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EA: What about training new employees who arrive after the POS is installed?

IK: When you get a new employee, you want to make sure that you can put the POS into a training mode so that that employee can play with the computer, ring things up, do all that, but you don’t want it to interrupt your daily sales. So, that’s something that you should ask the POS company: Do you have a training mode that I can use while the system’s up and running so that when I have a new server, we can give them mock orders and all that, they can go in, they can punch in the order and it doesn’t disrupt?

EA: Does the hardware come with the system, or do restaurants buy that separately?

IK: For the most part, the POS companies provide you with the hardware, and that includes the printers, cash drawers and of course, the mounted and handheld POS. But there are companies that say, “We’re going to sell you all the software and everything else, and you could go to Best Buy and buy all of the monitors that you need and go from there.” While that’s a very small part of the POS world today, I think that’s really the next thing that will be coming down the line for everybody. Because once somebody is saying, “Hey, you could really lower your costs and we’re just going to sell the expertise, the software, we’re going to monitor it and you’ll pay certain licensing for our product and we’ll give you 24-hour support,” that’s going to be a big savings for restaurants. I think right now that’s kind of a sleeper, but it’ll become more popular in the next few years.

EA: Is it smart to let the POS company handle your credit card processing?

IK: This is where all the new POS companies are making their real money. You’re getting the system at a very big discount for the hardware and for the software overall, and they’re making the processing fees and all those kinds of things. Good or bad, it’s currently the deal. However, with some systems, you can go out and shop credit card processors. The time to negotiate your credit card fee is when you’re buying the equipment. You could save a huge amount of money.

EA: What else should a restaurant owner be aware of regarding the cost of the POS system?

IK: One thing to remember is that you have to pay a licensing fee every month [based on the number of POS stations you have]. So, you need to ask very distinctly, “What is my licensing fee every month?” [With] some companies it comes out to $300 a month and [with] some companies it’s $1,000 a month for the same six POS stations.

EA: It seems handheld POS stations are becoming more common in restaurants.

IK: The handheld makes ordering quicker for every table. Typically, when I do training for restaurants, the servers get three or four tables to a station. But once they’re really good and they can use the handheld, they can handle six tables and maybe even seven, which makes them 20 to 30 percent more productive. The handheld really is an incredible tool. With our restaurants, we’re tending to get less mounted POS stations all over the restaurant. The easiest way to explain it is that every two handhelds equal one table mounted POS.

EA: What are the essential reports a POS system should provide?

IK: I like to see what were the gross sales, what were the taxes, what’s my net sales, maybe what’s my labor cost for yesterday? I also like to see my cash balance, because it shows me what the deposit for cash is supposed to be. Sometimes in that daily report we’ll do a comparison of sales compared to the last week or sales compared to last year, same time. Another report is called a descending sales report, which shows your best-selling items down to your slowest-selling items. That helps the owner make a decision about what items to get rid of. You also want to make sure the POS connects to QuickBooks [or whatever accounting/management program you use]. This saves us and our accountant a ton of time by having everything dumped into the right software program and helps keep us accurate in lots of ways.

EA: If you buy a new POS system, can you upload your existing data into it?

IK: Some of it, but probably the most important piece of that is gift card data. I want to make sure that that we

can transition that data into the new system so we don’t lose track [of balances on existing gift cards]. It’s going to make people very unhappy if they show up with a gift card and you say, “Oh, we switched systems, and how much was the value of that card?” In general, when we’re getting rid of one system and putting in another system, we’re making sure to download every piece of information that we have on the old system so that we have a copy of everything. Because if you don’t do that and you switch systems, it’s possible that they’re going to turn you off and you’ll lose all that information.

EA: Our readers are mostly owners of Mexican restaurants. Is there anything they should consider in a POS differently from owners of other types of restaurants?

IK: With Mexican restaurants, the cocktails are much more detailed. We have 800 tequilas, we have 60 ways to make a

Margarita. And that really is unique to Mexican restaurants. So, your POS needs to be more detailed [in that regard] because somebody might say, “I want a Cadillac Margarita, I don’t want salt on the rim, I want it to be golden, so I want a shot of this in the middle.” Also in Mexican restaurants, there often are opportunities [to mix and match small menu items]. The customer might say, “You know what, I want four tacos, I want one fish, one chicken, one meat, one vegetarian.” And the POS needs to be right on top of that so that the servers can very easily make all of those adjustments quickly.

EA: Have we covered it all, Izzy?

IK: I think so, but it’s a big topic. I guess my major piece of advice that I’d like to reiterate is find three systems to review and make your decision based on how other operators, especially their servers, like the system.

Knowing exactly when to start an order is a related situation. If you start too soon, the food will be cold when the driver arrives. If you start too late, the driver might have to wait.

