Technology GrAPPles Hunger

In the restaurant biz and looking to improve and enhance your diners’ experience? Check out our list of the hottest upcoming tech and gadgets. Featured Loyalty/Reward Systems: Belly Chicago-based Belly allows users to check-in at locations using a physical loyalty card known as a ‘BellyCard’, with a mobile app or an in-store iPad at point-of-sale. Not unlike a digital version of a punch card, customers collect points that can later be used to redeem rewards offered by the business. Restaurants such as Noodles & Company and McDonalds, who have already embraced the Belly experience, provide their customers with the opportunity to enjoy various special offers. This also adds to Belly’s user database, which in turn allows restaurants to learn who their customers are, how often they’re coming in and what kind of experience they’re looking for on their next visit. Belly has also given restaurants and businesses the tools to market to their favorite customers by reaching out to them via email campaigns and social media tools. For more info, check out the video below: Addtional Loyalty/Reward Systems: Perka, Spendgo Featured Online Ordering System: Grubhub The idea behind GrubHub is simple. “You have food to sell. We have people to feed,” the company’s website reads. GrubHub opens up even more ways a restaurant can satisfy its clientele, as every month, millions of users use the service to find restaurants near them that offer takeout and delivery. With stats like, “over 1.6 million diners have used GrubHub to find food in the last year” and “89 percent of our diners have tried out a new restaurant using GrubHub,” it’s apparent that this technological avenue is a wise one for a restaurant to take advantage of. The site promotes thousands of restaurants and combines class-leading technology and 24/7 customer service to help eateries run their businesses as smoothly as possible. Plus, it’s free to be featured, and restaurant owners only have to pay GrubHub when the website delivers one of their meals. With the recent announcement that the company has merged with competitor Seamless, this is a no brainer for restaurateurs looking to make the most of available technology. Additional Online Ordering Systems:  Mealeo, Seamless (Recently merged with GrubHub) Featured iPad Menu Ordering: Breadcrumb Many restaurants have adopted the strategy of allowing customers to pay the bill via an iPad thus adding a more efficient establishment. Breadcrumb, a start-up recently purchased by Groupon, has created a finely polished, simple and intuitive iPad-based point-of-sale (POS) system that adheres to the customers’ needs. It allows staff members to log in and out, process credit card transactions, keep track of tips and automatically send orders to the kitchen – just to name but a few of its fresh and unique characteristics. For more information on breadcrumb, check out the video below: Breadcrumb: Hospitality iPad POS from Groupon on Vimeo. Additional iPad menu ordering: Touchlife, Aptito Featured Customer Engagment Apps (Social Jukebox): Rockbot “Rockbot lets your customers DJ from their phones, while you keep control.” Such is the mission of Rockbot, an app that offers restaurants the opportunity to give control back to their customers when it comes to what music they prefer  while they dine. Customers can use the Rockbot app to check in, request songs, vote on the music and share with friends. It also ensures that music is always playing even when diners aren’t requesting songs. Rockbot allows the restaurant to moderate, control and fully customize content present on their jukeboxes so no unexpected music choices will disturb the flow of your customers dining experience.  Check out the video below for some more insight into what Rockbot is offering: Additional Customer engagement apps (Social Jukebox) applications: Hiveplay, Playmysong