Four Reasons Why You Should Use QR Code for Menus
QR Codes are omnipresent today. From retail and logistics to the engineering, every industry is using them for varied use cases.
And that makes sense. The last decade has been the most conducive for the surge in QR Code adoption.
Did you know that global smartphone penetration increased from 59% in 2017 to 78% in 2020? In addition, the access to high-speed internet also soared from 48% in 2014 to 62% in 2022.
Both of these factors have led to the enormous adoption of QR Codes. Why? Because a camera-enabled smartphone with internet connectivity is all that it takes to scan a QR Code and access its content.
This ease of accessibility has led the hospitality and restaurant industry to use QR Codes too.
From sharing contactless menus to placing orders, they help with multiple operations in the restaurant. Let’s have a look at how you can use them too:
A. How can restaurants use QR Codes
1. To share restaurant menus
Conventionally, paper-based menus have been predominant in restaurants across the globe. But amidst the pandemic, contactless menus powered by QR Codes became a thing.
Hence, many restaurants today use QR Codes to share menus with their guests. They create Menu QR Codes and add them to the table tents. These are then placed on each table.
Guests can then simply scan the QR Code and see all the menus on their mobile screen. No need for paper-based menus anymore.
2. To help guests place orders
When the pandemic kicked in, McDonald’s India came up with an innovative solution to minimize physical contact.
They placed a QR Code on each table. As guests came in, they could scan this QR Code to see the entire menu and place the order simultaneously.
It eliminated the need for guests to head on to the counter and place their orders physically.
3. To receive payments
This is yet another common use case. You’d have seen QR Codes on the billing desks of supermarkets and general stores.
They’re a convenient mode of making and receiving payments for both the buyer and the seller. Merchants no longer need to install an expensive handheld set-up to receive payments via card. All they need is a printed QR Code placed at the counter.
Similarly, even customers needn’t carry their cards around all the time. They can simply authorize the payment with a simple scan. Great, right? No wonder why QR Code-based payments have soared globally.
4. To market your services
Have you seen QR Codes on promotional creatives? For example, flyers, banners, brochures, and even digital screens.
These are used to make the promotions actionable, trackable, and smarter.
You can use them as a part of your marketing mix too. So the next time you’re running a promotional campaign, do add a QR Code to the creative. It could be to drive traffic to your website, gain social media followership, give easily redeemable discount coupons, etc.
Your audience will be able to take the desired action with a simple scan. And you’ll be able to track the campaign performance too. For example, the number of scans, their location, time, handsets and browsers used, etc.
Now that you’ve seen how restaurant businesses (both big and small) can use QR Codes, let’s see why you should use them in the first place:
B. Four strong reasons to use QR Codes
While there are many benefits of using QR Codes, here are the top four of them for your use case:
1. Saved printing costs
Restaurant menus are subject to frequent changes. This may be due to the addition of new dishes, discontinuation of old ones, change in prices, etc.
When that happens, you need to not only update the changes but get the menus reprinted too. And that’s not easy. It does not only need you to put in effort but quite some money for reprinting too (which may even happen multiple times a year).
But that’s not the case with Menu QR Codes. You can update the same QR Code with a new menu whenever you want. That means the same QR Code works despite any changes. Hence, no need to get the QR Codes printed over and over again.
2. Contactless operations
Ever since the pandemic, contactless operations have become a norm for many restaurants. This ensures safety for both your staff and the customers alike.
Guests no longer really need to touch the paper-based menus which are shared across many hands. But that’s not the case with QR Codes anymore. None needs to touch anything. A simple scan is all that it takes for the guests to access the menus.
3. Damage-resistance
Did you know that QR Codes are damage-resistant? Yes, they have the capability to scan perfectly well despite being damaged by up to 30%.
That’s because they have a feature called error correction. It helps add additional rows and columns of data modules to the QR Code. This makes sure the QR Code scans perfectly even if some data modules are damaged.
This comes in handy when the QR Code sees some spillage or wear and tear which is quite common in your business.
4. Enhance your branding effort
Did you know that you can add a design to make your QR Codes look branded? Yes, you can do it by adding colors and a logo to the QR Code.
In fact, error correction is what makes it possible. That’s because when a logo is added, some data modules are removed from the center of the QR Code. To compensate for the same, error correction comes into the picture.
Many restaurants use customized QR Codes to enhance their branding effort. Whenever customers see the QR Code, the logo and background color (or background images) remind them about your brand.
Don’t these reasons sound great? Well, they do strike the chords with many restaurant businesses. That’s why many restaurants use QR Codes for menu sharing already.
In case you’d like to get started, all you need is a QR Code generator that offers you a suitable content category. You can now go ahead and get started to create a QR Code for your own business.
