Front-of-house IT

Touch-screen tills, hand-held order pads and portable card swipes are among the innovations that are transforming the level of service pubs can offer their customers, writes Geoff Tyler.

Maybe a pub with one bar, one server and only one customer at a time can still get away with an old till converted from pounds, shillings and pence - maybe. But the modern outlet, looking for efficiency and fast customer service can do much better.

Electronic point-of-sale, or EPOS, terminals can start by keeping a diary of reservations which can be updated as enquiries come in. Some can automatically juggle table plans to fit people in. They enter the customer's order, compile the bill as drinks and food are served, and deal with payment. They can operate customer loyalty schemes, stock control details and warn of low stock levels. They will analyse sales and highlight good selling items or those that need pushing. Some will even clock staff on and off and keep records of hours worked for the payroll.

Your EPoS system should also be able to keep your business records. All EPoS units based on standard PC technology - and that is virtually all of them now - can also connect to other PCs and other makes of EPoS, to exchange data, perhaps over the internet.

Illustrating this is the network that Mill House Inns has installed. Mill House director David Buxton did not want to replace the company's existing Omron EPoS, so asked IT specialist Clarity to develop a system which linked to it. "Clarity customised its central software for control over our Omron tills and a standard administration and accounting solution," said Mr Buxton. The installation covers product and price management, stock control, and staff planning and links to Mill House's other systems such as finance and payroll packages.

The XN Corporation recently began supplying Wolverhampton & Dudley Breweries with EPoS units for 750 of its managed outlets. Managers can monitor their stock levels, schedule staff rotas, and see their own profit and loss figures.

So far these advantages have been management ones. What about the customer? For them, EPoS aims to take the order faster and more accurately.

Touchscreens​

In the latest systems developed for the pub sector, intuitive touchscreen technology is fast replacing fixed touchscreens or keyboards. Rather than always showing every item and variant in the house, screens will show only what the server needs to see. They track the order and remind the server what to do. For example, hearing, "We'd like to order our food now," the server presses the food area on the screen and the whole screen changes to the food menu introduction, perhaps starters or main menu items, depending on the menu's complexity.

These screens are becoming more intelligent. As each order is placed the usual reminders come up - well done, medium or rare; choice of sauces; side dishes to sell and so on. Systems now also help the server to help the customer. They may, for example, automatically give alternatives based on what the customer has ordered so far, suggestions that are more likely to succeed than simply pushing the special of the day. One supplier, Elo Touchsystems, even has a duplicate screen facing the customer, on which they can make their own touch-selections, although this type of use may be of limited value in a pub setting.

Once complete, the order is transmitted from the order location to the kitchen or bar, and the order is on the way.

Point-of sale-terminals which are able to exchange information between themselves, as well as with the kitchen, are now quite common. This enables staff to start an order at one terminal, and complete it at another, or handle multiple orders at the same terminal.

Hand-held pads​

The latest development in this area is the hand-held order pad. In Europe, over half the small cafes and bars now use them, while in the UK the proportion is under five per cent. The efficiency advantages are enormous, and they are now much cheaper.

Hand-held electronic order pads use the intuitive touchscreen technology just described, using screens which can show a few items at a time. As the server enters the order at the table, details are transmitted immediately by radio to the kitchen and barstaff, allowing servers to spend more time with customers.

Hand-held units help even if food is ordered at the bar - when things get busy, extra servers can move along the queue taking orders.

If an item goes off the menu, the kitchen can send the information to all terminals and the change will appear as a warning. That same radio link send alerts when dishes are ready for collection.

Card swiping​

Some hand-held terminals are now adding a card swipe payment receipt function so that credit/debit card payment can be made at the table, in the beer garden, or wherever the customer happens to be.

Adding card swipe to the hand-held terminal also overcomes the security concerns of many credit users, who are becoming severely reluctant to let their plastic out of their sight for fear of it being cloned for fraudulent use. If you do not use hand-held order pads, there are also hand-held card-swipe-only units - Matsu/Signet supplies one that allows up to five card transactions at a time, while American Express has its own system, Express Wireless.

Printers​

Bill printers may not be included in the hand-held terminal - they can be heavy and where the pad's main use is order taking, are idle most of the time. Suppliers tend to use printers that are small enough to clip onto a member of staff's belt, or be grabbed when needed and plugged into the terminal. The printer also prints the credit/debit card receipt.

The card swipe itself must be secure, and hand-held EPoS suppliers use software imported from the existing major card-swipe terminal makers.

Hand-helds do not usually access the telephone line connection themselves but send a radio request to a credit card base unit to do so. If you are investing in this type of technology, you need to be sure that the readers are, or can be, equipped to read the new generation of cards with in-built PIN codes for the customer to key in.

These are due to replace today's fraud-vulnerable magnetic stripe credit/debit cards in the next few years.