The best restaurant menu design in the world won't help you if no one can read it! With the digital menu options available to you now, there's no excuse not to make your restaurant menus easier to navigate, order from, and downright enjoyable. These five reasons your restaurant should use a digital menu will help clarify how beneficial this move will be for you and your customers alike.
What is a Digital Menu?
A digital menu, also known as an electronic menu, is just what it sounds like. Digital menus are simply electronic versions of their paper counterparts and have been available in restaurants for years. More recently, they've become wildly popular. You'll see digital menus mounted to tabletops—and soon enough, every tabletop will be equipped with its own screen so guests can peruse your offerings quickly from anywhere in your restaurant. Digital menus offer numerous benefits to restaurateurs (discussed below). Perhaps most importantly, digital menus deliver increased revenue potential and give you more control over your business operations.
Benefits of Using Digital Menus
Digital menus have become an increasingly popular option among restaurant owners looking to reach new customers, save money and protect themselves from liability. If you're thinking about making digital menus available at your restaurant, here are five reasons why you should make that happen sooner rather than later.
5 Reasons to Use Digital Menus
Digital menus provide restaurants with several advantages, including:
Minimizes guest complaints: Every time someone orders food in your restaurant, there is potential for problems with both service and execution. Digital menus can help minimize these risks by providing clear information on every item (including prices) and photos that can help eliminate any confusion when placing an order. This allows guests to have greater confidence leading to the minimized likelihood of guest complaints. If an order comes out how they did not want, you can always refer to the order specifications they noted themselves.
Saves time: You might think creating digital menus takes longer than traditional options do—and while that's accurate upfront—the longer-term benefits will make up for them. Digital menus allow restaurants to cut down on time spent fussing with traditional menus. By reducing employee hours working on updating or replacing old menus, digital menus enable businesses to avoid additional labor and operational costs.
Reduces no-shows: When guests can find your menu on their mobile device or at home before they arrive at your restaurant, it makes it easier for them to decide what to order (and when). More importantly, digital menus are quick and easy for people to peruse online and get excited about their upcoming reservations. It also allows them to place orders in advance from wherever they may be, boosting delivery sales.
Improves first-time visitor retention: One of your top priorities should be attracting new customers, and digital menus are ideal for helping businesses generate additional visits from first-time visitors. Digital menus not only provide high-quality photos of food and drinks, but they also simplify online ordering processes in general—which helps ensure repeat business with minimal effort on your part. Digital menus can also boost foot traffic by having curbside appeal.
Keeps prices up to date: The most significant benefit of digital menus is that they allow businesses to change their pricing at any time. If you opt for printed menus, once an item's price is set, it stays that way until someone manually updates it with pen and paper.
Top 3 Digital Menu Solutions
The top three digital menu solutions we turn to are:
1. Raydient
2. Spectrio
3. Novisign
All these options come with robust customization capabilities, which means your restaurant can craft a digital menu tailored specifically to its offerings and audience. You can also easily update pricing, descriptions, and other important information. Stop wasting time and money on printed menus that every restaurateur knows are burdensome, and switch to a digital menu today. Trust us; you will not regret it!