Watch Customers Fight Their Way into your Store!
July, 2006
Instant Satisfaction with Q'LESS Self-Service Food Order Stations
The food and beverage industry is probably one of the most dynamic. It has been revolutionised time and time again with the advent of fast food chains, drive-thrus, health food trends and more recently juice and salad bars.
Now, an innovative concept is looking to reduce queue times by more than 30% in food chains across Australia. Q'LESS self-service food order stations, are set to start a new wave in the way consumers order their food items from their favourite chains.
Instead of placing the order with a person behind the counter, customers will now use an engaging, easy to follow touch screen monitor. All the food options and combinations are shown on screen allowing the customer to select an option as fast as they could say it to an attendant over the counter. The order station even allows alterations to the order in various ways such as removing tomato from a hamburger or changing sauces from tomato to barbeque. Q'LESS is very easy to use for people of all ages and also has a friendly voice prompt to guide the customer.
Customers either pay at the order station or at the counter, depending on the workflow decided by the store. Additionally, Q'LESS can be programmed to integrate with an existing POS system or a new POS system can be provided with the rollout of the Q'LESS stations. The order is electronically sent to the kitchen and once the order is ready the customer is notified on an LCD monitor.
Q'less has been developed by Whitech Software Solutions, the software company behind digital photo kiosks as can be found in stores such as Rabbit Photo. Whitech won the 2005 Telstra and Australian Governments' Business of the Year and has also won numerous awards for their kiosk software including Best Return on Investment for its kiosk software.
James Saldanha, National Marketing Manager at Whitech said, "Based on our research to break even a store needs to serve an extra four customers each day, which will easily be attracted into the store through using Q'LESS The system has powerful marketing tools that will drive customer loyalty programs and bring new customers into the store and existing customers back. It will also significantly reduce queues and upsell customers every time they use Q'LESS"
Promising many benefits including savings in staff costs such as labour, superannuation and workers' compensation, improved customer service, increased profitability, increases in efficiency, the ability to run powerful customer loyalty programs and effective marketing campaigns make Q'LESS stations an attractive investment for anyone operating a business in the food and beverage sector.
Saldanha said, "In this day and age customers want instant satisfaction and with more demands being placed on everyone's time, Q'LESS will make ordering food and beverages more convenient. The order stations can be managed centrally, which means that Q'LESS will recognise repeat customers and their preferred order in all the branches of a chain which consistently builds strong customer loyalty and will encourage more repeat visits."
"With Q'LESS loyalty programs, customers don't need to carry around cards, the order station will know who they are through a unique and easy to remember membership code they enter in at the start of an order."
'Q'LESS will save time for both retailers and their customers. Q'LESS will even allow customers to order online before going into the store to pick up their meal, which will make the lunch time rush in many city centres much more manageable."
Q'LESS records customer information such as contact details and their order preferences. It keeps track of customer visits and allows the owner to e-mail people that haven't been in the store for a while and get them back in with a special offer. Juice bars will no longer have to use cards they hole punch or stamp each time a customer buys a juice for their buy nine get one free card, Q'LESS will automatically know not to charge the customer for their tenth visit.
Another benefit is that Q'LESS never forgets to upsell to the customer, meaning there is an additional opportunity to drive profits even further. The owner of a store no longer needs to rely on a staff member remembering to upsell the customer asQ'LESS asks every customer every time.
Q'LESS self-service order stations will be suitable for many different business models in the food and beverage industry including, fast food, noodle bars, coffee lounges and salad and juice bars. The Q'LESS system of ordering food also suits situations such as food courts in shopping centres and airports where it is possible to order a meal from the table instead of buying your meal and hunting around for an available spot.
Whitech customises each Q'LESS system, accommodating for individual touches for different companies. They will customise the software to incorporate logos, colours, products, nutritional information and on-screen advertising. Companies wishing to utilise the Q'LESS self-service order stations can contact Whitech directly to have their complete system customised, installed and running in a speedy timeframe.
Ends
About Whitech
Whitech Software Solutions is an innovative Australian company that offers Information Technology products and services to retail businesses all over the world.
Established in 1995, Whitech specialise in industry specific and customised electronic point of sale solutions aimed at improving the efficiency and profitability of our customers.
Whitech also develops market leading photographic digital kiosk and home ordering solutions, which successfully assist retail businesses in taking advantage of the digital boom in the photographic industry.
See www.whitechsolutions.com for more information.
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