Why restaurants are choosing custom self-ordering kiosks in 2024

Hi, guys! This is the dev.family team again. We believe that almost all of us have used the self-service kiosks at fast food restaurants such as McDonald’s and KFC at least once while travelling. As a guest, you can benefit from many advantages offered by this solution: language switching, photo and description of the dish, quick purchase serving, etc. But as a business owner, you can get even more. Today we’ll discuss:

• What type of business needs self-service kiosks and what kind of tasks they solve?
• What are the benefits of custom kiosk software development and how much does it cost?
• How to integrate self-service kiosks into your business ecosystem to improve overall business process efficiency?

Who needs a self-service kiosk

Restaurant franchises, dark stores, retail

Self-order kiosks are suitable for offline businesses that want to set up a self-service process for customers in their restaurant, shop or petrol station. There is no need for any special skills to operate the device. There is no need for staff to set up the kiosk each time they want to take an order. Simply switch it on at the start of the working day and the system works automatically. All incoming payments and other data will be displayed in your POS system and the processing speed of each order will be increased by 40%.

In foodtech, self-service kiosks are most commonly used by:

• Restaurants with over 1000 seats;
• Chain restaurants with more than 500 employees;
• Shopping and entertainment centres with high footfall.

But, in fact, you can integrate this solution into any business process where you need to reach out to a wider audience, without having to increase the size of your staff. For example, kiosks can be used in the following areas:

• Petrol stations — they will replace cashiers and take orders for coffee and hot dogs for customers to pick up in the service area;
• Food festivals and amusement parks — visitors will be able to place their orders without having to queue and will arrive at the pick-up points at the specified times;
• Tourist сentres — guests can book excursions or pre-order dinner at a restaurant.

Why do you need self-service kiosks for your restaurant?

1. Kiosks attract visitors’ attention. According to statistics, guests choose the self-service format more often than ordering from the cashier: 53% of shoppers (aged 18 to 44) prefer self-service kiosks
2. Kiosks increase sales. Service becomes faster, allowing the restaurant to serve more customers at peak times. The kiosk system will also take on the function of a complementary sale, allowing the guest to add more items to the purchase during the ordering process. And, as the statistics show, they take such offers easily: average check
   is 15–30% higher and 4 out of 5 visitors order more products from kiosks than planned
3. Kiosks complete business automation. All the features of delivery apps and websites are now available offline: orders are processed almost instantly and payments go directly to your POS system. Employees only have to give the guest the order and focus on more important operational tasks.
4. Kiosks save time on clarifying details and reduce staff errors. Guests can add or remove ingredients with a few taps on the screen.
5. Kiosks collect data to strengthen your offer. You can use them as a simple tool for A/B testing to identify the most popular items on your menu and better address barriers to purchase.

Just imagine such changes: you don’t have a need to look for new employees and try to solve your turnover problem by hiring more students. Guests no longer have to queue at the cash desk to get their dinner, because they now have a choice. They can come to the kiosk, place their order in a few simple steps and pick it up quickly in the delivery area. Or guests can do it with the help of a cashier who can guide them to the right dish. What about kitchen staff? They will know how many orders they are currently working on and which ones have priority.

And don’t forget the fact that loyalty programmes, additional sales and data collection will work for both formats. But we’ll talk about that later. With kiosks in your store, you get rid of the chaos. Instead, you get peace of mind, customer confidence and increased profits.

Well, if we haven’t convinced you yet, statistics will. And numbers, as we all know, don’t lie:

How much will you pay for a customised self-service kiosk?

On the outside, the kiosk looks like an ordinary touchscreen with a case to protect it from damage. What is much more interesting and expensive is what is hidden inside. We are talking about the software that contains the logic behind the operation of the entire kiosk.

As foodtech developers, we’ll focus on the technical background and present you with two options for integrating kiosks into your business — using a packaged solution or developing your own.

To make the right choice, you need to answer: «What is your priority?»

Packaged solution:

«Intergate kiosk quickly and cheaply with acceptance of all functional limits»

Packaged solutions are for businesses that need kiosks as a quick fix. They work like an anesthetic — they help you get rid of queues and free up your staff, but they do not get deep into the logic of your business processes. The basic functionality of a packaged kiosk consists of:

The basic functionality of a packaged kiosk consists of:

• Categorised product or service menu;
• Contactless and cash payment acceptance;
• Issue checks with order number.

Packaged solutions for self-service kiosk integration are available from many providers, where you can purchase either the full software or a temporary license to use it. It’s a very comfortable choice. However, this format is only suitable for companies that want to work on the flow and don’t plan to grow in the next few years. Unfortunately, this is common to all SaaS products — they can be a great solution in the moment, but due to infrequent updates they quickly become outdated, both morally and technically.

Changing the functionality of the packaged solution is problematic. You’ll be very lucky, if the provider agrees to add a new feature, but only at very high cost, as it would require them to rebuild the architecture of the entire project. Designing the menu itself to make the restaurant brand more recognisable isn’t going to work either. You will only be able to use standard interface elements and only change the colour and other basic components if you are working on a packaged solution.

