Point-of-sale (POS) software is one of the most important technologies for bars and restaurants, as it allows you to streamline ordering, inventory management, customer payment and more.
However, did you know you could be getting even more benefits out of your POS system?
Combining your POS with digital signage could help you unlock the full potential of the technology and take your bar or restaurant to the next level.
Keep reading to learn why it’s worth integrating your POS with digital signage and how to get started.
POS and digital signage? A match made in heaven
Connecting digital signage to an existing POS system can improve your restaurant performance in numerous ways.
Here are four primary benefits:
1. Get more out of your on-premise ads
POS systems help you track inventory and sales, and digital signage helps you communicate important information. When you combine these two, you can use real-time inventory data to display optimal on-premise ads.
For example, your POS system might alert you that your chicken wings will expire soon. If the system was combined with digital signage, you could have used that information to automatically show more on-premise ads for chicken wings.
The result? Less waste and more sales.
2. Engage customers at the point of sale
Advertising to customers while they’re paying for their order can be highly effective, with some research suggesting it could increase the purchase rate by as much as 45%.
POS integration with digital signage makes this type of advertising easy to put into action.
When you’ve combined the two systems, you can even show POS ads that are influenced by the items that are already in the guest’s order.
What’s more, personalized advertising – taking into account the day and timing of the order, data from customers’ loyalty profiles, and the items selected – can increase repeat sales by up to 22%!
3. Supercharge your contactless ordering system
Data shows that 77% of customers prefer using contactless ordering.
However, one downside of contactless ordering is that it reduces opportunities for your workers to up-sell and cross-sell to your customers.
POS-integrated digital signage solves this problem.
Digital signage gives you a simple way to automatically cross-sell and up-sell to your customers while giving them the contactless ordering experience they want.
The best part? Your staff is freed up to attend to other tasks.
4. Keep your back of house engaged
Combining a POS system with digital signage can also help you get more out of your back-of-house set up by keeping your hourly workers engaged and on task.
This solution is effective because it lets you show targeted messages to BOH employees based on data collected by your POS system.
For example, when inventory for a certain ingredient gets low, digital signage could display that message to your back-of-house staff. This allows them to respond to inventory fluctuations in real-time.
Ready to get started with POS digital signage integration?
Here’s how to get this winning combo up and running in your bar or restaurant:
Step 1: Understand your goals
The first thing you need to do is understand what you hope to get out of combining your POS system with digital signage since this will influence the optimal way for you to set up your system.
Here are some examples of the types of goals that you might have:
- Communicate more effectively with your back-of-house staff
- Share more targeted ads to your on-premise guests
- Open up new channels for interacting with your customers
Once you understand what success will look like to you, it becomes easier to build a solution that can deliver it.
Step 2: Set up your hardware
Once you understand your goals, you’re ready to set up the hardware that will help you achieve them.
This mainly involves making sure that you have the right type, number and setup of screens throughout your restaurant. This will vary based on your goals, but in general, you’ll want to ensure that the screens are accessible and easy to view.
For example, if you want to enable contactless ordering, you will need touchscreens or tablets to make this possible, and you’ll want to arrange these in a way that minimizes congestion and long wait times.
Or, if you want to engage your back-of-house staff, you’ll need screens to be easily viewable while they’re working – having to go out of their way to check screens can result in missed orders and updates.
Step 3: Select your digital signage software
It’ll be important to select software that is dynamic enough to help you achieve all of the different goals that you’ve set and to track your progress as you do so.
UPshow’s software is versatile, powerful and easy to use on any internet-enabled device. You can also integrate it with many different types of POS software, giving you access to the benefits discussed in this guide.
Whichever digital signage solution you choose, make sure to check that it is compatible with your POS system before buying.
Step 4: Integrate POS with digital signage
This is where the rubber meets the road – it’s time to onboard your digital signage software to your existing POS system.
The specific steps for this process will depend on the digital signage software you select and your existing POS setup.
Reaching out to UPshow is a great way to get started.
Step 5: Create engaging displays
The next step is creating the displays that you’ll show through your integrated digital signage system.
You can use templates from UPshow to make these quickly, or you can build custom displays from scratch with our built-in editing tools.
The key will be creating a display for every goal that you have – even if you’re not going to use every display all of the time.
For example, let’s say you want to advertise certain dishes when you have lots of their ingredients in your inventory. You would want to have a display ready for that situation so you can capitalize when it arises even if you won’t use it immediately.
Step 6: Share displays with a dynamic rotation schedule
After creating your displays, you’re ready to set their rotation schedule. You can optimize this to make sure that the correct ads are showing during the right times of the day.
For example, you can make sure your lunch specials get priority during lunch hours and make sure they aren’t displayed during dinner service.
You can also optimize the display rotation for your back-of-house communications to make sure important notifications are visible to your team.
Step 7: Track your progress and improve
Integrating your POS system with digital signage is a powerful way to improve restaurant performance.
However, as is the case with most new technologies, it may not go perfectly the first time!
This is why it is critical to track your performance over time.
When you pay attention to the data, it becomes easy to see what aspects of your system are working well and which could use improvements. Paying attention to your performance and letting it guide your long-term strategies is a great way to get the most out of this technological duo.
3 integration mistakes to avoid
Though this technology can be extremely impactful for your restaurant, some problems could limit its impact.
Here are three key issues to look out for:
Lagging displays
Your display rotation schedule is important when you’re using POS data with digital signage.
For example, if you want to show on-premise ads that take advantage of inventory data, those ads need to be shown when the data is still accurate.
That’s why it’s important to select digital signage software that has a reliable system for display rotations. If yours doesn’t have this, then it could limit the potential impact.
Unoptimized screen placement
You also need to make sure that the people who you want to see your displays can actually see them. This is true regardless of whether you’re targeting your hourly workers or customers with your POS-integrated digital signage – your screens need to be seen to have the impact you desire!
The height and angle of your screens can also factor into how easy your ads are to see. Your guests and employees shouldn’t have to crane their necks or look at an awkward angle just to see your displays.
Weak software
POS systems can be powerful – you’ll need equally powerful digital signage software if you want to maximize results for your business.
If you choose a digital signage software that doesn’t offer comprehensive features, it will inevitably limit how you’re able to use the data that you get from your POS system. In turn, that could reduce the ROI that you get from making this investment.
UPshow makes it easy to integrate digital signage with POS
Adding digital signage to your point-of-sale system could be just what you need to take your restaurant to the next level.
If you’re ready to take that step, UPshow’s digital signage software is here to help.
