Small cafes and privately-owned coffee shops are a huge business in the USA, with statistics from an IBISWorld report showing over $41 billion generated in revenue from 57,000+ locations across the country in 2016. Many of them choose to use coffee shop POS systems in order to keep up with the heavy amount of customers they serve.
As the upward shift in coffee shop popularity has resulted in customers flocking to them, these cafes need an efficient point of sale system to handle customers, operations, and keeping track of vital data such as transactions, orders and inventory.
Unfortunately, many new coffee shops often end up using analog cash registers, either to save money or add to the typical and popular “retro” theme that younger entrepreneurs choose to adopt when opening a new location. Though image is important, being able to efficiently help customers and handle operations is their #1 priority, and an analog cash register cannot keep up.
Here, we will go over the key benefits of a coffee shop point of sale system in regards to how they raised speed and efficiency in providing great service, which always leads to increased profits resulting repeat business from satisfied customers.
Serve Customers Quicker & Easier
When customers visit a coffee shop, they are not looking for a traditional dining experience. Typically, most want to get a quick cup of coffee along with a small snack then speed off to their intended destination. If a shop has to deal with several customers at a time looking for the same speedy service, modern coffee shop POS systems allow for seamless order taking and tracking.
Instead of taking orders by pen on a paper pad and passing them to kitchen staff, coffee shop POS software allows for real-time order taking and logging for kitchen staff.
Wait staff that take orders can do so using software that uses pictures or icons to represent items on a menu, organized into categories for easier searching. Modifiers and variances can be added to specific items with ease, cutting down an order time to seconds.
Instead of taking orders by pen on a paper pad, mobile coffee shop POS allows for real-time order taking and logging for kitchen staff.
Also, kitchen staff can utilize a kitchen printer to get instant printouts of new orders, ensuring that they are fulfilled quickly and with total accuracy, eliminating the problem and expense of food being sent back and wasted due to incorrect preparation.
Alternatively, kitchen staff can have access to an additional coffee shop POS terminal to look at orders in real-time as they are taken, eliminating the need for more paper usage and offering more seamlessness to an already efficient way of processing food orders.
When you add this level of speed to your service, customers take notice and will regard your shop as the one to visit when they need a quick cup of coffee to go. Though quality is always important, this is an industry where service speed is a massive factor.
Modifiers and variances can be added to specific items in Coffee Shop POS, cutting down an order time to seconds.
Offer a Unique Experience
Even though coffee shops are usually small and meant for enjoying food on-the-go, some shops are able to accommodate a small amount of tableside service for those who wish to sit and enjoy a quick bite while reading or talking with someone.
The best way to provide a comfortable experience and atmosphere is to make sure they never need to leave their table for service.
Mobile POS systems are a perfect fit for coffee shops such as these. With modern hardware such as the Poynt mobile terminal, wait staff can greet customers at the table, take their order and charge them all at the same time. They won’t need to go to the counter, as cards can be charged with the reader built into the unit.
With the touchscreen, ordering and payment processing takes less than a minute to perform. Having this unique approach to taking orders and having customers pay for them gives your shop an edge against competing shops that still have their customers wait in lines (which often pile up in the mornings) and slow their commutes down.
A Sound Invest For Any Coffee Shop
The hallmarks of any coffee shop, small or large, are how quickly the serve customers and how comfortable the cafe experience is. With a point of sale system, a shop will be able to improve upon these drastically and increase profits.
We receive tons of feedback from our customers with coffee shops and put together some of the best we’ve received for articles such as these in order to inform those who are considering a POS system for their business. For more useful information, visit the eHopper blog each week.
eHopper POS offers huge benefits to the two most important parts of running a cafe (speed and service), it is clearly much more of a positive investment than an expense.