The bar industry remains a hyper-competitive market. Yesterday’s trendy bar is closed tomorrow. It is just as important as ever to continue to innovate and provide better experiences to ensure your bar remains the place for the locals to grab a drink and relax. While marketing and promotion remains vital to your bar’s success, you should also be looking to add technology that drives better customer interactions. Mobile point of sale (mPOS) is one technology that every bar owner should be familiarizing themselves with to remain competitive.
MOBILE POS
Mobile POS, or mPOS, has been around for a number of years, but most companies are just now beginning to integrate it into their business operations. There are a wide number of solutions that can help expedite current procedures as well as delight your customers in new ways.
Table Side Service
Does your bar have servers, or just bartenders? Many bars still have the customers coming to the bar for ordering and payment but the trend is to meet the customer where they’re sitting. This ensures they are getting the best service. There is a much better ordering experience if the customer is able to relax and order at their table rather than having to get the bartender’s attention over the crowd at the bar. And happy customer order more and return more often. So adding mPOS in the form of a tablet or smartphone-sized device to your bar will allow servers to accurately and quickly take orders and process payments. In addition, POS software can allow the customer to order their next drink from any server. So if the customer moves to a new area of the venue, they can maintain the same tab they opened up earlier in the evening.
Self-Service Kiosk
Rather than having a server take orders tablet side via a tablet, you may find that your bar would be better suited to have self-service kiosks at every table. These would be small tablets that are mounted or secured to every table. Customers would use these to order drinks, food, etc. You can even allow customers to pay via the tablet. This eliminates the human interaction but gives your customers total control over when they order and pay. Furthermore, the kiosk can be used to promote new and/or high margin products or even suggest add-on items. All of the orders would automatically print or be displayed in the bar or kitchen and a server would deliver it.
Cover Charge
The world is moving away from cash transactions. However, for many venues, cash is the only means of paying the cover charge to enter the bar. Not only is cash a higher security risk, it is also a deterrent to potential customers who only have credit card for payment. A quick swipe of a credit card can keep customers flowing into your business and reduce the dangers of holding a cash box at the front door.
Age Verification
Another use for mPOS at the entrance is age verification. Mobile devices can be equipped with software that can read state IDs and verify age. There is no better way to ensure all of your guests are of age for alcohol consumption. The customer will feel secure and you will be able to reduce your potential liability.
Operating a bar is hard work, so it’s important to ensure that hard work goes further and has a large impact. By adding mobile POS, you can streamline many of your current operations, provide better customer experiences, and reduce liability. Investing in new mPOS might be exactly what you need to stay ahead of the competition.