Ever gone on to take an order only to stand clueless in front of the customer and go "Whoops! I think I forgot something!" Not only is that embarrassing, but you stand a chance of losing that customer and put severe doubts in those at surrounding tables. Not to worry, it's a big part of running the restaurant business and now you'll have more help than you've ever imagined possible.
For every F&B operation or restaurant lies a technology or innovation to help create a balance so things can run more efficiently. You'll have to be an octopus to have your eyes and a part of you everywhere to run a near-perfect operation, but thankfully, we all know how impossible that is.
That's why you need new technology and apps to take your business to the next level. Plus, you get to have a stress-free experience running your restaurant with these tools to help you every step of the way.
Here are 9 tools and apps you can’t do without in your restaurant:
1. Buffer
They say you don't know how powerful social media is until it has a grudge against you. Think of it this way. What if you had it on your side or the side of your business? Its potential to transform your outfit is limitless. You'll connect to people on a personal level with a broader reach in any community you're a part of.
Even if you may not be on hand to manage your account, Buffer is such that you can schedule every social media post ahead of time. You can effectively share all your posts from one place! Think about marketing and you'd know the possibilities this app brings to the table.
What It Does
Connects you to different platforms (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.)
Schedules your updates
Add posts to your queue
How It Helps
You can log in at once to all your social media and internet-based accounts instead of traditionally logging in to each.
Starts off with a great free plan that can benefit new restaurants.
Analyze your social media activities and keep track of interactions linked to your business.
Key Features
Customized scheduling
Informative social analytics
Multimedia format sharing
Team collaboration (you'll need Admin rights)
Easy to use
It’s free!
Pro Tip: To share a picture at the same time and on different platforms, upload a custom thumbnail. This is made possible by Buffer.
2. iChef
This tool is ideal for just about any restaurant, and yeah, you can describe it as an advantage your business has over others. Sometimes running a restaurant leaves you all tired and makes your business appear slow.
That's where iChef comes in. This POS system gives your restaurant operations the much-needed order. It's very flexible and keeps everything running because restaurants can be busy places.
Think about your customers, staff and all the information that needs to get passed around involving food, drinks, and arrangements. To avoid chaos, you'll need iChef POS to sort things out and fast too.
What It Does
Provide means through which you can make any changes for items, promotions, menu, floor plans and much more.
It gives customers access to more than one chef and different cuisines at record time.
Payment arrangements
How It Helps
Increases the ease with which orders of customers are met.
Helps you make or effect changes to the menu.
Enables you to adapt to any location to boost staff output and attend to customers.
Key Features
Automated discounting
Payment settings (to suit the currency your restaurant accepts).
Hardware combinations (printers and ipads can be added to make things flow).
Pro Tip: iChef doesn't require any experience in web development or design so you can have a great time seamlessly managing recipes for food.
Need a real-time platform for secure reservations that connect diners with partner restaurants? Chope comes to mind! Spoken colloquially in Singapore, Chope is all about reservations made through a company's website, mobile apps and plug-ins for different restaurants and Facebook pages. The restaurants are then charged a specific fee for using booking systems run on Chope. If you're into restaurants in Singapore, this app will come in very handy.
Quandoo is a table reservation system for restaurants and a convenient way for diners to discover new places to eat, book tables online, get exclusive deals and offers and review their experience afterwards.
What It Does
Enables users to search for restaurants and make reservations that are based on certain factors including, times, cuisine, dates, location, price range, and more.
How It Helps
Helps restaurants manage every reservation and the orders that come with them.
Customers can make reservations without hitches concerning time, date and location.
Key Features
Reservation and guests’ management
Table management
Analytics – meaningful patterns of data and knowledge to boost communication.
Pro Tip: You can improve your restaurant's guests experience with optimal seating and management technologies.
Food delivery apps are becoming increasingly popular, and it's easy to see why. With a thriving market revolving around on-demand food, these mobile apps will help your restaurant attract new customers and retain existing ones. With them, your business will take a turn for the best with an upturn in revenue.
What They Do
Connects users with restaurants
Uses social media to meet the needs and orders of users from their favorite restaurants.
How It Helps
Delivery apps will help your business have a good online presence.
Higher return on investments mainly if you serve specialties.
Plan and track every sale even as you provide excellent customer service.
Key Features
Visually informative. All your customers will have visual information to help them make choices.
