healthy” or “rustic” store design. Not what most people normally associate with big digital displays, but it’s a winning motif. You might be surprised by how much a DMB can look like a chalkboard if you put a wood frame around it! Convenience Stores There are lots of locations inside a convenience store that could benefit from Digital Signage. From a menu perspective, one or two displays, mounted from the ceiling above the deli counter could suffice. Larger stores, with multiple “food zones” can benefit from two menu boards at each station. Specialty coffee areas can also benefit greatly from DMBs, especially if flavors are featured and frequently changed. Market Delis & Quick Serve Market delis and quick serve counters present a unique opportunity to leverage impulse and planned spending from customers already in your location. These locations focus primarily on quick lunches, family meals, and impulse buys served right within the marketplace. Specialty foods are a great focus for these digital menu boards, and upsell opportunities are plentiful....Read more...Three Ways to Maximize Your Digital Creative Services InvestmentMay 27, 2015As the use of Digital Menu Boards continue to rise many companies are trying to adjust their digital creative services investment to maximize this channel, and integrate it into their multi-channel marketing strategies. The shift from static to Digital Menu Boards means you can change out LTOs faster, run more promotions, incorporate video walls, react to environmental conditions, and stay FDA compliant by adding calorie counts. Unfortunately, most companies do not have the designer skill set in-house or in their agency partner to develop content for this unique medium. This is why the digital creative services department at WAND is always insanely busy! (Which we love, by the way, we just keep throwing Red Bull at them to keep ‘em going). At WAND we want to make sure you’re getting the greatest possible value out of your Digital Dollar so our Rock Star creative team wants to share three things you can do to maximize your creative investment. 1. Plan well in advance. Whenever possible, plan ahead. We all have things that pop up in our markets that require a fast reaction, but if you have regular menu changes, LTOs or seasonal updates, plan these out in advance with your WAND account manager. It’s the old Time, Quality, Cost equation – get two, sacrifice one. If you plan far enough out we can work with you to recommend a schedule of updates to help you maximize your Digital Dollar. 2. Make a prioritized list of your needs. The more organized you can be with what you need; the better we can help build packages and bundles to help you save money. For example if you know you’ll be updating your calorie counts in Q3 and you also have three LTOs you’ll be running at that time we can schedule these together and dedicate a designer’s time to design them for you. On the flip side, if we’ve started the ball rolling on the calorie updates and suddenly need to add-in the LTOs it becomes more time consuming for us and more expensive for you. 3. Purchase creative blocks. Creative blocks are one of the best ways to save on creative fees, especially if your company structure doesn’t allow you to plan very far in advance or your market is extremely fluid and changing. With creative blocks you purchase a set number of hours each month to be used for creative services. Doing this not only allows you to ensure you have creative coverage but it also makes it easy to calculate your budget for the year. It’s one of the best ways to maximize your digital creative services. FDA Calorie Count Updates One final note, we are already starting to see an increase in the number of customers who need to add calorie counts to their menus in time for the December 1st FDA caloric mandate. If you know you’ll need to add calorie counts to your menus this year we strongly encourage you to start this process sooner rather than later. We can help get you started with this any time, just reach out to your WAND account manager. Cheers!...Read more...7 Awesome WAND TRM HacksMay 26, 2015Earlier this year we rolled out our updated interface in WAND TRM for Digital Menu Boards. As customers are still getting familiar with the new look and feel we thought we’d share some useful tricks to be more efficient in the system. Here are seven WAND TRM hacks to try out: 1. Use overlays to avoid making additional campaigns. If your store and district level managers can take control of their own content, make overlays which they can modify instead of creating one-off campaigns to accommodate all content variations. 2. Use the Display Library for at a glance system health. The Display Library can tell you immediately how healthy your digital endpoints are with the status icon. Whether you’re a store manager, franchisee, or managing an entire brand’s operations, you can quickly and easily see where trouble points are with your digital menu boards. 3. Name your displays something you can recognize. Naming conventions like Digital Menu 1, 2, 3, etc. aren’t always easy to recognize. Try naming your displays based on the purpose they serve instead, like Salad Menu, Burger Menu, or Combo Menu to make it easier to identify displays on the go. 4. Inject instead of recreate for assets. If you work with your company’s media on digital menu boards, consider updating an already active asset with the new file version (injecting) instead of creating and deploying a new one. Uploading a new file into an asset and marking it as the target file will cause that new version of the asset to go live immediately anywhere the old version was already in use. This is great for content updates that will be configured the same as the previous version. 5. Create a default campaign. Even if you don’t actively utilize your default campaign anywhere in your digital ecosystem, create and deploy a default campaign that can take over if scheduling conflicts for content occur – this ensures that you’ll have maximum content uptime. 6. Preview campaigns by day of week. OK, you got us…this isn’t really a hack, just a super useful tool that is sometimes overlooked. When previewing a campaign from TRM, use the Day of Week picker in the preview panel to see how your content will look on any day of the week. 7. Debug mode. We saved the best for last – did you know that the WAND TRM Digital Client has a debug mode that will give you tons of useful information on device configuration? This client mode will show you relevant information to setting up and maintaining your digital menu boards. Debug mode can be turned on in the Device Management screen, or by pressing ctrl+F8 (half screen) or ctrl+shift+f8 (full screen) on your keyboard. Debug mode even comes complete with screen centering marks to make sure your content looks its very best! Happy hacking!...Read more...10 Things Restaurant Marketing Agencies Should Know About Digital Menu BoardsMay 20, 2015Digital Menu Boards are one of the hottest opportunities in the QSR and Fast Casual restaurant space. If you are one of the many restaurant marketing agencies working with these types of restaurants they are definitely a medium you’ll want to know in and out. The reason? They help brands better compete for critical foot traffic and solve real problems for restaurant operators. They also create new opportunities for marketing restaurant agencies working with these brands. Here are the top ten things restaurant marketing agencies should know about digital menu boards. 1. They enhance the customer experience. Digital menu boards are an engaging space for relevant, visually appealing content. Vibrant digital displays capture the customer’s attention and hold it, just as television or videos do. Digital feels more modern and upscale in the store setting, and results in a more pleasant ordering and dining experience for customers. 