A retail systems specialist has supplied a chain of five Japanese restaurants in the London area with their system using traditional PCs and separate touch screens to operate delivery and takeaway order processing at all its restaurants Japanese Restaurants in New York. The system provides a link between telephone Caller ID and the restaurant’s customer database. When a customer calls, their details appear instantly on screen; a post-code database is provided to add new customers quickly. The restaurant staff touch the menu on screen to take orders rapidly and the system prints clear orders and receipts for the kitchen, the drivers and finally for the customers.
The restaurant chain is in the process of expanding and needed to update its systems while still incorporating their existing software. Over the last 6 months its old hardware has been replaced with integrated touch screen terminals.
The immediate benefit of upgrading the hardware to integrated workstations has been to give a faster and smarter system making the chain more efficient and enabling them to deliver a quicker and better service to customers. The terminals take up a smaller foot print and, as space is at a premium, this is a very worthwhile feature. A major benefit of using the system is meaningful analysis and a customer database ready to use for effective marketing via letter, e-mail or text.
Point-of-sale/point-of-service integrated workstations have been developed from industrial PC technology to withstand the rigours of modern hospitality and retail environments and incorporate features such as spill-proof LCD touchscreens, lockable disc drive/power switch, wall-mount fixing and enclosed cable management. The Intel™ chipsets provide a stable, flexible platform. In addition, future protection is ensured through standard expansion features including compact flash card technology.