While recent developments in digital menu boards are promising for the digital signage market, the sector still has a long way to go. The use of digital menu boards in quick-service restaurants has emerged as a popular method to improve service, facilitate orders and expedite the delivery of meals.
Digital menu boards also saw a rise in popularity during the pandemic. Since clients can use them to place orders quickly and easily from the drive-thru, restaurants reduced the number of customers who need to come inside to place their orders. In response, businesses started spending more money on sophisticated digital menu boards using cutting-edge technology.
It's easy to be partial, but this piece lays out the five main reasons why there are no alternatives for your QSR in 2023 and why everyone is so enthusiastic about digital menu boards and menu screens:
1. Immediate updates
One of the best ways to strengthen customer loyalty to your brand is to keep them actively involved. It is much harder to achieve with traditional menu boards, but with a digital menu board; you can upsell, highlight best-sellers, and grab people's attention with videos and QR codes for special in-store deals.
Dynamic solutions for restaurants' digital signage are particularly useful, which may keep diners entertained as they wait for their food or provide information on their order status at peak times. Here, just about anything is feasible so long as you have the correct program.
If you've eaten at or driven by a McDonald's, you presumably purchased your Big Mac from one of their new digital menu boards within the previous three years. McDonald's is making these changes as part of a larger strategy to move toward a more digital future.
The "Experience of the Future," a $6 billion renovation plan for Mickey D's locations in the United States, was unveiled in 2019. Improvements to in-store and on-the-go digital menu boards powered by artificial intelligence. McDonald's can better understand its consumers and upsell to them with the help of digital menu boards.
Large, brightly lit images of menu items almost demanding to be added to the shopping basket keep consumers interested longer than static alternatives and increase sales. Furthermore, it puts more power in the hands of the consumers, who can now customize their burgers with their preferred toppings, add on different sides and peruse the menu more easily.
Which led to what? The next quarter, the chain reported a 4.8% increase in sales, in line with the industry trend: eateries that have used digital menu boards have witnessed a 3-5% increase in revenue. However, the advantages of digital menu boards aren't reserved for megabrands like McDonald's. Anyone can take advantage.
2. Menu automation
You can integrate point-of-sale (POS) systems with digital menu boards to enable quick updates and modifications. When this is computerized, it becomes considerably less of a burden on your team. Point-of-sale digital displays, like iPads and tablets, may also upsell depending on customer behavior. Displaying information like "go big for only $2 extra" or "have you tried our new side salad?" are both excellent ways to encourage customers to make more purchases. You may also inform customers of allergen and calorie counts through digital menu boards. The consumer with a known allergy may check the allergen information without holding up the line.
3. Reduce expenses and boost restaurant profits
A static menu board requires regular maintenance. It will cost both time and money. One significant expense to think about is the price of printing and sending new menu boards with each new season or marketing campaign. In addition, having an employee set up the menu boards by hand adds payroll expenditures. Digital menu boards reduce costs associated with updating paper menus.
Using digital menu boards may help keep food prices down by eliminating the need for expensive printed materials and the time and effort required to mount and maintain them. The profits of a restaurant may be severely diminished by food waste. By quickly drawing attention to perishable goods nearing their expiry dates, out-of-stock items, and those with a greater margin per transaction, digital menu boards help businesses manage food prices and prevent waste.
4. Refine the client experience and boost consumer impression
What is the most frustrating thing about eating out? It's probably waiting to get served. A number of these obstacles are simultaneously eliminated by digital signage. First, having digital menus available throughout the shop expedites the ordering process and informs consumers as soon as they enter.
Additionally, digital signage is not limited to displaying menus and food-related information. Playlists make it simple to cycle among various material types, such as social network dashboards, train timings, weather reports, live news, sports scores and images or videos, all of which contribute to a more satisfying user experience. When combined with a basic foot tracking or sensor system, you may also utilize digital signage to direct consumers to certain areas and inform them of the number of available seats currently available.
5. Self-empowerment made simple
It's much simpler to manage your menus and displays with digital signage software than with a traditional display. It might take weeks or even months to move from the idea stage of a print campaign through the design phase, the feedback phase, the printing phase, the quality assurance phase and ultimately, the installation phase in your shop.
On the other hand, a digital menu board allows for simple changes to both the content and layout. Recognize an error on your printed sign? Mistakes like these are inevitable, but fixing this will take some time. Making a change to your digital menu board is as easy as making a change to your Facebook status if you discover an error. That's OK.
If you use these dynamic solutions for your menu displays, you can control the uniformity of all of your on-screen material from a single location. It's simple to roll out updates at any time of day from a laptop and be sure that all of your displays have been updated, even if you run many restaurants in different locations.
The use of digital menu boards allows for the creative presentation of marketing messages. As opposed to traditional menu boards, digital menu boards are more aesthetically pleasing and simpler to read. They interact with customers in ways they appreciate and contribute to the restaurant's narrative.