2. They can be changed frequently. Corporate clients love that digital menu boards can be changed more easily and frequently than static boards. Whether they have a new product, new marketing campaign, or they want to test new products or change prices, it’s easy to do this using digital menu boards. They can easily roll out new content or test content to multiple sites with a click of a button. They can also change out messaging and new creative ideas as often as they want, monthly, weekly, or daily. Whatever schedule they prefer. 3. They support Omnichannel strategies. Digital menu boards sync enterprise media (web, television, mobile, in-store) to make menus part of a complete Omnichannel marketing strategy. Assets from a successful broadcast or print campaign can be optimized for the digital menu board medium so that all brand touch points are aligned and work harder for the brand. 4. They drive brand compliance. Nothing is worse than visiting one of your brand’s restaurants only to see an outdated or off-brand message displayed. Digital menu boards allow brands to control brand compliance at the corporate level so they can ensure the right content is playing at all times. 5. They create operational efficiencies that make you look smart. You know clients love when you save them money and make them look smart. Capitalize on all the benefits of digital as a way to open up new marketing opportunities and budgets for new projects. 6. They are agile to capitalize on local events. Another amazing benefit of digital menu boards is they can be altered quickly to take advantage of what’s happening in a market locally. For example, on a hot day the local operator can switch the promo board from a hot coffee promo to a cold coffee promo and increase conversion. If corporate controls allow, a regional manager can craft a custom LTO to celebrate local sports victories and drive in-store traffic. 7. They reduce perceived wait times. Perception is critical. Standing or sitting in line to order is more palatable when customers are entertained and distracted by cool video content, brand experiences and imagery. The reduction in perceived wait times means happier customers, even when lines are long. 8. They can help facilitate ordering. User-centered design in digital menu board campaigns can help customers make the right choices. Many companies are looking to simplify their menus to better impact consumer behavior and spending—digital makes implementation and management simpler. Motion graphics, special LTO zones and product highlights can help draw attention to high-revenue, specialty and unique product offerings. 9. They make it easy to comply with local and federal requirements. Digital menu boards allow for menu changes to be made quickly and across multiple sites at the same time. This makes the process of updating all menu boards to meet government requirements (such as the FDA caloric count menu labeling requirements) much simpler than on static boards. All boards can be updated at once with just a click of a button. 10. They’re innovative. Digital Menu Boards are a cool, unconventional medium to work with. You can concept, produce and deploy original content ideas that no one else is doing and in a unique medium. This is a great way to stand out and WOW your clients....Read more...The Secret to Decreasing the Burden of PCI Compliance in Your RestaurantsMay 18, 2015As you know compliance in the payment card industry (PCI compliance) is becoming a much greater challenge for restaurants. With recent security breaches at many national brands it’s critical to your brand’s reputation (and bottom line) to stay PCI compliant. The good news is we’ve figured out the secret to decreasing the burden of PCI compliance in your restaurants. So what is it?To reduce the amount of evidence you need to provide for specific PCI requirements. The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) is a set of requirements designed to ensure that ALL companies that process, store or transmit credit card information maintain a secure environment. PCI applies to ALL organizations or merchants, regardless of size or number of transactions, that accepts, transmits or stores any cardholder data. In addition, PA-DSS refers to requirements designed to ensure that vendors provide products that support merchants’ efforts to maintain PCI DSS compliance and eliminate the storage of sensitive cardholder data. Even though PCI Compliance is not a law, it is a set of standards your bank or card issuer expects you to comply with. In fact, you may be charged fines or have bank fees increased for compliance violations. In addition, if you are not PCI compliant and there is a data breach, you might also risk card replacement costs, costly forensic audits, as well as brand damage. By complying with PCI, you greatly reduce these risks. Unfortunately, becoming PCI compliant requires that your business complete a series of questionnaires and provide evidence of compliance. For some companies this can be an expensive and time-consuming process, involving quite a bit of research, meetings and documentation. You can reduce the burden of proving PCI Compliance by using Payment Unaware POS solutions. That’s a restaurant POS system where no credit card information is stored on the POS, making them “Payment Unaware.” Having a “Payment Unaware” POS solution can dramatically reduce the number of PCI Compliance requirements you have to address, and simplify the compliance process overall. The bottom line is the less credit card information you have stored in your restaurant POS, the less time you have to spend worrying about being PCI compliant. And that is the simple secret to reducing your PCI compliance burden....Read more...5 Things You Need to Know about WAND TRM ReportingMay 13, 20151. What it Is WAND’s TRM Reporting provides WAND’s NextGen Point of Sale customers relevant, meaningful data in near real time. With your web browser you have access to 100+ reports that allow you to view your business from a big picture perspective and quickly drill down to issues at specific sites. Or you can use the WAND TRM Reporting app to get the scoop on essential metrics from the palm of your hand. No matter how you view them, we designed the reports to give you a high level overview of your organization with the option to quickly drill down to examine more granular supporting data and pin-point potential issues. 2. What Reports Look Like With TRM Reporting, you can run reports like the Store Summary Report and quickly see how your company is performing based off some key metrics like sales +/- last year and week, labor +/- guide, or cash over/short. You can quickly expand out the company information to see it broken down by group and further expand it to see individual sites. From there, you can click on the Cash +/- numbers to see individual cashier performance and see who lost the most cash. 3. What Reports Look Like in TRM Mobile Using the TRM Mobile Application you can drill down to individual stores to pinpoint where issues may arise. In the examples below, you can quickly see that for last week, you are up over $31,000 over last week. You touch that number to see a store by store break down and then touch one of the sites to see a day by day breakdown only to realize that last Sunday was a holiday and all your stores were closed for the day.4. What the Benefits Are • Near Real Time data from the site • Drill down from company to groups to store level • Click to link to more detailed reports • Available anywhere from any device 5. How to Get It WAND’s TRM Reporting is available as a part of our Silver or Gold product packages and works exclusively with the WAND NextGen Point of Sale system. If you are interested in adding the Silver or Gold package, speak with your WAND account manager to start the process so you can view advanced WAND TRM reporting. ...Read more...Four Hidden Costs of an Aging Restaurant POS SystemMay 6, 2015A restaurant POS system is at the heart of a QSR or Fast Casual restaurant and can make a huge difference in how profitable a company is. Unfortunately, a restaurant POS system, like any technology, have a shelf life. Many organizations debate for months (sometimes years) whether the time is right to upgrade to a new system. While we can certainly understand the reason for wanting to delay a switch we’ve uncovered several hidden costs of sticking with an aging restaurant POS system. Here are four of them: 1. Reduced productivity. The older something is, the more likely it is to break. This is true of computers, cars, electronics, etc. What happens when stuff breaks? Someone at the restaurant needs to make a service call which takes them away from helping customers and into the back office to make the call. At the end of the day, staff time and productivity is wasted sitting on the phone trying to fix a broken technology. 