Where Should Your Restaurant Stand on Digital Signage?

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

Touch Screen Digital Signage Kiosks

Touch screen digital signage drives sales, while improving 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, improving the ordering process, reducing waiting times and lessening queues at your front counter.

A touch screen digital menu can boost customer spend, too. A digital ordering system gives customers a little more freedom and time to make menu selections.

This increased dwelling time is an opportunity to make recommendations and influence buying decisions.

You can automate on screen content to recommend desserts to accompany a 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 content to include new menu items, without disrupting operations.

Additionally, touch screen digital signage kiosks enable you to gather data. You can identify popular selling menu items of the day, week, month or year, among your customers.

You can use this data to promote specific menu items that sell well, and sell even more of those menu items.

Restaurant Digital Signage Menus

Display your menu items in stunning, high definition by positioning restaurant digital signage above your front counter.

Restaurant digital signage will increase the appeal of your menu items, making them look vibrant and highly appetizing, while making your menus easier to read.

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 put an easy to read menu at the top of their list 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 menu items you want the customer to see:

For example, 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, restaurant digital signage attracts more customers too, increasing the potential to boost your sales.

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, digital signage above the counter is the place to display nutritional information or allergy advice, which are legal requirements.

Traditional menu boards don’t have the room to list nutritional information and allergy advice in a readable format. Digital menus do.

Order Status and Order Ready Digital Signs

You can use restaurant digital signage 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 and keeping queues moving.

Armagard

Drive thru digital signage is especially popular with 18–24 year olds.

Drive Thru Digital Signage

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 – 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
To upsell: Displays can feature high ticket items to tempt customers into additional purchases
To run promotions: Drive thru digital signage can be used to present eye-catching meal deal promotions

Segmenting menu items: 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, 18–24 year olds happen be the age group that 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.

Armagard

Use digital signage to entertain customers, like this Sicilian restaurant showing the golf.

Digital Signage Entertainment

Use digital signage to entertain customers, like this Sicilian restaurant showing the golf.

You can use restaurant digital signage to entertain customers, increasing the likelihood that they will eat-in and purchase additional items.

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 and will become a key part of your restaurant’s business strategy, improving these key areas:

Customer volume
Customer spend
Customer experience
Restaurant operations

Digital signage 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 alike benefit from digital signage.

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