4 Make it Easy

Having your own ordering platform, such as through Toast or Lunchbox, helps you keep the profit in your own cash register. But in order to get enough customers using your own platform, you need to make sure it works well. One way to do that is to count how many clicks it takes to place an order, Orsbourn explains.

“If you were a registered user on Amazon buying something off the front screen, it takes three clicks to purchase something, done. Three clicks, best in class,” he says. “If you are on DoorDash, it takes around five clicks to buy a standard item, no modifiers. So every additional click beyond those five is a reason for the customer to continue using third party.”

Where do extra clicks accumulate? It could happen if you require customers to register; it could happen in the ordering process, especially if you have a lot of options on menu items; it could happen on payment; and it could happen if you ask people to join your loyalty program.

“All of those things add a bit of friction, and that is one thing we really emphasize independents to look at,” Orsbourn says.

5 Think Twice Before “Throttling” the Third Party Apps

On busy days, do you sometimes turn off orders flowing from GrubHub or Uber Eats? That’s a natural thing to do if your kitchen is overwhelmed. But it isn’t the best decision, according to Orsbourn.

“If you had a line of people at your physical location, would you shut the doors and chase them away? Of course not. You would probably hand them a menu and offer them a seat at your bar until there was room,” he says.

Instead of shutting off the apps when you’re busy, take some time beforehand to strategize how you might handle the flow of orders better. Some ideas:

• Streamline your delivery menu and remove any time-consuming items.

• Consider your workspace and optimize it for to-go orders, especially during busy times.

• Look at your data and consider staffing up when you know more online orders typically come in.

• Consider increasing your online prices when you know traffic is highest. This may reduce your orders, but you’ll make more money on each order so ultimately it should balance out. Similarly, consider dropping prices during slow periods to keep your kitchen working efficiently.

“These orders are incremental volume and it’s all too easy to switch them off,” Orsbourn says. “And perhaps even more important, it’s easy to forget to turn it back on when things get quieter again.”

6 Plan Online Prices Carefully to Drive the Traffic You Want

Sometimes changing your online pricing can help you manage the flow in your kitchen. You can use the same strategy to drive traffic to your own ordering platform, where your profit is higher. Just raise the prices on your third-party platforms and let customers know that they’ll pay less if they order from your own site.

“Just make sure you don’t make your prices so much higher than your competition on that same [third-party] platform,” Sandland says.

The biggest take-away is that independent restaurants can be tech leaders, according to Orsbourn and Sandland, who are optimistic about the ability of independent restaurants to maximize the opportunity of third-party delivery apps and other technology.

“We’re excited for independent restaurants because of the advent of all these new technologies,” Orsbourn concludes. “If they have the right mindset and the will to break the model that they used to build their business, the ability for them to transition to this new future is actually right at their fingertips.”

BUILDING

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SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY:

An interview with Social High Rise’s Mark Sorenson Q&A

Haga clic aquí para leer los artículos en español.

Nearly every restaurant has a social media presence these days, but some do it much better than others. el Restaurante Publisher Ed Avis quizzed Mark Sorenson, president of Social High Rise, a restaurant social media management company, about what makes the best restaurant social media stand out.

Ed Avis: Many restaurants use social media to talk about promotions and specials. Is that the best content to deliver?

Mark Sorenson: They should talk about much more than just specials — it should be a storytelling endeavor. Consumers want to hear about who they are, what they are, and what they stand for more than they want to be sold to. The story is everything from the history of the restaurant — where it’s come from, throwback stories from the past, everything about the concept. It’s about the owners and their inspiration. And the concept itself is about the things that they care about, the ways they get involved in the community, the ways that they give back or donate or sponsor. Of course, they also want to talk about their food. It’s not that you can’t talk about specials and events, but if that’s all you say, it cheapens the relationship.

EA: Can you give us some examples?

MS: It could be showcasing one of their food suppliers, or where they source their ingredients. Or the Little League team they sponsor. It could be the picture of the guy delivering kegs of

beer in the back, or a new employee. Restaurant owners are almost too close to the restaurant to recognize interesting opportunities to tell a good story. They think their story is mundane. But to their guests, that story is new and interesting. It helps them feel more emotionally bonded…like they have insight that makes them feel closer to that restaurant. Those feelings are exactly what gets guests to come more often, spend more money, spread more word of mouth. All of the things that you want them to do, they’ll do if they feel closer to you.

EA: But at some point, you need to post about your Taco Tuesday promotion or your Happy Hour, right?