Custom development:

«Choose a development that meets business needs and can be developed indefinitely»

We see how fast the foodtech industry is growing. Therefore, only the fastest and most competitive solutions will win the race. That’s why restaurants are increasingly turning to developing customized self-serve kiosks that give businesses more options:

1. Deep integration with business logic — the kiosk menu can display special offers for «hot» times, limit orders for items on the stop list, encourage the purchase of additional items and perform other tasks that affect the overall quality of service;
2. Gathering of analytical data — you can track the dynamics and volume of payments for any period, assess the efficiency and speed of the chefs’ work on individual dishes, promote the most popular items in relation to time of day and seasonality, and receive feedback from the public;
3. Brand recognition — the menu design of the future kiosk can be adapted from an existing website or application, using elements of their interface, or developed from scratch in your restaurant’s corporate style.

Any task or business process can be part of the logic of your self-service kiosk. That is why dev.family managers clarify all details and peculiarities of your restaurant’s operation when dealing with such requests, and offer solutions that can be scaled in the future.

Cost of a customized self-service kiosk. Many restaurants start with basic functionality and add new features and options over time. Software development, UI/UX design and QA will cost from $15,000 and the launch will take from one month. The process becomes more complex and time-consuming as you add more features. A customized solution allows you to test more hypotheses about guest service quality and tailor the kiosk operation to your business needs.

One solution for all points of sale. The cost of development does not depend on the number of screens on which the programme will run. You can increase sales by investing only in the screens themselves. And any changes to functionality are automatically reflected across all kiosks at once.

What technologies do we use. To be honest, kiosks work well with all of the available front-end and back-end libraries and frameworks. Some developers opt for the conservatism of HTML and CSS. But we at dev.family use Node.Js for the software itself, create the interface in React and package them into a desktop application using Electron.js. The result is an efficient programme with clear logic and high speed to operate, allowing managers to follow and display any changes made in real time. For example, if the kitchen is out of tomatoes, all dishes containing that ingredient are automatically removed from the kiosks’ menu.

This approach gives us the freedom to work in depth with all the functionality of the kiosks, from the characteristics of the computer to the ability to connect other devices and systems to it.

Integration of self-service kiosks into the restaurant ecosystem

Self-service kiosks will not be effective if you use them as a separate point of sale. They should be part of your business infrastructure.

There are different levels of kiosk integration. The most seamless option is to connect it to your restaurant’s POS system. It allows you to synchronise almost all processes, from accepting payment and displaying it on the kiosk menu, to transferring the order details directly to the kitchen.

In this way, you can synchronise almost all the processes involved in order management, from accepting payment and displaying it on the kiosk menu to transferring the quantity and composition of dishes directly to the kitchen.

Give your guests more choice and convenience with multiple payment options: kiosks support ApplePay and GooglePay payments, QR code scanning for e-wallet use, and even biometric integration for Face ID payments.

• Integrate a photo or video camera into the case — visitors will take selfies with digital food samples or branded masks, creating UGC content and increasing your restaurant’s visibility;
• Add wi-fi hotspots — guests will connect to your network and provide you with more data for in-depth marketing analysis;
• Install a barcode scanner — the kiosk transmits information about the customer’s order to the loyalty programme and activates bonuses and promotions by scanning codes on flyers;
• Use AI speech technology with voice assistant functionality — the number of mistakes made when ordering will be reduced, and the menu of a restaurant or a shop will be made more accessible to people with disabilities;
• Place Bluetooth beacons — the kiosk will be able to connect to nearby devices, send special offers to potential customers and receive order details from existing visitors.

This type of integration is only available for the development of a custom self-service kiosk.

Should you invest in it?

Our answer might be: if you don’t try, you don’t know. But you can also use Unit Economics to help you make this decision:

1. Count how many orders your restaurant can handle.
2. Determine the percentage of profit that you are missing out on due to long service times and order errors.
3. Estimate the cost of your existing staff and how much it would cost to hire new staff to meet your sales target. Compare this to the cost of developing a kiosk.
4. Remove the cost of both purchase processing options from your target profit.
5. Decide which format will bring you more profit.

Below you’ll find answers to some of the most frequently asked questions we receive from clients looking to develop customised Self-Service Kiosks:

FAQ

Q: How can a kiosk be designed?
A: In any way you want. The design, styling and navigation of the user interface will follow the latest UI/UX trends without any restrictions.

Q: Can a self-service kiosk operate offline?
A: The kiosk can run autonomously without an Internet connection. However, it does need to be connected to your local network when taking orders so that information about the order arrives in your system in time.

Q: If the internet goes down, how will the kiosk data be updated?
A: In this case, we suggest a solution where the data exchange takes place either via the local network or at the moment of reconnection..

Q: How often do I need to update the software that runs the kiosk?
A: It depends on your goals. If you are completely satisfied with the data transmission speed and functionality of your kiosk, you may not need to upgrade. However, time passes and we recommend that you upgrade the system every few years.