Restaurant Digital Signage: Your Name Up in Lights

Digital signage has transformed restaurant operations and management, making menu updates quicker and easier, improving the customer experience and boosting sales. This type of signage is a highly practical way to display your menu and drive your restaurant’s business strategy, with multiple options available to you.

Touch Screen Digital Signage Kiosks

Touch screen digital signage drives sales and improves restaurant operations. Practically, touch screen digital signage can double up, displaying your menu items and operating as an ordering system. Touch screen digital menus are convenient for your customers, shortening the ordering process, wait times and queues at your front counter. A touch screen digital menu can boost customer spend, too. This ordering system gives customers more freedom in making menu selections. When dwelling on the sign, you have an opportunity to make recommendations and influence buying decisions. For example, you can automate on-screen content to recommend desserts to accompany the main meal, promote new menu items and special offers, or ask “would you like to go large?” From an operational and restaurant management perspective, touch screen digital signage systems improve day-to-day operations. You can quickly and conveniently switch on-screen content between breakfast, lunch and dinner menus or update it to include new menu items, without disrupting operations. Additionally, touch screen digital signage kiosks enable you to gather data. You can identify favorite selling menu items of the day, week, month or year, among your customers. You can then use this data to promote specific menu items that sell well to promote them.

Restaurant Digital Signage Menus

Display your menu items in stunning, high definition by positioning digital restaurant signage above your front counter. These signs will increase the appeal of your menu items, making them look vibrant, appealing and more readable. An easy-to-read menu is a top priority for your customers. Industry research by screen giants, Panasonic, indicates that 74 percent of quick-service restaurant customers prioritize an easy-to-read menu for making a purchase. Digital displays are a great visual aid for customers ordering at the counter, immediately capturing their attention. You can capitalize on this by displaying those specific menu items you want the customer to see. Research shows that promoting a specific menu item, digitally, above your front counter can increase sales of that item by as much as 38 percent. Meanwhile, that signage attracts more customers too, increasing the potential to boost your sales. These Studies show that restaurants report a 15 percent rise in customers after installing a digital menu board. Additionally, if you’re a chain with 20 or more restaurants, a digital sign above the counter is the place to display nutritional information or allergy advice. A traditional menu board often doesn’t have the space to list nutritional information and allergy advice in a readable format. Digital menus do.

Order Status and Order Ready Digital Signs

You can enhance the customer wait experience with digital signs, using them to notify customers of the status of their order. Effective communication is key to improving the customer experience. Order status and order ready signs enable customers to track their order, reducing perceived waiting times. Operationally, order status and order ready signs are good for customer management, maintaining a steady flow while keeping them in the know.

Drive-Thru Digital Signage

That same Skykit research shows that restaurants with a drive-thru lane can expect 70 percent of sales to occur at the drive-thru window. With the addition of drive-thru digital signage, you can expect to boost sales by a further 3 to 8 percent. A digital signage network at the drive-thru can serve multiple functions at once, for example:

• Presales: Promote a brand new menu item at the drive-thru entrance and sow the seed for a potential unplanned purchase.
• Upselling: Displays can feature high ticket items to tempt customers into additional purchases.
• Running promotions: Drive thru digital signage can be used to present eye-catching meal deal promotions, which also influence impulse decisions.
• Segmenting menu items: Menu engineering helps you identify your hot menu items. You can point customers to your bestselling menu items rather than having them trawl through your entire menu. This speeds up the number of orders you can process in an hour. 

Drive-thru digital signage is especially popular with 18–24-year-olds. Research shows that this demographic is less likely to order from a quick service restaurant at the counter. However, this age group spends more on fast food than any other. If they’re reluctant to order at your restaurant’s front counter, digital drive-thru menu boards give them an incentive to order at your drive-thru window.

Digital Signage Entertainment

You can use digital restaurant signage to entertain customers, increasing the likelihood that they will eat-in and purchase additional items. Animations and short videos help with restaurant branding and can help give those with small children something to divert their energies. While you have their attention, you can promote new menu items, special offers and more to encourage a return visit.

Invest in Restaurant Digital Signage

Restaurant digital signage delivers a significant return on investment. It will become a crucial part of your restaurant’s business strategy, improving these key areas:

•    Volume of guests
•    Customer spend
•    Guest experience
•    Restaurant operations

It will cut your costs, too. Traditional menus need printing for every restaurant in your chain, every time you want to add a new item, promote a specific product or run a special promotion. Restaurant digital signage can do all this, simultaneously, across every restaurant in your chain, with no additional costs. Ultimately, customer and restaurant receive the same benefit from digital signage. Subscribe to the blog for more interesting restaurant content!

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About the Author

Head of Content at Armagard, Daniel Waldron has authored high-profile blogs on the latest topics and trends across the digital signage industry. His features in Digital Signage Today, AV Magazine and more, offer thought leadership, commentary, and insights on all things Digital Signage.