2. Increased repair costs. Along with making help desk calls, when something breaks there is usually something that needs to be fixed, resulting in a service fee, hardware fee or some other fee. And the older the technology, the harder it is to find and replace since most manufacturers will have stopped producing it at some point, likely several years ago. Anyone who has owned an old car knows eventually they hit a break-even point where the cost of repairing it is more than the car is worth. The same thing is true of antiquated POS systems. 3. Lost sales. Any time a POS breaks sales are lost. Especially if it’s during a peak time. The last thing a burger establishment wants is a POS to break down in the middle of lunch and watch customers walk across the street to a taco restaurant with a working POS. The reality is busy customers won’t wait for a POS to be repaired, something that makes QSR and Fast Casual dining different than other types of dining experiences. 4. Lost sales…again. Even if a POS system doesn’t break, aging technology is slower than new technology. It’s a simple fact, the computer you have from five years ago is not as fast as the computer you have now. The same is true of your POS. And again, given customers’ desire for speed to get their food fast, a slow ordering system is going to make them frustrated and deter them from visiting again. The bottom line is if you’re debating whether or not you should upgrade your restaurant POS system you must look at these hidden costs and analyze how much you’re losing staying with an outdated system versus how much you could gain from upgrading to an updated system....Read more...5 Reasons Outdoor Digital Menu Boards Win!April 30, 2015The other day, my daughter and I drove into the drive-thru at a very popular restaurant. Our mission: to get my kid her favorite egg sandwich. As we were sitting in the car at the menu boards waiting to order, two uniformed crew members ran out of the back door of the restaurant and began to take the signs apart to replace the Breakfast content with the Lunch boards. We moved ahead and placed our orders but since this was a dual-lane drive-thru and also had a presell board, the folks who were tasked with changing out the boards were still out there as we drove off down the street with our breakfast! The moral of this story? Operational efficiency and Return on Investment (ROI) should both be considered as reasons for adding Outdoor Digital Menu Boards to your QSR or Fast Casual restaurant. Yes, the initial capital expense for outdoor digital can be 2x more than indoor, but if your store’s numbers work, this is a big win. Here are five reasons Outdoor Digital Menu Boards are a big win for restaurants: 1. There is an ROI. If the drive-thru represents 60-70% of your restaurant revenue, and you’ve already succeeded with Digital inside, simple math says you really can financially justify spending 2x or possibly even more on Outdoor. 2. New Outdoor Technology is Better. Brighter Screens (2000 nit) are less expensive than they were five years ago, and enclosures can weather the elements (hot, cold, wet) in some cases without air conditioners and lots of noisy fans. Not to mention lower energy consumption. 3. Increased Sales of Higher Profit Items. Simplicity is the key to menu content at the drive-thru. During busy times, you want customers to see and order the fastest, highest profit items. Digital is the only way to effectively influence customer behavior outside during each day part, special events, and holidays. Help them find and order their favorite LTOs. 4. No More Cranes! It used to take a truck crane to do three-board Outdoor installations, and many lanes can’t accommodate a crane. Today, there are great looking enclosures that can be erected with two strong laborers. 5. Calories, Anyone? The upcoming FDA menu labeling requirements for calorie counts that kick in on December 1, 2015 apply equally to outdoor menus as they do to indoor. Don’t let the regulations have a negative impact on outdoor sales by making your menus even more complicated and busy than they already are— instead use digital techniques, such as movies and motion graphics, to make them simpler, more attractive and dynamic. In the very near future, Outdoor Digital Menu Boards in the drive-thru will become an expectation of customers. The bottom line is you’ll need this to compete effectively. The digital drive-thru improves your ability to sell, increases order accuracy, creates the ability to react more quickly to market changes and current events, keeps restaurants in sync with enterprise media buying such as TV, Radio and the Internet, can reduced perceived waiting times and promotes customer satisfaction, especially among younger demographics who prefer digital to static content and like waiting even less than their parents!...Read more...QSR and Fast Casual Restaurant POS Training TipsApril 28, 2015So you’ve purchased an awesome new restaurant POS system and are super psyched to roll it out. You’ve got the install scheduled and restaurant managers notified. You’re ready to go and then you realize “how are we going to train everyone in on the new system???” Most likely you’ve gone through a new POS rollout before, but if you haven’t, here are a few restaurant POS training tips we’ve learned over the years to make it easier for you. Be sure to share these with your store managers and operations leaders to ensure you have the most effective roll-out possible. • Train the trainer. One of the best ways to roll out a new POS is to designate someone in each restaurant as the “trainer” for the store. This super user is responsible for knowing the new POS in and out and will then be responsible for training other employees on how to use it and troubleshooting when employees have questions. The best person for this role is someone who is smart and works a lot of hours during peak times, so a shift manager or lead supervisor. • Hold a mandatory training session. Host a mandatory restaurant POS training session for all employees at a time when the store is closed or (if you’re open 24/7) during non-peak times. Here’s a pro tip – even though it may be a mandatory session, people may not show up so incentivize them with free food or a door prize raffle. Little things like this can make a big difference in increasing attendance. • Make it easy. By far the best way to train someone on a new system is to make it easy and keep it simple and straightforward. Instead of going through all 25 combos, pick the three most popular to use as an example. Put yourself in the shoes of the employees and think about what you would need to know the most about the new system if you were on the register during a busy day. The easier the POS is to use, the less training there will be. If the POS takes more than a day for a new employee to be productive taking orders, you should take a serious look at the POS software, or how you have it setup. • Make it hands-on. If you’re conducting the restaurant POS training in a 1:1 be sure to give the controls to the employee you’re training. Start by showing them how to do something and then hand the reigns over to them and ask them to repeat what you just taught. Having someone actually use the system themselves will make it a better training experience for them. These tips are good for rolling out a brand new POS system but they can also be used for new employees. Bonus tip: be sure to have a POS training program established for new employees in your restaurants....Read more...Don’t Let Your Biggest Loser Be Your Restaurant POS SystemApril 25, 2015The point of sale (POS) system is at the heart of every restaurant and is the one piece of technology most restaurants literally can’t live without. These days, not just any POS system will do. Restaurants in the Fast Casual/QSR arena need POS systems built for speed of service, security, and enhanced guest experiences to remain competitive. Here are three great examples of how invaluable an enhanced POS system is to your restaurant’s success. What each points out is technology road-maps are pushing out ever more innovative solutions, and make keeping up with the times the first step to having your POS system as your restaurant’s biggest winner. 