Implementing Off-Premise Dining through KDS vs POS

Anyone in or around any restaurant has probably noticed an increase in advertising for “off-premise dining options.” That’s a fancy term for take out, curbside, carryout or even delivery. As a busy mom, off-premise options are great for me. I can place an order to my favorite restaurants from the comfort of my home or while picking up my son from practice. The restaurant provides me with my pick-up time, I make a quick stop on the way home, and dinner is complete with little impact to my hectic schedule. Ah, convenience! The frustrating caveat of course, is arriving to the restaurant only to be told I’ll have to wait longer for my order. As a 25-plus year veteran of the restaurant industry, I can appreciate the challenges of providing quotes directly from the Point of Sale. Let’s get real here – the POS doesn’t know what’s going on in the kitchen. Therefore, it’s a misconception to think that the POS can interpret the operations in the back-of-house and provide accurate quote times. There is a smarter way: use your kitchen display system!

Quoting from the Kitchen Display System

QSR Automations’ kitchen display system, ConnectSmart® Kitchen, integrates with several off-premise dining solutions. For the restaurants already using CSK, its business as usual. CSK routes orders to the kitchen stations where kitchen staff can prepare and package items based on the order destination. With a dynamic quoting feature, online customers receive a truly accurate quote time, creating an exceptional customer experience whether the guest orders carryout or delivery. Restaurants not currently using an integrated kitchen display system are using a POS-generated quote. This means that items and orders route to the kitchen via a receipt or another video system. The customer receives an estimated quote that doesn’t consider how backed up the kitchen may be at that moment. This forces restaurants to generate ambiguous and inexact quote times. QSR Automations’ kitchen quoting works so well because it is customizable to account for the destination, extra packaging time for to go orders. Most importantly though, CSK “considers” how busy the kitchen is at the precise moment a customer places an order, accounting for in-store tickets before generating a quote for your off-premise orders. Through the data that CSK generates, restaurant can add a ramp-up time that knows exactly how busy the kitchen is and can add a few extra seconds to the quote based on current volume. Off-premise dining is the wave of the future, and the future is now. Keep that momentum going and encourage guests to dine in with you or take advantage of an off-premise solution that fits in with their hectic schedules! You can ensure that your guests receive an accurate, real-time quote by making your KDS the central point of your off-premise dining strategy. Subscribe to the blog for more interesting restaurant content!

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About the Author

Shari McCauley is the Product Training Specialist at QSR Automations, where she focuses on educating employees and customers on the benefits and uses of QSR technology. You can reach Shari at smccauley@qsrautomations.com.