In today's mobile world, guests are still waiting to pay after they have been at the restaurants for 30-90 minutes. That system is broken. Imagine you arrive at your destination in an Uber car and wait 5-10 more minutes to pay. That would cost Uber money and cost people time and negatively affect the experience.

Paying at restaurants needs to be like paying Uber - walk in, eat, and leave.

Guest experience trumps everything, but the definition of a great restaurant experience is changing and increasingly includes technology. 

Ready is just one of numerous innovative technologies that make life complicated for restaurant managers and owners. It is increasingly complex for restaurants to meet even just the minimum guest expectations regarding technology. Five years ago, free Wi-Fi was nice-to-have - today it is a must-have.

The smartphone is the new Front of House for restaurants. Managing guest experience on guest's devices is critical for success in the coming decade.

Guest experience management through guest's devices is the new Front of the House. Here are the most notable restaurant solutions that extend onto guest mobile phones:

• Mobile payments (Ready)
• Loyalty apps (LevelUp)
• iBeacons (Beacondo)
• Wi-Fi marketing (Zenreach)
• Mobile orders and delivery (ChowNow)
• Corporate catering (Foodee)
• Smart reservations (Resy)
• Reputation management (Rallio)
• Conversational commerce (Foodiebot)
• Interactive digital signage (ClickSpace)
• Waitlist management (NoWait)
• Guest controlled music (Rockbot)

Every solution on the above list is great if you are a restaurant chain with IT team in place to help you ride this new wave of innovation. However, for the independent operators, this wave feels more like a tsunami!

Technology and humans need to work in sync to deliver a holistic restaurant experience.

Another challenge is that humans are linear thinkers, and we often fall prey to what’s known as the “hype cycle.” We have high expectations when a new technology is introduced, followed by a short-term disappointment when it does not live up to the hype. So we often fail to realize the post-hype, massive transformative nature of new technologies. The same is true for restaurateurs and their employees.

However, the digitization of the restaurant business is imminent and therefore crucial for success.

Restaurant servers will embrace tech because it will make their work more enjoyable, and profitable.

Independent restaurateurs are too busy with day-to-day operations to take advantage or even make sense of all the new tech. Those who embrace and prioritize technology, however, will successfully level the playing field with the big chains. Steve Jobs famously observed in 1995 that "on the Internet, the smallest company can look as good as the largest company." Very soon, the smallest restaurants will be able to provide the same experience as the largest restaurant chain.

Restaurants need to experiment with new technologies ( just like tech companies do) and transition from industrial to digital economy.

How should restaurants approach all this new tech? I suggest two key metrics guide all technology decisions: customer satisfaction & monthly profit.

Let's talk about monthly profit...

...and pretend for a moment it has nothing to do with the guest satisfaction. To increase profit restaurants need to:

• Serve more guests 
• Increase average check amount

Restaurants can also try to reduce the cost, but I do not believe in cost-cutting as a success strategy. Cost control is necessary, but too much focus on cost creates a stifling culture of contraction. Also, when you reduce cost in one area, you better invest the savings in other areas of your business. For example, when technology allows restaurants to decrease the number of employees, those savings better be allocated to train and groom the remaining employees.

Instead of cost cutting, I recommend investing in tech. A small investment in a mobile payment system (like Ready) can boost monthly profit significantly, as shown in the graph below.

When a restaurant is busy at peak hours, mobile payments speed up table turns and allow the restaurant to serve more guests. Just a couple of extra guests served per day can have an enormous impact on profit (even though the revenue increase is not significant). That is because the lights are already on, rent paid, and staff scheduled, so most of this additional revenue goes straight to the bottom line.

What apps have to do with customer satisfaction?

Techies and baby boomers will have the greatest impact on the restaurant industry in next decade. So it's wise to take these two groups into account when designing a restaurant.

Techies consist of digital natives (generations born during or after the introduction of digital technologies) and tech-savvy people from all other age groups. For techies, time is the most valuable currency. They enjoy automating services to free up time for things that matter. Techies are also increasingly affluent. Software industry continues to grow in importance, and it has some of the best-paid jobs.

We have interviewed 300 people from various software companies in Vancouver, and 74% said that they would choose a restaurant based on the mobile payments availability.

When techies pay on their own – precisely the experience they want - they are happy and keep coming back. Consequently, servers have more time to interact with baby boomers who are not in a hurry and want the high-touch service and empathy only human can provide. 

According to McKinsey, elderly population - people 60 and over - will contribute to more than a half of urban consumption growth over the next 15 years in the developed world. That is over 4 trillion dollars. 

The sheer size of the baby boomers market demands attention. They look for high-touch service, which is why full automation is not the way to go.

As they retire, baby boomers get a spare time that has to be filled. Some are affluent while others need to keep working, but baby boomers in America have always been and will continue to be great consumers. They have time to shop around, and they value social experiences.

By automating for techies, restaurants also enhance the experience for the elderly. They build rapport with techies through their digital profiles and get to know baby boomers through good old face to face conversations.

Every technology must be a win for guests, win for business, and win for employees. We have designed Ready to help servers earn more tips, but better yet to focus on delighting guests, instead of focusing on dull cashier duties.

Another thing to keep in mind is the difference between what technology can enable and what employees can deliver. We can easily add "Call Waiter" button to the Ready app but not until we are sure that a waiter will show up every time the button is pressed. 

The restaurant industry reminds me of the taxi industry before Uber. A chaos of fragmented software solutions and operators. It is only a matter of time before a new restaurants platform emerges to power an entire restaurant operation using a guest-centered design. The playing field will level for independent restaurants and chain restaurants and give more power to guests. Prioritizing technology adoption, will help restaurants survive (and thrive) long enough to take advantage of such platform in the future.

In summary, adopting new technologies is not just about business outcomes (profit and guest satisfaction) but also learning and training it provides; it is helping restaurateurs transition from the industrial age to the digital economy. As they say, the most important skill of the future is the ability to learn new skills. The best way to foster new technology skills is to try as many new solutions as possible.

Thanks for reading,

Zoran Kovacevic

This post was originally published on Linkedin.