1. Increased Operational Benefits Perhaps the largest benefit to a new POS system is how the collection and interpretation of data can lead to whole new levels of success. Just think, these systems can reduce food and labor costs while increasing sales with integrated mobile ordering. For instance, reporting features allow you to discover the best and worst performing items, identify which employees are the most and least productive, and determine peak business hours.The identification of waste alone is a sufficient reason to upgrade the POS. While a returned item here or there might not seem like it could add up, the accumulated cost over a single year becomes monstrous. One happy restaurant saved more than $100,000 just by identifying and eliminating such waste. 2. Improved Guest Experience If the question has ever been asked “Why upgrade the POS?” the answer is simple. New technology. True, new technologies are empowering, helping to streamline a business. However, they also make a great impact on the overall guest experience. Using a POS system that uses conversational ordering, for example, makes it much easier for customers to place their orders and for employees to easily make upgrades and sell add-ons to increase average order size. The easier and faster it is for customers to get their food, the happier they’ll be and the more likely they’ll be to come back. 3. Updated Security Systems A POS update is vital to keep up with ever-changing PCI compliance standards. Businesses using systems that are not PCI compliant are at risk for big data breaches which have hit big name retailers and have long-term effects on customer loyalty and the bottom line. The average data-breach of a non-PCI compliant restaurant is $80,000, and most don’t survive the financial damage. Newer systems provide end-to-end encryption and do not store any credit card data, important features that meet PCI compliance. These new features are enabled by innovative cloud-based technology. Of course, not only does the cloud keep your customer safe, it also enables businesses to accumulate and process their data. Interested in learning more about making sure your restaurant POS system is a winner? Check out our blog post on The Five Biggest Restaurant POS Mistakes to Avoid....Read more...6 Steps for Managing Digital Menu Board Content across Multiple LocationsApril 22, 2015One of the biggest pain points we hear from customers is that it can be incredibly challenging to manage digital menu board content across multiple restaurant locations. This is especially difficult for corporate executives or franchise operators who travel frequently and need to change menu content when they’re on the go. At WAND we want to make everyone’s life is a little easier. So here are six steps for managing your digital menu board content across multiple restaurant locations. 1. Strategy is key! Before you set loose your design team to create amazing menu content for your brand, take a step back and think about how you can make your content work for you. Things like introducing variable content, allowing limited local control, and ensuring that your content can be updated easily across the brand can make the time spent creating a strategy pay itself back tenfold. Here are a couple of quick tips to maximize the impact of your strategy:Involve Operations Personnel: Ops personnel can be a valuable asset to marketing teams when defining what content needs to be the most flexible vs. content that rarely changes. More Options = More Work for You: If every franchisee has 47 options of what menu items will show on their menu boards, you’ll end up with more iterations of content, making it harder (and more expensive) to scale your digital menu program. If optional items are a must, make them dynamic and allow the franchisee the ability to control them to mitigate costs. Manage from the Top: A good content management system will let you tier your digital content across your brand’s organizational hierarchy as you filter down to the store level. Create content campaigns for the brand, and provide focused local control to lessen the amount of work required by operations and marketing personnel at the brand level. Talk to Your Team: While this may seem obvious to most, general and district managers can provide great input on the functionalities they actually need for digital menu content. Leverage your organizational intelligence, and get input from the feet on the streets before you start creating!Step 1: Hold a strategy session or two and document your strategy. 2. Create a schedule. Start by figuring out what you want to do for updating menu board content in the next 3-6 months. Consider when you’ll want to promote current marketing campaigns, make seasonal updates or release limited time offers. You’ll also need to determine when you’ll make major menu updates such as adding calorie counts or introducing a new menu offering. Step 2: Document your menu board schedule on a calendar so it’s easy to see when changes will be made. 3. Determine who gets access to change content. One of the best features of digital menu boards is the ability to use dynamic content, which allows you to create a number of different content options and allow operators to choose what content to show on their boards. For example, you could choose three content overlays to run on all menu boards at all restaurants no matter what. Then you could make five content overlay options (e.g. hot coffee, cold coffee, cheeseburger, salad, ice cream) and give store operators the ability to pick and choose what overlay they want to display at any given time. It’s a double win; a) since they know their individual store best it’s easy for them to decide what to promote and b) you won’t have to spend time managing individual content at the store level. Step 3: Create a list of who gets access to change content at the corporate level and individual store level. 4. Stay organized. I can’t stress this one enough. Once you have your calendar in place make sure you stay as organized as possible. Given multiple menu items, LTOs, marketing campaigns and dayparting changes, it’s very easy to unravel quickly. Stay organized by making a task list, creating reminders on your Outlook/Gmail calendar for critical dates and submitting your creative requests well in advance. The more proactive and organized you are up front, the more flexible you are to react to market changes. Step 4: Use task lists and calendar reminders to stay organized. 5. Go mobile. By far one of the coolest features of WAND Digital is you can easily make menu board updates on your mobile device (tablet or smartphone). Once you’ve created your menu boards there are a number of things you can do on the fly using your mobile:Make price changes Swap out promotional overlays Update calorie counts Create a ‘failover’ when hardware stops workingAnd like the desktop version of Wand Digital you can give the right people the right access to the mobile version so store operators can change their menu board as needed. Step 5: Use the WAND Digital mobile app (only available in the Gold package). 