Bianca Esmond

From Artificial Intelligence to Big Data, there are endless tech buzzwords being used to describe the latest restaurant tech. While those are certainly noteworthy emerging technologies and trends, we want to focus on a tech trend that is well within reach for you to easily implement in your restaurant.

Have you considered mobile payments for your restaurant yet?

Mobile payments are here to stay and will eventually dethrone traditional wallets. This isn’t a fad, it’s the future — and it’s closer than you think.

According to Business Insider, 75% of transactions will be cashless by 2025. Your wallet is close to extinction because of how convenient cashless transactions are for the end consumer.

Let’s define mobile payments

Think of when you use ApplePay, Android Pay or Samsung Pay instead of whipping out your actual debit or credit card. Or when your server rings up your meal on a mobile POS instead of making you pay at the cash register — that’s mobile payments in action.

Let’s explore why they’re becoming increasingly popular in restaurants.

Smartphone adoption

When’s the last time you left your home without your phone? Exactly.

Deloitte Global predicts that by the end of 2023, 90% of adults will have a smartphone that they interact with an average of 65 times per day. Mobile payments capitalize on this “mobile madness” in a big way. No more fumbling around looking for cash, debit and credit cards. Just whip out a smartphone and pay within seconds. Not only is this more convenient for your customers, but it also enables you to process more transactions, faster. Paying for a meal becomes a completely frictionless interaction.

Speedy and secure

Just like print money was disrupted by plastic cards with magnetic strips and passwords, Near Field Communication (NFC) has made mobile payments quick, but more importantly — secure.

While cards, cash and wallets can be stolen and cloned or lost entirely, unlocking and extracting information from a smartphone has many more barriers to entry.

Our smartphones typically use numeric passwords, fingerprint, and even facial recognition to protect sensitive data. Plus, even if someone were to steal your phone, you can easily wipe it of all sensitive data thanks to cloud technology.

Increase table spend

An increasing volume of independent retailers and restaurateurs have adopted mobile payments. Why? Because 80% of businesses that implement a mobile POS report an increase in their sales.

How? Using a mobile POS, restaurant operators can:

• Streamline communication between wait staff and the kitchen
• Enable wait staff keep tabs on their tables more easily
• Seamlessly tie spend to their reservation management system to track guest spend and order history
• Empower wait staff to upsell side dishes and drinks that pair well with the dish a guest chooses

Lastly, it enables restaurateurs to explore food trucks and pop-up locations without needing an entirely new system. Just pack up your iPad and go to where your customers are instead of waiting for them to find you.

Moving forward

More and more consumers are using their smartphones to organize their lives, so integrating their wallet with something they keep on them all the time anyways is seen as a great solution. No more fumbling for cash or cards… just whip out your phone.

If you make your customer’s life easier, you’ll make them happy. And we all know that happy customers are far more likely to come back to your restaurant again, and again, and again.