Consumer preferences have quickly evolved over the last few years, and off-premise dining is becoming more critical than ever to a restaurant’s success. Consumers are looking for more ways to order, pay and consume their food outside of the restaurant. Off-premise dining that includes takeout, curbside-pickup, phone, and food delivery, is going to accelerate. The restaurants that not only survive but also thrive in the new normal must:

1. Operate off-premise dining as effectively as they do on-premise (dine-in).
2. Reach, grow and engage with their customers directly.
3. Implement contactless dining and payments.

Working with our partners and our customers, Squirrel has developed some guidelines and programs to help you succeed in the off-premise and low contact world. If you’re looking for information on how to restart your Squirrel PoS after a lengthy shutdown, we have some recommendations to help.

Loyalty & Outreach

Loyalty programs help establish a direct relationship with your customers and create incentives for repeat business. A wide variety of strategies including Gift Cards, Loyalty points, incentives, and marketing programs can help you build a communication line to your guests.  

Ordering

There are many ways to capture orders in a contactless fashion whether for take-out, curbside pickup, delivery or even on-premise.  

Payment

Guests are moving away from using cash, to using credit cards and mobile phones with NFC technology for “Tap to Pay”, or by paying directly on a website or a mobile app with their credit card. Consumers will prefer secure, clean and sanitary payment methods that don’t require (or have minimal) physical contact with a terminal. We can help determine which approach is right for you.  

Takeout

Takeout doesn’t have to be complicated, but it can get complex particularly for multi-unit or multi-concept organizations. Things to consider include menu selection, packaging, printing labels, sanitization, and pickup location. 

Delivery

The simplest way to get delivery up and running – 3rd party delivery services – are something you may have experience with already. The convenience is excellent, but it comes with some drawbacks. Learn how to integrate 3rd party or in-house delivery services efficiently.