Contactless dining-Post pandemic's new-normal

February 8, 2022

blog restaurant

The COVID-19 pandemic has serious negative effects on our lives and the global economy. It has exerted enormous pressure on societies worldwide and forced a host of changes to how we live and work.

What lead to contactless dining ?

While it is likely that the coming generation will bear long-term impacts, it is less clear what those might be. Today’s young adults may think of health differently from earlier generations. The COVID-19 has an impact on the whole process from the field to the consumer. In the light of recent challenges in food supply chain, there is now considerable concern about food production, processing, distribution, and demand. A food supply chain facilities should concentrate on facilities like maintenance of employees' safety and health, change of conditions in working. We come across so many dining restaurants now and then, which rank safety assurance, hygiene and their vaccinated employees as top factors for consideration while inviting the diners. The situation demands all of us to keep safety and hygiene standards at the highest priority and the eating outlets for being a commercial establishment, have to follow best in class practices to keep their staff and their customers safe.

Defining contactless dining

Contactless Dining helps in encouraging a safer dining experience for the customers as well as the restaurant staff by minimising points of physical contact through physical menus, cash transactions, & non-essential interaction with the staff. It involves no close contact with restaurant staff and minimal touching of shared surfaces. This means that guests can view the menu, place their order, and make payment all on their own with the help of technology such as QR codes. A safe and contactless digital platform enables diners to view the restaurant’s full menu and request expert service in real time from their personal mobile devices. In simple words, its dining gone digital.

Working of contactless dining

While the experience can differ slightly depending on the restaurant and the technology in place, this is generally how contactless dining works:

The customer scans a custom QR code with the built-in camera of their mobile device. This immediately redirects the customer to the restaurant’s contactless menu.
After browsing the digital menu, the customer selects the items they wish to order.
Orders are processed through the restaurant POS (point of sales) and sent directly to the kitchen.
After placing their order, the customer can complete a contactless payment with their mobile device.

This allows guests to control the entire dining experience from the comfort and safety of their own smartphone. These components eliminate the need for menu cards or bill books which are often touched by others, are usually unsanitized, and could carry the source of infection. The restaurant staff will be bringing food to the table but as long as they are wearing masks and following hygiene standards, it should not concern the customers.

A contactless dining experience comprises several key components. For example, enabling a diner to reserve a seat, innovative options to access the digital menu and place an order, diverse payment options, feedback form, etc.

For restaurants, a Point of Sale (POS) is a crucial component. It automates the order placement and management cycle. For example, it receives the order, print orders to kitchen for preparation, process digital payments, collect feedback, etc. Moreover, it will manage the availability of food items, discounts & combos, helps to personalize recommendations for diners based on their profiles, etc.

Benefits of contactless dining

A contactless dining gives a plate full of benefits for the consumer as well as the owners of the restaurant.

Contactless dining reduced the number of times restaurant staff need to go back and forth from a table. When the customer is able to view a menu, order, and pay all on their own, the only time staff must come to the table to bring out the actual order – something that takes just seconds and this is crucial in minimizing the spread of virus.
Contactless dining also makes dine-in a safer experience for staff and customers by reducing the number of touchpoints in your restaurant. It helps restaurants comply with these safety standards by significantly reducing the number of objects that guests need to touch when they dine in. Instead of handling menus, pens, and receipts, contactless dining means that the only thing guests need to touch is their own mobile device.
The big benefit of contactless ordering is that customers do the ordering themselves. And since customers have the ability to select, review, and place their own orders, there’s less risk that a server will mishear an order or misunderstand specific instructions. In turn, increased order accuracy means your kitchen won’t waste time preparing an unordered item or incorrect (unnecessary) dish, and customers won’t leave unhappy.
Contactless dining helps to simplify operations by limiting the number of responsibilities for staff unlike the conventional dining experience that requires staff to constantly be moving from one table to the next to take orders, bring out dishes, take payments, and check on how diners are doing. That involves a lot of time spent simply moving around the restaurant floor. With guests taking care of the ordering and payment process themselves, staff have more time to take care of other tasks.
One of the most important restaurant metrics is table turnover, which is directly correlated to operating costs and efficiency. The faster you can turn tables, the more tables you can seat, and the more products you can sell. Contactless dining technology largely increases table turnover times and repeated diners through increased staff and labour efficiency. With contactless dining, the guest is in control of the dining experience and can eliminate a lot of the downtime associated with a traditional dine-in experience, allowing restaurants to turn tables over faster. Digital, contactless menus can be optimized for mobile to make high-margin items more appealing. Digital menus can also be equipped with modification and customization options that can raise the cost of each dish, hence boosting check sizes. Unique features like pre-ordering, self-check-in, digital valet, & digital feedback helps restaurant stand out & enhance customer experience.
Now that the restaurants are aware of this alternative over traditional practises and practising that, it gives the customers a sense of peace of mind regarding safety issues amidst the pandemic.

It is predicted that 80% of all ordering, payment, and checkout services will be contactless by 2024 and research says that 57% of people wants to visit a dining area that practises contactless dining.

While contactless dining is paramount in keeping staff and diners safe, it eliminates some human interaction. However, the notion that contactless dining will take away from the hospitality experience of dining in restaurants is short-sighted. In fact, a future where contactless dining is the norm has the power to alter the dining experience for the better. All interactions between the staff and diner will be purposeful and beneficial. This gives diners the space to enjoy the food, ambiance and experience. For the restaurant, it’s an opportunity to put the focus back on the food. With the resurgence of COVID-19 cases around the nation, and the potential for more spikes in the near future, restaurants are in urgent need of finding solutions to keep staff and diners safe while bringing in much-needed revenue. Contactless dining is a fast, simple and safe solution that will not only make a big impact on individual restaurants, but it has the power to transform the dining experience as we know it for the better.