New innovations enable a frictionless guest experience to help restaurateurs increase sales, lower labor costs, and keep guests coming back
Toast, the fastest-growing restaurant management platform, today launched an enhanced suite of contactless and guest-facing solutions to help restaurateurs reimagine operations and reduce overhead as they rebound from the COVID-19 pandemic. Today, Toast debuted updates to its Toast Order & Pay™ solution, including pre-authorization tabs and group ordering. Designed to meet the ever-increasing demand for contactless solutions, Toast Order & Pay™ enables guests to order and pay in a restaurant via smartphone. By streamlining the transactional components of traditional service, restaurateurs delight the 86 percent of guests for whom paying at the table from their own device is an important factor in their future dining experience.
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“Guest behaviors are changing faster than ever in direct response to the COVID-19 pandemic; ordering and paying for food via smartphone might have felt foreign to some a few years ago. Today, many people expect this convenience in an effort to reduce contact with others and increase efficiency”
Enhancements were also made to Toast Marketing and Toast Loyalty, which complement Toast’s Digital Ordering Suite, empowering restaurateurs to utilize guest data gained during the ordering process to provide their guests with the best and most tailored experience possible. In contrast to third-party solutions — which often don’t share guest data with restaurants — Toast helps restaurateurs engage diners whether they order on- or off-premises, resulting in greater opportunities to drive increased revenue.
“Guest behaviors are changing faster than ever in direct response to the COVID-19 pandemic; ordering and paying for food via smartphone might have felt foreign to some a few years ago. Today, many people expect this convenience in an effort to reduce contact with others and increase efficiency,” said Aman Narang, president and co-founder of Toast. “We developed innovations like pre-authorization tabs and group ordering in response to the pandemic and the dramatic shift in consumer preferences left in its wake. The new features rolling out today deepen the connection between restaurants and their guests — empowering diners to essentially have a remote control to the restaurant in their pocket — making it easier for restaurateurs to focus on providing great hospitality and serving the food guests love, while at the same time, increasing check sizes, revenue, and employee wages.”
Introducing Pre-authorization and Group Ordering
With Toast Order & Pay™ pre-authorization and group ordering, restaurateurs see a nearly 12 percent higher ticket size on average*, and may dole out fewer comped meals due to guests being able to see exactly what they are ordering and catch any errors in real-time. Additionally, servers are more likely to take home greater tips because they are able to cover more tables in a shift than previously possible in a traditional service model. Today, Toast is announcing the following innovations, the first of their kind in the industry:
- Pre-authorization tabs: enable a guest to start a tab, pre-authorize a credit card from their own device, and begin ordering their meal. This information seamlessly carries over to the full restaurant ecosystem and can be updated and augmented from the POS or Toast Go™ mobile payment device — another industry-first innovation — providing flexibility to shift between guest-led and server-led ordering, while reducing unpaid walkouts.
- Group ordering: allows guests to collaboratively add items to one order from their own devices and send the order to the kitchen on one check, with a guest name on every item so servers know exactly who each item is for.
“Toast Order & Pay™ increased our bottom line up to 10 percent; post-COVID that translates to $2.5M in additional annual income for our business,” said Kevin Healy, owner and operator of HOUSEpitality Restaurant Group that operates eight full service restaurants in the Richmond, VA area. “Additionally, almost every one of our hourly employees is making 25-30 percent more this year than they were last year. Considering we experienced a 30 percent sales decline due to the pandemic, being able to give our staff a significant raise during this time is groundbreaking.”
Introducing Estimated Sales Reports, Apple Pay™, and Customizable Loyalty Points
Toast’s integrated guest solutions work better together to allow restaurateurs to delight guests with a frictionless experience both online and offline, run their restaurant efficiently with integrated, turnkey solutions, and improve marketing outreach to keep guests coming back. Today, Toast is announcing the following new features to complement its guest solutions:
- Estimated sales reports for Toast Marketing: Toast’s integrated email marketing solution grants customers visibility into estimated sales from their email campaigns, empowering them to maximize the ROI of their marketing outreach. Toast customers see $3K in average revenue per campaign and 20 percent more repeat guest visits through email marketing. When combined with Toast Order & Pay™, integrated email marketing pairs each order with a guest name and email address, further fueling campaigns.
- Apple Pay available across Toast Online Ordering and Toast TakeOut™ app: Restaurateurs can delight guests with convenient, faster payment options like Apple Pay across Toast’s Digital Ordering Suite, offering 75 percent faster guest checkout times.
- Customizable bonus points for Toast Loyalty: Restaurateurs can build their own loyalty program through tailored campaigns based on day or dining type. After turning on Toast Loyalty, guests spend 32 percent more on average each month than non-Loyalty guests.
Oscar Vasquez, founder of Oscar’s Authentic Mexican Grill in Olathe, Kansas said, “One of my favorite features about Toast Loyalty is the ability to offer double or triple points during slower times of the week. On our first promoted double point Tuesday, we saw a 100 percent increase in sales over previous Tuesdays; we try to do double points during times we are not as busy. Toast Email Marketing and Loyalty made our restaurant a lot busier than we would be otherwise.”
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