MS: I’ll put it this way, the more we do this kind of work, the more I realize that the value of posting on social media is the long-term goal of keeping your audience engaged and active and caring about what you have to say. The more you can delay the ask, the more you can put off asking your audience to buy from you, to spend money with you, the better. They know you sell food and they already like it, otherwise they wouldn’t follow your page. But in the back of people’s minds, they’re always expecting the sell. The longer you can delay that, it takes the pressure off, and they want to share you with everyone they know. That’s how you get them to spread better word of mouth. That’s how you get them to pay attention to your deals when you do end up posting them. So, try to delay the ask for as long as you can.

EA: Many restaurant owners find it hard to make the time to create posts, or to write something interesting. How long should these posts be?

MS: For the most part less is more. Simple is better. If you’re telling a story, people will be more likely to read it if it’s a simple snippet. If it’s the keg guy, it’s just a simple shot. I mean, it’s not so much his life story, but you might snap a picture of that guy with a crate full of kegs wheeling in the back, smiling and giving his salute, and you shout out, say, “Hey, we love Jeremy, we see him every Thursday, and he’s the best.” Or if Jeremy did have

Q&A With Mark Sorenson

“The primary element that you want to have in your social media is authenticity…That garners a lot of respect from folks.” – MARK SORENSON

something special that you knew about him, you could definitely share that: “And by the way, Jeremy’s also the coach for the Little League team, and they’re going to the playoffs this year.” The primary element to have in your social media is authenticity — even if you are not super good at technology, being authentic with that, but still doing it. When you see some of the best content out there, it’s not polished. It looks amateur. It feels amateur. But you can tell it’s real and it’s authentic. You can feel the sincerity, you can feel the emotions, and that’s what we’re after. That’s what we connect to as humans.

EA: Should the restaurant get staff involved, or designate one person to handle social media?

MS: If you have staff with a little bit of creative chops to write and compose, to be creative, I think you should include multiple people. The challenge is, and what we often see, is that there’s nobody really leading or directing the effort. You have four or five or six people helping out with social media, but it’s just hit-and-miss. Everyone’s assuming somebody else is doing it because that’s not their primary job. On the other hand, having different people’s perspective is a good idea. At the end of the day the story that you tell [should] include many voices.

EA: How do you encourage customers to post about your restaurant?

MS: By paying attention to them. On social media, what people want is attention. You can feature their photo, like the content they created, maybe comment on it — that’s going to signal to them that you’re paying attention, that you see them. You’re helping them feel validated, cared about, valued, all the feelings we want our guests to feel. You can give them those feelings when they’re not inside the restaurant by paying attention to them on the internet, on social media. That naturally will get them to want to do more of that activity, because they get the dopamine hit, they get the adrenaline rush of seeing that somebody liked them or tagged them or paid attention to them, featured them even. So, the next time they come in, which they will, they’ll take another photo and tag the restaurant again and try to be seen.

EA: We hear a lot about TikTok these days. Is that as important as FaceBook and Instagram?

MS: Instagram and Facebook are the most important platforms. They have the most users, the most diverse users. Those two plat-

forms are absolutely a must. But TikTok is also important. There’s a whole young generation of people who [use TikTok as] their primary social media source. With TikTok we say, “Look, give it to somebody. Give it to one of your employees who knows the platform and who is interested in managing it. Let them goof off, let them do the trends, the dance trends, let them be creative and let that be an outlet for them and get them involved.” I think that you can have a great, engaging TikTok presence by just letting one of your employees take the reins.

EA: How does a restaurant know if its social media is working?

MS: You have to ask yourself: “What do you want out of social media?” I think the best goals are better connection with your customers, better interactions with your guests…making sure they are there and that what you’re saying is something that they care about. Probably the best way to measure that is engagement — are people liking what you’re saying, commenting, sharing it? Those numbers will be a reflection of whether or not your guests cared about that message. That’s not to say they should only post things that you’re going to get likes, commenting, shares about. There’s lots of content out there that isn’t really designed to get engagement, but it’s still important. Like, “Hey, we’re updating our hours of operation.” But as far as the storytelling content, if you’re not getting likes or comments or shares and you’ve got enough of a following to get that, then your guests don’t really care about what you have to say. That’s a good chance to figure out, “Well, what am I posting about? Am I posting about the same thing over and over?” Another way to think about creating content is, make it selfless first. Don’t make it about your restaurant. Make it about your partner. Make it about the cause. Make it about your inspiration that benefits the guest. That’s good content, that’s engaging.

EA: Are there any ideas we haven’t touched on?

MS: I can geek out all day long thinking about and talking about the best ways to do social media. What’s fun about it is that there is no cookie cutter approach to good social media other than staying true to your brand, staying true to your values, and letting your social media be a full reflection of everything that you are as a brand, as a restaurant, as individuals, as part of the team. If your social media can reflect that wholeheartedly, the good and the bad and the ugly, then you’re setting yourself up for success.