And there lies perhaps the biggest danger when you’re considering a move toward installing tableside technology in a restaurant: losing these less obvious, but emotionally crucial, parts of the waiter role.
Another danger is that the implementation will be off-brand and off-putting. There is a 4-ish star steakhouse with locations in several U.S. cities (think: "Morton’s but regional") whose black-clad, iPad-based menu opens on Page One with cheesy Comic Sans electronic discount coupons and two-for-one offers. Maybe this doesn’t put you off your feed, but it did me, and I doubt that I’m alone. Which means that all the effort the restaurant had put into properly costuming the waiters, gussying up the dining room, sending its sommelier on vineyard junkets, teaching the waiters how crumb down the white tablecloths (and buying all those silver table crumbers) went down the drain with that one, ridiculously off-brand, choice. Folks: Just because you can do it, doesn’t mean you should do it; before you deploy any tableside technology, make sure that every single part of the deployment fits your brand, or at least fits your brand as you want it to be perceived in the future.
This article shows that in order to keep up with the new demands or preparations of customers, restaurants need to keep pace with the ever changing world of technology. The NRA and Cornell study all showed that nearly 40% adults prefer online orders. But restaurant still need to consider the whole cost and revenue if they want to invest in mobile and online order. What is more, they still need to put efforts on marketing. Word of mouth really influence customers choices. In this article, it also gave us a example of online ordering by FB.