6. Train your operators. You can have the best content overlays in the world, but it won’t matter if your operators don’t know how to change them. Hold training sessions, create a “how to” document and send email communications to make sure operators know how to swap out this content. The best way to do this is via a webinar since you can hold them quickly and you can make a recording to share with those who cannot attend. You can either host the webinar yourself or ask your WAND account manager to have someone from WAND run the training webinar for your operators. Step 6: Hold a webinar to train your operators how to swap out overlays and use the mobile app....Read more...4 Cool Things Restaurant Franchisees Can Do With Digital Menu BoardsApril 16, 2015Digital Menu Boards are one of the hottest trends in the QSR and Fast Casual restaurant industry which is why many corporations are investing in them to give their restaurant franchisees an edge over the competition. Most franchisers have a pretty good idea for what menu boards can do for them but there are some totally awesome benefits of using digital menu boards a lot of people don’t know about. Here are four of the coolest things restaurant franchisees can do with digital menu boards in their restaurants.1. You can change your own menu board content. The way digital menu boards work is corporate marketing creates different sets of promotional content (called “overlays”). As an operator you can pick and choose what overlays you want to run at your restaurant at any given time. You can even delegate this task to store managers so they have the power to change this content at any time. This type of autonomy is very empowering for store managers who then can make on-the-spot changes to update their menu boards to increase sales. 2. You can make updates from your mobile device. One of the biggest advantages of digital menu boards are they allow you to make changes to your menu board instantaneously from your mobile device (tablet or phone). This way if you’re visiting a restaurant and want to make a menu board change you don’t have to return to your office to do so, you can simply make the change on-the-spot. You can designate who controls the content to give your store managers access to do this as well. 3. You can change menu prices. Along with the ability to swap out complete promotional overlays you can also access your menu and adjust prices as needed. As we all know, price makes a huge difference so digital menu boards allow you to simply and quickly change prices. You can give store managers access to your digital menu boards as well if you wish to employer them to make on-the-spot changes to maximize profits. 4. You can stop worrying about product recalls and FDA compliance. One of the best things about digital menu boards is menu changes can be made at the individual restaurant level or at the corporate level. That means when there are changes affecting all menu boards across your brand like a product recall or a FDA mandate (such as the caloric counts menu labeling requirement) corporate will make the change once and roll it out to all restaurants. With Digital Menu Boards you don’t have to worry about pulling boards down or putting new boards up. The change is made by corporate instantaneously....Read more...4 Benefits from Mobile Contactless PaymentsApril 9, 2015Mobile contactless payments are on the rise across the country. The 2014 National Restaurant Association Technology Innovations Consumer Study pointed out that 35% of QSR and 20% of Fast Casual restaurants currently offer mobile payments. This new, fast-growing transaction method has already been proven in studies to improve loyalty and frequency among QSR and Fast Casual’s incredibly important young and affluent demographic. It’s clearly an exciting time in the industry, since it’s been a long time since restaurant POS systems have seen such a dramatic shift in consumer behavior. Here are the four biggest benefits of mobile contactless payments for restaurant operators. 1. Ride the Apple Pay tailwind. First and foremost, by accepting contactless payments, your business benefits from the enthusiastic adoption rates of Apple Pay and Google Wallet. You can expect the continued growth of contactless payment to track with the enthusiastic adoption of Apple Pay. But more than offering a more convenient form of payment, you can benefit from the significant “lift” associated with contactless payments. One study has shown that people making contactless payments spend as much as 30% more in a year, a significant portion of that going to the QSR and Fast Casual restaurants. In short, people spend more when they can use contactless payment to make purchases. Imagine what’s going to happen when the Apple Watch comes out on April 24! 2. New apps that drive business. When American Express, for example, fielded their iPhone app to support Apple Pay, they also provided additional increased personal protection against fraud and unauthorized transactions by notifying the consumer of all account transactions (not just the contactless ones). In addition to financial apps to track purchases, you will be seeing apps to engage in loyalty programs and apps to view promotions via text or social media accessed from mobile devices. 3. Enhanced security. In addition, both Apple Pay and Google Wallet take advantage of tokenization, a technology already used by chip-and-PIN EMV (Europay-Mastercard-Visa) credit cards which are starting to be issued widely now in the United States. Instead of sending and storing the consumer’s actual credit card information, the system generates a unique security code to encrypt the transaction. This security measure renders useless any data exposed during a security breach. A great way to get Contactless is to replace your old, insecure magnetic stripe readers with new terminals that provide Contactless along with EMV capabilities, so all of your customers will benefit from a more secure form of payment. Consumer awareness is growing, and is becoming a real differentiator when they make purchasing decisions . 4. Easier PCI Compliance. Another major benefit of contactless payments is that because the credit card information is not stored in the restaurant POS your POS becomes a “Payment Unaware” solution. Having a “Payment Unaware” POS solution is likely to dramatically reduce the PCI Compliance requirements you have to address, and may reduce your overall cost of compliance....Read more...5 Mobile Payments Stats for QSR and Fast Casual Restaurant OperatorsApril 2, 2015The adoption of mobile payments and use of smartphones and tablets to view menus and order food continues to rapidly grow. More and more consumers continue to rely on this technology and as a result, restaurant operators must move fast to keep up with the times. Looking through the 2014 National Restaurant Association Technology Innovations Consumer Study, here are five mobile payment stats we thought all QSR and Fast Casual restaurant operators should know. 1. 35% of QSR and 20% of Fast Casual restaurants currently offer mobile payment options. What it means for you: If you aren’t offering it, you need to. You don’t want to have to play catch up on this one. An additional 20% of QSRs and 15% of Fast Casuals are planning to offer mobile payments in the next 12 months. A year from now, half the market will have mobile payments so if you haven’t started to look at offering this through your restaurant POS system you need to start now. 2. 31% of consumers use mobile devices to view menus at least once a month. What it means for you: I was personally blown away by this stat. Almost a third of the market is looking at menus on mobile devices once a month. That’s pretty huge! For this one you need to make sure you have a responsive website or mobile app so it’s easy for consumers to view menus. And be sure to include calorie counts on those menus to stay FDA compliant. 3. 27% of consumers order from a restaurant’s website or app at least once a month. What it means for you: You’ll want a very well designed website and app. Clean, uncluttered and easy to use. These are great areas to upsell or incite a last minute purchase. And while we find restaurants do this very well when customers are at the restaurant POS we find many times restaurants forget to use this same “do you want fries with that?” approach on their website or app. Think of creative ways you can try to upsell or add-on items online to increase average order size. 4. 