Food trucks have become a highly fashionable and functional approach for hospitality professionals to maximize their profitability and build customer loyalty throughout multiple locations. While this can be the perfect springboard for success, the prospect of lengthy queues can be both a blessing and a curse.
The food truck market is growing at a healthy CAGR of 4.29 percent and is expected to reach a value of $2.65 billion by 2027.
While the growing popularity of food trucks is likely to bring more customers seeking out new and exciting dining experiences, the longer queuing times this could bring is likely to be a challenge for many popular hospitality managers.
With over 59 percent of shoppers unwilling to wait in line to make a purchase and a further 83 percent believing that reduced queuing is essential to securing a positive customer experience, solving the problem of large queues will be a key consideration for all food truck owners.
So what’s the solution? Let’s take a look at seven key ways to reduce queuing times for food on the go:
- Embracing Virtual Queuing
Fortunately, point-of-sale (POS) technology can work wonders in queue management for food trucks, and one of the most effective processes for this can be found in virtual queuing systems.
Rather than placing customers in physical lines when queuing to get their food, virtual queuing makes this process fully digital, helping to ease congestion and empowering consumers to bypass having to stand in line.
Creating a virtual queuing system within your POS means you can digitalize your ordering process in a way that tells consumers when their food is ready to collect via a smartphone or integrated device.
This helps to reduce queues because consumers will only approach your truck when their food is ready, and the digital ordering process will streamline the time it takes for staff to communicate with diners.
- Simplify Ordering with an Electronic POS
Adopting an integrated food truck POS system will help you obtain a more holistic overview of the ordering process, stock levels, and consumer demand.
Because complete electronic POS solutions offer greater flexibility, including mobile payments like Apple Pay and Google Pay, it can simplify the ordering process for users and help keep queues moving at a faster pace.
Crucially, electronic POS systems can also help to reduce time-consuming instances of human error, which can occur when manually inputting product prices or writing down orders. With human error costing an estimated $9,000 per month in the hospitality sector, minimizing its impact with an integrated POS could pay dividends for food trucks and their profit margins, as well as speed up queuing times.
- Introduce Self-Service
More food trucks are introducing self-service POS kiosks that electronically send orders to kitchen staff.
For food trucks that expect a steady stream of consumers and frequently experience issues related to queuing, adding one or two self-service kiosks to the truck can rapidly shorten the time it takes for orders to be processed, and with an automatic virtual queuing system that alerts customers when it’s time to collect their order, the process can eliminate queuing altogether.
To improve the collection process, self-service kiosks can ask consumers to input their name or record a number that will be called out by staff once an order is ready to collect.
- Get Creative
There are plenty of ways to get creative with your food truck strategy. Why not create a visual menu or host PR events to raise awareness?
Whether your menu is embedded in an electronic POS system or is clearly displayed on the side of your truck, adding images next to food items can be an essential strategy for shortening queuing times.
For first-time visitors to your truck, the ordering process can be difficult if they have little idea of what their food is going to look like. Adding clear, large images of the dishes you serve can help visitors make up their minds by the time they reach the front of the queue for a faster ordering process.
Blasta Street Kitchens owner Seány McCleary takes food-truck marketing one step further, by hosting a street-food workshop for aspiring food-truckers. Here they learn how to create a visual menu, market their truck online and keep customers coming back.
“We do workshops, one-on-one, with street food enthusiasts or start-ups. We tease out the ideas they have and the foods that they are passionate about, and then teach them how to turn it into a feasible street food business,” he told Enterprise Nation.
“We cover the branding and the design and connect them with our growing network. Once they come to the street food community, it’s more than just selling them a trailer and equipment, it’s selling them the know-how and the connections too.”
- Check Everything’s in Working Order
Some due diligence can go a long way when it comes to running a food truck. Before setting up shop for the day, make sure your POS is working, is fully charged if it’s portable, and your equipment is in working order.
Any unforeseen setbacks can be extremely problematic when it comes to managing queues, so taking the time to test everything you need before you open up your truck to customers is imperative.
Similar checks should be made for your inventory. Have you got a sufficient supply of utensils, napkins, and containers? Shortages are a leading cause of lengthy queues.
- Streamline Your Menu
While having a diverse range of menu items can be attractive to customers, the vast volume of ingredients and condiments could make preparation times longer, leading to an increase in queuing times.
Instead, consider focusing on your specialty items with a selection of simplified variations of dishes to attract more customers without having to load your truck with a wide and confusing number of different food items.
“Food trucks are 24/7 operations so keep that in mind and be ready to work — a lot. And, with the continuing labor shortage, truck owners are having to do much of the work themselves. In order to succeed, a creative menu is fundamental, especially a menu that offers meals that no one else is offering. Research the market — what’s already being offered and how can you distinguish your menu,” says Anne-Marie Aigner, founder of Food Truck Ventures.
“Quick meals, especially if you have long lines — if folks have to wait too long, they won’t come back. If your menu is mac ‘n’ cheese with toppings, you can serve one customer every 30 seconds (which) equals 100-plus meals per hour, so figure out your sales.” she told Food Truck Operator.
- Pre-Package Meals
Pre-packaging your meals can be a great way for food trucks to handle orders more efficiently without having to spend more time sourcing and measuring ingredients.
Whether this means preparing your burgers by adding the toppings to the bun prior to cooking the beef or positioning salad in their packaging before adding cooked ingredients, having the ability to prepare your meal during less-congested periods can help you handle high-volume orders when queues begin to pick up.
Finding a Sustainable Approach
Queues at food trucks can lead to diminished food quality from rushing staff and a heightened level of consumer dissatisfaction from longer wait times.
Fortunately, there are plenty of POS solutions and easy fixes that can help your food truck manage queues and ensure consumer satisfaction with a service that matches their expectations time and again.
Effective queue management is the key to a sustainable food truck operation, and thankfully, there are plenty of options available within your POS to generate a pleasant experience for consumers and staff alike.
Rebecca Barnatt-Smith talks about all things technology. Writing for popular publications like Real Business and Maddyness, she writes on the power of growing your business using the latest tech innovations and how the digital world continues to change hospitality strategies across the globe.
