Tips to Build a Fast-Food Restaurant Self-Service Ordering Kiosk and Payment System Share: Adamo Software Date Published 2 January 2020 Categories Blog Reading Time 4-Minute Read If you are looking for an automating ordering and payments through a self-service ordering kiosk for your restaurant, this article is for you What Is a Self-Service Kiosk? A self-service kiosk integrates hardware and software to make an interactive environment such as product display for sale or information display for multimedia (photos, videos, articles, and music). There are some types of self-service kiosk including public information kiosk, bill payment kiosk, ticketing kiosk, and photo kiosk. A fast-food restaurant self-service kiosk is a type of bill payment kiosk which serves as an excellent aggregation point for financial services in a restaurant. Self-service kiosks are popular in many restaurants because of their convenience and efficiency. They solve problems such as long wait times and a long line of customers in the restaurant. Through self-service kiosks, customers can place their orders and pay for it all from one place so they don’t have to wait in line; restaurants can reduce labour costs, enhance their brand, and build a better reputation with customers. If you are looking for an automating ordering and payments through a self-service ordering kiosk for your restaurant, this article will provide you with some tips and attention. Basic Functions Here is the list of must-have features you need to add when installing a self-service ordering kiosk. Language: choosing a language that your target audience use, you can add the English language to attract foreign customers. Get help: a button that appears everywhere on the screen helps customers in cases they don’t know how to use the kiosk. Eat-in or takeaway: you can give customers more choices by adding some options for the kiosk such as eat-in, takeaway or both eat-in and takeaway Customize dishes: you can let customers choose their dishes by adding a menu. Some restaurants even allow customers to make dishes themselves by letting them choose ingredients. Payment: you should integrate various trusted payment methods after ordering. Customers can pay by card via EMV chip, pin or magstripe. Also, you need a PoS (Point of Sale) system which is compatible with your hardware to accept payments. For example, Lightspeed POS can calculate costs accurately with taxes included. Integration Integration is a necessary step to make your self-service kiosk system more competitive. For instance, API integration allows requests which are from customers via kiosk to communicate with the server and send the answer quickly. Nowadays, restaurants use technology services API integration to make a single platform that provides data-based insights. Creating customer experiences via kiosk can help you to collect customer data. Also, the integration will encourage bigger orders and faster checkouts because it turns a kiosk into an all-in-one system. Thus, you should build software that is compatible with the tools and platforms you are using. It’s also important to understand your customers to have a suitable integration method. User Interface Design In terms of UI design, some factors need to focus on such as fonts, colours, and graphical elements. UI design helps you a lot in the branding process, make your restaurant specific and bring a great experience to your customer. Remember, your UI style must match with the in-store design of your restaurant. Don’t try to complicate everything because your customers may be confused about using the kiosk. In cases of supporting customers, you can design the Get Help button for them. Set up Admin Dashboard It’s necessary to have an admin dashboard to control all customers’ activities via kiosk. Generally, an admin dashboard includes price and VAT setting; order confirmation; new menu items adding, etc. Choose the Technology Stack for Self-Order Kiosk Software The platform you implemented and the hardware affect your choice of the technology stack. For example, an iOS-powered kiosk uses Swift programming language while an Android-powered kiosk uses Kotlin or Java. Or you can’t have large touchscreen TVs that runs iOS. Also, you have many options for backend development such as Python, PHP, and Ruby. Thus, make sure you understand their strengths and weaknesses. Security Is Important Self-service kiosks communicate directly with customers, so security is very important in this section. Thus, you should choose a company using cloud server management to protect fully your transactions. Besides that, the development process should follow PCI and ADA compliant. In conclusion, self-service ordering kiosks will become popular in the future, especially when many restaurants try to integrate technology for a competitive quality. If you are a restaurant owner who wants to build this system, you need to define your restaurant’s core value and target audience; pay attention to UI/UX design, functions and payment terminal; do testing and collect real-time feedback.