23% of consumers read online reviews at least once a month. What it means for you: This is one is no surprise, reviews matter. Continue to make sure your restaurants have stellar customer services, quality ingredients and an awesome in-restaurant experience. Think about adding in some non-traditional customer service activities such as table delivery service to make your restaurant stand out in online reviews. Anything that surprises and delights customers is something they are sure to share with others. 5. 33% of 25-34 year olds say they expect to use their smartphone to pay at restaurants. What it means for you: Consumer expectations have changed so restaurants need to adapt and stay ahead of the competition. The great news is mobile payments make things easier and faster for both restaurant operators and customers, so it’s a win-win situation all around....Read more...3 Contactless Payment Technology Tips for RestaurantsMarch 25, 2015At the risk of sounding obvious, there’s a lot of change happening in the Restaurant Point of Sale (POS) landscape. One of the most exciting changes is contactless payment technology. Contactless payment technology lets consumers make payments by waving or tapping a smartphone or other object. It’s a much faster and secure way to pay. And as those of us in the QSR and Fast Casual restaurant industry know, speed makes a huge difference for sales and profits. Below is a list of three things you need to know about contactless payments with restaurant POS systems. 1. Near Field Communication (NFC) is What Drives Contactless Payment NFC enables two-way communications that make it possible for mobile apps to provide valuable product and financial information to/from consumers. Services like Apple Pay, Google Wallet and others take advantage of NFC technology. The way contactless payments are implemented means the credit card data is never stored by the POS, which makes these payment methods more secure than traditional credit card transactions during which the old fashioned magnetic stripe is read, then the POS processes it before sending it to the credit card processor. Takeaway: Use a POS system that has hardware options available to support NFC. 2. Apple Pay is Quickly Making Tracks Apple Pay is Apple’s contactless payment service, and in many ways defines the space. Released in October 2014 it is showing early signs of success: Payments made through Apple Pay almost instantly accounted for between 0.1%-1.6% of transactions at five top retailers in the first month after the launch, a significant adoption rate, considering Apply Pay is only available on iPhone 6 and iOS 6 devices. According to Apple CEO Tim Cook over one million users activated credit cards through Apple Pay in the first 72 hours after launch. At the time of launch in October 2014, nearly 500 banks supported Apple Pay. That base continued to gain ground throughout the end of 2014. Takeaway: Don’t disappoint affluent customers by not accepting this payment method! Get ready to handle Apple Pay at your restaurant’s POS. Growth will continue to build, especially with the hot new Apple Watch coming. 3. Google Wallet is Close Behind There are several Android mobile wallets in the marketplace, and they are benefiting from Apple Pay as a category. Multiple sources confirm that leader Google Wallet saw a jump in payment volume following the launch of Apple Pay. Its usage skyrocketed, with transaction volumes jumping 50%. Meanwhile, the search giant’s payment service is seeing new users doubling sequentially compared to previous months. Takeaway: Customers who love their new Samsung phone as much as you love your iPhone 6 will be thrilled to find out you take Google Wallet. The good news is, when you look more closely it will become clear this is a great opportunity to improve security, efficiency, and customer satisfaction for your operation, all while potentially lowering costs, too. We’ll be writing a lot more about this topic and other POS compliance topics in the coming weeks and months. Stay tuned!...Read more...4 Things You Can Do in WAND Digital Without Calling the Help DeskMarch 17, 2015This week we’re talking about some cool things any WAND Corporation partner can quickly and easily do to impact the content on your WAND Digital Menu Boards, with little or no training, and without calling WAND for help. Some folks still don’t know that many updates in WAND Digital can be made on the fly, and applied in real-time for those “ah o crud” moments when something’not quite right. The truth is, we’ve made turning “ah o crud” into a “oh cool” super easy. 1. You Can Make Prices Changes. Price changes are one of the easiest things to do. Whether it’s a single change at one of your sites, or changing the entire pricing hierarchy across the brand, WAND Digital provides you the toolsets to see what prices are now, who’s using different pricing, and what changes are scheduled for the future. 2. You Can Update Your Content. Most of WAND’s menu board layouts are designed to include overlays for regularly updated content. An overlay allows you to update a specific region of your display in real-time without affecting the overall structure of the content. This means that as promo items come and go, conditions in the store vary, or inventory fluctuates, you can control what your customers see. Overlays can be controlled store by store, allowing you to set unique content configurations for each location to maximize sales and customer engagement. This means that everyone from brand managers to store level managers (with permission, of course) can quickly and easily update content on the fly to maximize sales. 3. You Can Ensure Uptime. It’s a topic that nobody likes, but we all have to be ready for: cables get unplugged, network connections go down, equipment breaks (albeit rarely!). With WAND Digital, you have the power to overcome these issues, and continue to show the right menu content to your customers, and be assured of uninterrupted revenue! Simply set up the new Uptime Plus feature for your menu boards (a one-time set up), and you will ensure that you’ll never have to worry when the hardware gremlins attack. 4. You Can Make Changes Using Your Mobile. What happens if you don’t want to, or can’t, sit down at a desktop computer and use a web browser to update your Digital content? Many people don’t know you can use the TRM Mobile app on your smartphone (iOS or Android) to do everything discussed above, whether you are on the subway going home or sitting on the beach in Cancun. Download the TRM Mobile app at the Google Play Store or Apple App Store. If you have an active TRM account and WAND Digital Gold, you already have access to the app, and can be up and running in no time. Be sure to take advantage of all the things you can do without having to pick up the phone and call support! ...Read more...Preparing for the FDA Menu Labeling: Part Five of FiveMarch 12, 2015Over the past few years, many QSR and Fast Casual concepts have made the switch to Digital Menu Boards in preparation for the upcoming FDA menu labeling requirements. In some states it’s actually already been a requirement for them to meet this mandate. One of the first questions we get from customers who have made the switch is “now what?” It is easy to put static content on a digital menu board but the real value is in optimizing your assets for the digital medium. There are endless content strategies that can be employed to maximize product awareness and drive customer behavior. Below are a few general digital menu board pro tips: Make them dynamic. There is a reason humans like to watch TV: we’re attracted to dynamic video content. Incorporate dynamic content such as videos and animated movement into your menu boards. It can be a big bold statement if that is on brand or it can be something as simple as showing the steam coming off a cup of coffee. Either way, incorporating movement into your content makes your menu boards more engaging. Keep animations short and sweet. Just like the typical TV commercial, customers have a tolerance for motion graphics. We advise clients to have promos running for no more than 15 seconds each. Use all your screens. There are very few restaurants that have