Review and rating systems
Payment gateway integration
Pro Tip: Want to maximize ordering efficiency on your way to higher profits? Food delivery apps will go a long way.
5. Waitrr
Living in a fast-paced society means our patience runs low really really easily. We want things quick we want things fast. The good thing about Waitrr is that it allows restaurant guests to access menus, place orders and pay instantly - all from their phones. No more listless waiting in restaurants when they can be spending their time more wisely elsewhere. Apart from delivery apps, this is something you should probably take a look at to boost the efficiency of your service and of course, reduce any complains related to slow or tardy service.
What It Does
Takes away the stress of having your staff to do multiple tasks
Allow your staff to focus on service and providing the best dining experience
How It Helps
Essentially allows diners to take their orders, get their bills, and make their payments all on a single app
Restaurateurs can optimize their operational efficiency by automating most of the ordering process
Save up to 40% in manpower costs
Collect additional customer data and advertise to past customers through multiple platforms such as email, SMS and in-app engagement
Key Features
Automates most operational processes for both dine-in and takeaway
Pro Tip: Optimise your customer's experience dining in and with takeaways. Cut down on staffing costs since 2 out of 3 actions are automated in the operational process!
6. Payboy
Sometimes you need something with so much innovation to boost your HR system. Payboy does more than make things happen. It helps run your restaurant run smoothly. Let's face it, dealing with scheduling and leave documents could be quite stressful but with Payboy, you have everything in one place.
What It Does
Produce error-free pay slips for your business
Keeps track of employees remuneration
How It Helps
This real-time people analytics platform helps you with a scientific way to make better data-driven human resource decisions.
Keep track of your employees' journey and work history
Key Features
Simple attendance tracking
Automotive HR process
Pro Tip: Save yourself and your staff a lot of hours on the HR admin when you fully integrate Payboy into your restaurant business.
7. StaffAny
A workforce management application that connects HR and operations to better manage hourly workers. Address staffing challenges by optimising work processes and redesigning jobs to lower operating costs and increase productivity.
What It Does
Synchronise any changes on the ground between operations and HR
Schedule your staff easily
Eliminate use of expensive hardware to clock in timings for staff
Reduce manual entry of timesheets
How It Helps
Get better visibility of labour costs while scheduling
Reduce overlaps/errors in scheduling
Prevents time theft
Key Features
Automated operations
Smart tooling
Workplace transparency
Pro Tip: Integrate StaffAny to your payroll providers or your own payslip tools so that staffing becomes a breeze. No more headaches and have all your records consolidated and seamlessly pushed for HR to handle.
8. Xero
Got issues keeping track of your accounting? Why not give cloud accounting a chance with the Xero app. You can have an up-to-date experience from any location using this app to ensure your restaurants' accounts are what they should be. What's more, you can start each day knowing where you stand financially.
What It Does
Manages your account.
Keeps a record of all your financial information and commitments.
How It Helps
Helps you run your account from any location
You'll be able to have current receipts and accounts
You can review staff expenses and other expenditures
Key Features
Access and reconcile bank transactions anywhere
Approve payments on the go
Store customer details and account information
Pro Tip: To make things run smoothly, have your employees use the platform to raise invoices and approve accounts.
9. FoodRazor
Are you too busy with paperwork instead of focusing on your F&B business? You'll need a platform to take some responsibility off your hands so that you can focus on providing quality services to your customers, new and existing. Everything gets handled with the latest in technology to keep your business growing.
What It Does
Creates orders which you can send directly to suppliers
Tracks all your purchase orders and organizes them
Provide all the necessary food cost data in just a few clicks
Works on every internet-connected devices (mobile phone, tablets, notebook)
How It Helps
No manual data entry digitises invoices by line-items within 24 hours
Helps you prevent duplicates since you can see what other chefs have ordered.
Easy reference to all your invoices since they are saved on the platform.
You have real-time insight on prices.
Pro Tip: This tool will do more than keep things organized. You can have it deal with all inventories and invoices which save you time and money.
Conclusion
Streamlining your F&B business is something every owner must do as it can increase operations efficiency. All these food techs are created to help you save time, increase productivity, and save money.
So if you have issues running your restaurant in Singapore, look no further than FoodRazor. FoodRazor automates and digitises the invoice management aspect of the business before providing data analytics services for users to understand what is spent, where and on what.
Again, you'll be able to offer a hassle-free experience to your customers who'll be delighted with the services you offer.
