co-founder and CEO of Semi-express.
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Customer demand for grocery store food service is on the rise. Approximately 71.7% of households purchased prepared food at least once in the 52 weeks ending August 2022. During that period, the number of purchases he increased by 5.1% and the transaction size increased by 9.6%.
Food service sales are growing, but consumers want more. Half of respondents said the ability to pre-order via a mobile app, online, or in-store pick-up stations would drive more purchases. This growing demand for options, such as curbside pickup and doorstop services, and a variety of delis at food counters, all adds complexity. Grocers need to make the purchasing process seamless for in-store customers, delivery customers, and food service customers, putting tremendous pressure on staff.
Modern technologies, such as self-service kiosks, aim to eliminate inefficiencies and create a more seamless customer experience.
Customer service excellence
“Do-it-yourself” consumers want less service and more choice. They are interested in interactive menus and customizable options and don’t want to wait in line. Grocery stores are waiting for them.
Kiosks with cross-device and product customization capabilities take longer to set up, but save everyone time in the long run. They help large grocery stores manage complex order combinations and help customers design the perfect meal. For large stores with extensive product listings or smaller stores with little technical expertise, a provider of management software and installation support is essential to ensure a smooth deployment.
Grocery stores should look for kiosks with built-in cloud printers so that kitchen staff can receive receipts directly from customers, eliminating the possibility of human error. With his 56% of today’s grocery servers suffering from burnout, having a customer approve the capture of his data reduces the impact on staff.
When it comes to additions, kiosk folks tend to upgrade more. At the same time, some people are sensitive to choosing a large serving in person, while others feel panic about rushing to order. Especially if there is a long queue. Kiosks can handle more orders during peak hours, creating greater upsell opportunities. But they also remove human judgment and give people a space to browse comfortably and make the choices they want. All of these will boost your bottom line.
From large stadiums to small stores, kiosks pay for themselves if they can process about 10 orders a day. If you’re looking for a simple, generic kiosk for a quick service restaurant (QSR) or catering industry, a few thousand dollars is well worth the money.
Price volatility and transparency of digital systems
Profiting from inflation is a hot topic and customers don’t like to feel they are only paying the costs.
Since July 2021, household food prices have increased by 13.1% due to inflation. This is his biggest rise since March 1979. Stores that want to keep their margins are obliged to follow suit. But if the retailer just printed a whole new batch of counter signs, menus and price tags, the cost of reprinting hurts the budget even more. If the customer is not properly updated, they may even honor the original amount. In the digital world, price changes are instant.
With digital signage and kiosks, grocers can respond quickly and transparently to market changes, displaying each item and surcharge in real time. Clear and honest pricing gives consumers decision power. Kiosk allows you to weigh options to create or remove add-ons before you receive an unexpected receipt. Retailers then receive data that helps them understand which items consumers click on to drive appropriate pricing strategies.
The downside of food service menus is the need to integrate with point of sale (POS) systems, e-commerce platforms, and multiple departments. But this is the key to omnichannel success. All interactions should be seamlessly integrated. For large supermarkets with multiple food counters in different locations of the store, kiosks integrated with iOS and Android tablets in each can help distribute a unified strategy. Marketers can assess the popularity of dishes and use kiosks as a platform to recommend suitable, better-value products and help customers adapt to skyrocketing prices.
How loyalty binds everything together
If you’re new to the kiosk business, a good strategy is to start with using it as an order-taking mechanism and expand to add other loyalty programs, surveys, and advertising features.
Consumers are willing to share data if it improves their lives or contributes to the greater good in some way. In 2020, 70% of her respondents turned to grocery’s mobile he app for their purchase history, pre-populated shopping lists, and sustainability insight-driven promotions. But there is a gap when it comes to in-store consumers.
For enterprise stores, kiosks with advertising platforms and digital signage can dramatically increase sales. Catalina, Shopper Intelligence Leader, found that shoppers in her self-checkout (SCO) lane who received coupons achieved four times the sales growth of her SCO her lane who suppressed incentives. did. It will also be the perfect place to provide consumers with additional health benefit and carbon footprint information, including information and data capture accessible via her digital her kiosks.
From mobile purchases at home to digital recipes to in-store shopping, stores must rethink the entire customer journey to deliver personalized offers to customers. Let’s say a customer logs into your app, creates a customized deli girlfriend wrap, and receives a coupon to purchase in-store. You can purchase pre-designed wraps by logging into the kiosk. Marketers gain insights to enhance promotions, better serve product recommendations to customers, and improve inventory.
Customer demand for convenience, flexibility, and choice puts kiosks in the forefront, allowing retailers to shift staff resources and improve service excellence. Kiosks create a more seamless experience by requesting bespoke products directly from your customers. The grocery store is also one step closer to hyper-personalization, and integrating kiosk purchases with rewards programs is just one of his ways to keep customers coming back.
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