Mass Notification and Lockdown Procedures
June 1, 2018
The Importance of a Cohesive Digital Signage Network
June 6, 2018

Digital signage for restaurants is utilized in a number of different ways: for indoor and outdoor advertising, for arranging reservations, and even to keep customers entertained while waiting for their food. You can see how digital signage is implemented across every type of restaurant there is, from franchise fast food to high-end dining. The menu board is also becoming a regular staple of dining.

 

Menu Boards, not Menus

 

A menu board can simplify certain processes, allowing wait staff to interact with customers more directly and focus on other customer needs outside just taking orders. You might think of the old-fashioned menu board that fast food chains use on the drive-thru, but menu boards are starting to replace menus as an interactive feature at tables.

 

Two Big Advantages

 

  1. One advantage of this is increased space for visuals. This allows you to highlight certain meals and options. It’s as easy as scrolling through your phone, so you don’t need to be as limiting with your presentation or details as physical menus often are.

 

  1. Another advantage is that you can mark down your order as you scroll through. Order at a restaurant and you usually pare it down to two things: a meal and drink. That’s because we don’t want to juggle too many choices in our heads at once. Two is enough, so we dismiss the appetizer or asking about different cocktails we had our eyes on.

 

When you can mark it down on a menu board, you’ll be much more open to getting that one extra thing, or about asking wait staff about various options. You’ve marked your previous options down, so you don’t have to juggle them in your mind anymore. You can focus on the additional option.

Visual Layout is Key

 

To get the most out of these benefits, arrange your menu board layout in a sensible way. Because they can be so much more visual, there’s a temptation to re-arrange creatively. Yet if you do it in such a way where appetizers are listed after meals and drinks, no one’s going to get appetizers. You still need to make the visual sequence a progression in the minds of your diners, from one element to the next in a way that makes sense.

 

Do this, and digital signage for restaurants can increase your sales, the efficiency of your wait staff, and the satisfaction of your customers.