just one menu board, typically there are between four to six screens per location. Take advantage of multiple-screens to create unique video content that uses all of them. An example is the full-board take over where all your screens suddenly cut to a short promo for an LTO or special exclusive, in-store only content. It’s a great way to get customers attention and build product awareness. Change them frequently. With static boards, rolling out an LTO can be cumbersome, time-intensive and costly. With digital you have the ability to update content quarterly, monthly, weekly or daily if you choose. Changing up offers frequently allows you to get the most profitable promos and items in front of your best customers on a regular basis. Plus, you have the flexibility to add or remove content to quickly address supply situations and compliance needs. The power is in your hands. When you invest in Digital Menu Boards, make sure you are getting the most out of your investment. Hold a brainstorming session with your creative team, look at your marketing calendar and really think about how you can use this channel to increase sales and profits....Read more...Preparing for the FDA Restaurant Menu Labeling: Part Four of FiveMarch 5, 2015With the countdown to the FDA restaurant menu labeling requirements deadline approaching (nine months to go from the date of this post) many restaurants are going to have to start moving (if they haven’ already) to get their menus updated with calorie count info. My team here has outlined a Six Steps to Success plan we’ve been recommending our customers use to prepare for this. I thought today’s post would be a great place to share this plan with everyone: Six Steps to Success To prepare for the FDA restaurant menu labeling requirement deadline December 1st, 2015. 1. Choose a Champion. Determine a champion (project manager) in your organization to dedicate to this task. Having one person own this will ensure there is one person pushing to make this happen in your restaurants. Plus it gives you one person who is the designated Subject Matter Expert on the topic. 2. Find Your Calorie Counts. If you don’t have them all yet you’ll need to build your list of calorie counts for your menu items. Identify who in your organization would have the calorie counts and have your champion work with them to finalize your calorie counts list for your menu items. 3. Conduct an Audit. Conduct an audit of all current menu types you need to update. Printed, online, static and Digital Menu Boards, outside menus – anything with written menu items on it needs calorie counts. Build a checklist of all the menus that need to be updated. 4. Create Your Process. Document and process out the typical way menus are updated now (if not already done) in your organization. If you use a vendor (or multiple vendors) to update your menus, notify them of your timeline and your needs. Ask them how they can help update your menus. 5. Determine Your Approach. Determine the ideal approach for updating menus at your organization. Also identify where to make changes (printed vs. online, static vs. digital, time to launch a menu app?). Since you’re taking the time to update all your menus this year it’s the perfect time to consider launching new technologies to make it easier to update menus in the future. 6. Manage Through Completion. The final step is managing your plan through completion. If you’ve built your plan well and done your audit and homework then implementation and execution should be no problem. What other steps are you taking to prepare for this roll out? Anything I missed? ...Read more...Preparing for the FDA Caloric Menu Labeling: Part Three of FiveFebruary 26, 2015As we’ve been working through updating our customers’ Digital Menu Boards for the upcoming FDA caloric menu labeling requirements deadline, there’s something really awesome I’ve noticed: lots of restaurants are making the caloric count requirement work for them by creating some truly fantastic promotions in their restaurants. I thought I’d share a few calorie count promotional ideas of my own to help get you thinking about creative ways you could use this requirement to your advantage in your QSR or Fast Casual restaurant. 5 Under 500 Think about offering something with a clever alliteration such as 5 under 500. This type of promotion is short and catchy and allows you to highlight a number of menu items at once. It’s also easy for customers to grasp the concept right away so if they are in a rush and calorie conscious they can quickly decide what they want. Daily Calorie Buster If you have Digital Menu Boards a good promo idea is a daily or weekly Calorie Buster where you can highlight a different menu item that is a lower calorie option for customers to choose. With a name like Calorie Buster you could run some pretty cool dynamic video content to really grab customers’ attention. Mix ‘n Match 400 Calorie Combos Customers like to have things created customized for them so another fun idea is to do some sort of mix and match menu where they can choose a couple items to match together to equal a certain calorie amount. It allows you to let your customers choose the menu items they want at the calorie count they desire. 100 Calorie Power Ups Another idea is to do something like a 100 Calorie Power Up menu, a short list of menu items for customers to choose from. A promo like this is great for adding extra items onto meals and is good for customers who are just stopping for a beverage or dessert. It’s also an easy thing to add onto an order. I encourage everyone in the QSR/Fast Casual restaurant industry to take a look at how you are embracing calorie counts in your stores in lieu of the FDA caloric menu labeling requirement. When you apply a bit of creativity and have fun with your brand customers will respond and your sales will ultimately increase. ...Read more...Preparing for the FDA Caloric Menu Labeling: Part Two of FiveFebruary 19, 2015As QSR/Fast Casuals prepare to roll out the FDA caloric menu labeling requirements there are a number of questions that have arisen on how to actually display the calorie counts on menus. In part two of my blog series on this topic I’d like to explore a few of the finer details a bit further to help with restaurant management. Here are some more specifics on the guidelines for displaying calorie counts on menu boards.Size. The size of the calorie counts can be no smaller than the size of your price or menu item, whichever is smaller. In other words, you can’t the smallest font size possible to display your caloric count. Best practice: display your calorie counts in the same font size as your prices. Location. Your calorie counts must be displayed next to the name of the price of the menu item. Most restaurants list the calorie counts next to the price as it makes the most sense from a general layout perspective. However, that can be confusing for the customer with so many numbers in one place. Best practice: separate the calorie counts from the price points so it’s clearer to the customer. Color. Calorie counts must be displayed in a same color or in a color at least as eye-catching as the menu item. In other words you can’t try to use a hard to read font color. Best practice: keep it simple and use the same font color as your menu item whenever possible. Contrast. The FDA guidelines specify to use the same background or one at least as contrasting as what you are using for the menu item. Best practice: again, keep it easy and use the same background as you are already using for the menu item. Combo meals. If a menu board lists three or more items in a combination then your menu board must list this in a range of calories, such as 500-800 calories. If your menu board lists only two choices in a combo meal then you should declare them with a slash 500/800. Best practice: self-explanatory, you’ve got to follow the guidelines the FDA has set on this one. As you’re updating your Digital Menu Boards be sure to rely on your restaurant technology and on the skills of your creative team to advise you on the best way to add calorie counts to your menu boards in a clean, consistent