Top 5 Tech Issues for Restaurants
It’s no secret that when working at a restaurant, you can expect the unexpected. Trust us, we’ve seen it. This can cause staff anxiety, not to mention disrupt the customer experience. That being said, some things happen more often than others. Our Scientists have crunched the numbers and produced a comprehensive list to let you know what the top 5 most common tech problems in your restaurant are.
Internet Down
Yep, it’s pretty much the most common, and worst issue for restaurants. When the internet goes down, everything else that relies on it will, too. This especially includes any cloud-based POS, credit card payments, guest Wi-Fi, phones, and even back-of-house equipment too. These technology outages are costing operators hundreds, even thousands of dollars a day. Science has seen an uptick in subscribers investing in our Science On Line package for this very reason. Having a redundant internet connection is just one way to prepare for any unforeseen outages in your area.
Online Ordering Problems/Questions
It’s a tired saying, but after the unprecedented year we’ve had, it shouldn’t be too surprising that we’ve been receiving a lot of Online Order-related tickets. So many restaurants have had to adopt different tools and software in a short time, and learn how to synchronize third-party delivery apps with their POS, or update their menu options across every app. It can be hard to reach some of these third-party service help desks in a timely fashion .Many operators have experienced extra long hold times or support agents overseas that can sometimes be difficult to hear or understand. Luckily, the team at Science can assist in times of crisis and reduce the anxiety caused by online ordering issues.
Pie chart of Top 5 most common tech issues in a given month. Internet Performance made up 53.3% of issues submitted. (Prown, April 2021)
3. Online Ordering Configuration
Implementing all of the necessary hardware and devices to accept online orders can be a very cumbersome process. Aside from finding which systems work best for you (Grubhub, DoorDash, Uber Eats), there’s also getting the apps to connect with your POS. This isn’t always the first day you get your OLO (Online Ordering) set-up: issues with printer connectivity, tablets, and order aggregators can occur at any time post-installation. Science is highly aware of this, which is why on average we can get new online ordering systems set up in fraction of the time it takes operators to do it themselves.
4. Point-of-Sale Software Problems
POS systems can be finicky in the first place (we all know that dreaded “offline mode” or “processing error”) but it can be even more complicated when dealing with a legitimate bug or outage with the software. What we see often are people struggling to find certain reports to track their sales for the night, or to change specific settings to help their employees do their job right. Sometimes the tickets in this category are really just questions about how to use Toast or Square. More than likely our Scientists have dealt with the same issue for 100 or so other restaurants that same day.
5. Email/User Administration
It can be a bit tedious on-boarding and off-boarding new employees into your systems, so we get that some people would rather outsource the work to us. On top of that, it can be hard to fit that type of work into a busy schedule for an owner or chef behind the grill. With Science, we can solve these issues in a matter of minutes. That says a lot, considering these tickets can take operators up to three hours every month!
This is just a sliver of what Science On Call deals with everyday. To find out other ways Science can help you deal with technology, click down below!