A successful restaurant business is like a complex and intricate house of cards that is built on the resolute foundation of the efficient execution of a multitude of functions. One error in the execution process and it cripples the entire operation resulting in you losing money!
Hence, the use of automated technologies by restauranteurs to mitigate such operational errors is a natural next step in the evolution of the hospitality industry. A Restaurant Management System is one such automated software solution that can take your restaurant operations into hyper-productivity.
With an automated system like that, you can better manage & process your daily operations that reduce your overhead and generate more revenue. Add to that the fact that a good RMS platform is flexible and scalable that can accommodate your future needs while integrating other necessary systems like a POS and your personalised food ordering app.
But with so many seemingly great RMS platform options in the market, how should you choose the best one for your restaurant? The answer to that is rather nuanced, therefore we present you with a detailed guide to help in this process.
Let us dig deeper and try to understand what criterions a restaurant owner like you should use to benchmark the performance and select the best RMS platforms for your business!
The Need For A Restaurant Management System
The need for a Restaurant Management System arises from the inherent requirement of optimizing tasks for greater efficiency. Restaurants are financial capital intensive businesses that require a regular infusion from their revenue streams to operate at full capacity. Therefore you need a system that can aid you in cutting your redundancies, saving overhead, and increasing capacity while also delivering quality.
An RMS platform is in actuality a piece of software that has attributes from many other systems across the board. It gives you a bird’s eye view of your business and provides you with actionable data that helps you streamline your operations. An RMS platform also enables you to manage everything from a centralized admin console that can process your POS, customer calls, dine-in reservations, inventory management, ordering management, CRM marketing, etc.
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#1 Customer Centric Tools
While choosing a Restaurant Management System, you need to make sure that your platform enables you to cater to your customers better. In other words, your RMS platform must enable you to automate your business operations, thereby allowing you to deliver value to your customers frictionlessly.
If your operations are primarily towards the “dine-in” model with table-service, any RMS platform you choose should not only possess the ability to accept dine-in reservations, but also allocate the right amount of resources to each table for optimal performance. Following the rise of fast food and take-out restaurants, it also needs to integrate itself with your own personalized food ordering app or a third-party solution. That as a result, gives you an edge against your competition and allows you to not only build your brand but also offer your customers tremendous value.
The said platform also needs to be able to incorporate itself with your restaurant’s brand website to allow you to get data-analytics from all your integrated systems into your admin control console and take empowered decisions.
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#2 Menu & Order Management
As mentioned above, a Restaurant Management System needs to have the ability to process multiple orders simultaneously from dine-in customers, mobile app orders, third-party platforms, etc. It must also be able to integrate your POS system to process payment, collect billing data, create invoices, all in one centralized control panel.
Many restaurants that operate across multiple locations make the fatal mistake of using old and outdated menu management systems that need manual intervention from time to time. If you are a business spread across different locations then you need to factor that in your RMS choice.
As if you are a business with multiple locations then your RMS platform needs to be able to handle and update menus across multiple branches. As a result of which your brand will be able to scale more effectively and increase your overall sales without compromising on quality.
#3 Operational Data Insights
To compete in the rapidly changing hospitality industry, you need to have the wind at your back and for that you need data. A good Restaurant Management System will get you key data insights into your business operations, allowing you to make the necessary choices to enable better growth.
Thus your RMS platform needs to be cloud-based and integrated with your mobile app, website, and POS to give you a vantage point through which you can gauge your business’s trajectory. From how many orders you received in a given time frame to the best-selling food item on your menu, you can know even the most minute detail of your restaurant operations.
Having a cloud-based RMS platform also enables you to be on the go and not be bogged down by heavy data-storage & management equipment, while being more affordable than more traditional solutions. A cloud-based RMS platform also gives you unparalleled levels of security as now you can have multiple backups of your data in case of a loss.
#4 Integrated Marketing Tools
Your customers are the most important asset of your business and whether you remember that or not, rest assured that your competition will never forget that. Thus, to thrive in the restaurant market, you need to be able to entice more and more customers to consistently choose your restaurant over your competition.
Therefore, you need to conduct comprehensive Customer-Relationship-Management and brand marketing campaigns to increase your reach and build credibility. our Restaurant Management System needs to be able to provide you with integrated marketing solutions that can utilize SMS, emails, push notifications, etc. to engage and re-engage customers.
To add to this, you must also be able to create and implement brand loyalty and reward programs that offer personalized referral points, loyalty offers, discount coupons, and much more. In the CRM side of things, you need your RMS platform to offer you a robust review and feedback system to inspect customer satisfaction and user experience.
#5 Peripheral Management Tools
Lastly, a good Restaurant Management System should have the capability to manage your staff and other back-end office operations. A good RMS platform will be able to process payroll, create shift timelines, and keep track of your delivery agents if you manage them in-house, register attendances, etc.
Along with the above tasks, your RMS platform must also be able to execute financial management tasks that can run accurate estimations of your Cost of Goods Sold, audit your profits and losses, keep track of net generated revenue, and other monetary responsibilities.
One crucial aspect that must be in an RMS platform that you eventually choose is the ease of use when you use the system you shouldn’t make mistakes because of the complexity. The best systems in the world are one of the easiest pieces of software, hence you must factor in the usability of the system to make sure you’re making the right choice.
In Conclusion
Having a Restaurant Management System gives your restaurant an unparalleled advantage vis-a-vie your competitors who do not possess one. As the hospitality industry evolves, you must also evolve to not only survive but thrive in a market plagued with uncertainty and razor thin margins.