and FDA compliant manner....Read more...Preparing for the FDA Menu Labeling Requirement: Part One of FiveFebruary 12, 2015Given our love of menu boards and the impact the FDA ruling has on them, I thought it prudent to start a blog series sharing some advice on how to best prepare. Today’s post is my first of five on this topic. Here are some key facts on the new FDA menu labeling requirement and what they mean for you. Who. Restaurants with 20+ locations with the same name offering virtually the same menu. What it means for you: If you’re a QSR/Fast Casual restaurant I’m guessing you fall into this category so the mandate will apply to you. If you’re a chain with less than 20 locations this mandate doesn’t technically apply to you, but if you’re planning to grow your business you definitely want to follow these requirements as you create new menus. What. Calorie counts on menus (obviously). What it means for you: You’ll need to label all the major, permanent items on your menus, with a menu (as defined by the FDA) as being any written item that customers will use to make their food selection. The exception to this rule is any seasonal item that is offered for 60 days or less. When. December 1, 2016. That’s the date the FDA has decreed this mandate to be effective. What it means for you: You’ll need a formal plan in place ASAP (if you don’t have one already). I recommend designating someone in your organization as the champion of this cause to ensure all requirements are met. The most likely person is someone on your quality control team. Where. Anywhere your menu is displayed. What it means for you: You’ll need to make sure each and every menu is updated with calorie counts. This includes menu boards, in-store printed menus, outside menu displays, take-out/delivery menus, online menus and menu apps. How. Every situation is different. What it means for you: There’s no one right way to do this. For some restaurants it may be to use the process you have in place currently to update your menus. For others it may mean it’s time to make some changes such as replacing paper menus with online menus or switching from static menu boards to digital menu boards. It’s going to be up to each chain to determine the best approach for how to comply with this mandate given the resources you have. I personally think the FDA menu labeling requirement is a great thing as it allows chains to be more transparent with guests and build more trust and credibility with the brand. It’s a very exciting time for the restaurant industry. Stay tuned for my second post on this topic coming soon....Read more...What Qualities Does it Take to be a WAND Rock Star? It All Comes Down to ValuesFebruary 5, 2015Recently my leadership team had our annual planning retreat. As part of this retreat we always re-iterate WAND Rock Stars core values. It got me thinking about values and the incredibly strong role they play not only in shaping growing companies like ours, but how critical they are in the Quick Service and Fast Casual restaurants. Given the competitive nature of these restaurants it’s imperative to employ values from the top down that create the best customer experience possible. I thought I’d use this post today to share the four WAND values and what they mean for us and our company. 1. Integrity. Build a foundation of trust through honesty and integrity. Integrity is our number one value because it’s everything to who we are. Integrity means being honest and truthful, but it also means being direct and straightforward. I don’t know if because we’re in Minneapolis and we have the “Minnesota Nice” syndrome, but I’ve found it’s sometimes hard for people to say what they’re thinking. At WAND we ask our employees to speak their mind professionally and respectfully. It has gone a long ways towards keeping us focused and on the right track with our business. 2. Commitment. To our customers, our teams and our company. It is so important to have employees who are committed to your company. And by commitment I’m not necessarily talking about people working 80 hours a week or insanely stressed out to get a job done. I’m talking about being committed to doing the best job they can in the time they are working here for themselves, for us and for our customers. Commitment goes a long way. 3. Drive.Push ourselves and our company to get better every day.Unfortunately, there are many businesses where complacency has set in and permeates the culture. We’ve all seen it, the employees who do the bare minimum to get the job done. At WAND we look for employees who will push themselves and us as leaders to go above and beyond what we thought was possible. These are people who don’t just talk the talk, but show by their actions they want to find better, smarter ways to do things. 4. Positive Attitude.Positivity is infectious and shows for those who truly want to be here. No one wants to work with a bunch of negative people. An environment where people complain and are unhappy is not a fun place for anyone. We work hard to create a positive environment and ensure positivity exists throughout the organization. These values are part of what make the WAND team and culture so special; we hire to them, we review to them, and if necessary, we terminate according to them. It’s one of the main reasons that have allowed us to be recognized as a Best Place to Work Put simply, great colleagues are what make a great workplace. And having strong core values that build a great culture is what makes this happen....Read more...The QSR Industry Digital Revolution: My PerspectiveJanuary 29, 2015I was recently reading this article from QSR Magazine on the QSR industry digital revolution and, given this is a world I live and breathe every day; I had several thoughts about it I’d like to share.It’s here to stay. There’s a lot of great info in the article but the bottom line is clear, digital is not going way. As we all know, technology rules the world, and that certainly is the case in our industry. The risk, as the article points out, is that if restaurants wait too long, there’s a real risk of getting left behind by both the competition and customers. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but if your restaurants haven’t embraced new digital technology you better do it quick, because it’s only going to grow bigger. And unfortunately your competitors around the corner are probably about to embrace it too. You need to work fast to beat them to the punch.Experts can help. One thing the article doesn’t touch on is the fact that new technology can be a big pain. Who hasn’t gotten a new phone or computer and had no idea how to use the thing? It can be incredibly frustrating, but that’s why restaurants need to pick a good technology partner. My advice is trust the experts and let the people who know digital technology best do it for you. Save yourself the headache.There are ways to address integration issues. By far the biggest complaint I hear about restaurant technology is that it doesn’t all work together, there are too many systems in place and none of them talk to each other properly. (By the way, this is an issue not unique to the QSR industry; virtually all industries are experiencing it). In my experience, one technology simply won’t do it all; it’s just not the way things are built. Companies build technology with specific needs in mind. However, that doesn’t mean trying to integrate it all is futile. You just have to approach it differently. Instead of using a handful of different technology partners that each do something different, try to find just a couple trusted partners that offer many different solutions you can use. Start small by making a list of all your restaurant’s needs so you know what you’re looking for. Once you know what you want for it’ll be easier to find a couple strong partners that offer the majority of what you need.The biggest advice I can offer with regards to the digital revolution is to remember it’s a positive thing. Technology exists to make our lives easier and even though it may be temporary challenging, the outcome will be worth it....Read more... Search for: CONTRIBUTORS
