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Hospitality

Farm-to-Table Restaurants Put Sustainability On a Plate

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A majority (63%) of consumers say they’d like to eat healthy all or most of the time. 

That’s why a growing number of restaurants are focusing on sustainability and farm-fresh ingredients. By doing so, they appeal to more customers and increase their revenue-earning potential.

“Farm to table” is the term that describes this movement, and embracing it could be just the thing your establishment needs to bring in more business.

In this article, we’ll cover the ins and outs of the farm-to-table movement and explore restaurant sustainability in general. Keep reading to learn how your company could benefit from a trend that’s more than likely here to stay. 

What is farm to table, exactly?

Farm to table is a marketing term used to describe the type of food that a restaurant serves. When a restaurant describes itself as farm to table, it typically does so to emphasize its:

  • Relationships with farmers
  • Nutrient-dense ingredients
  • Locally-sourced meats, vegetables, dairy products and wines
  • Healthy cooking techniques

In that sense, farm-to-table is a catch-all term that’s meant to give consumers the impression that a restaurant serves healthy, fresh dishes.

What sustainability means in the restaurant industry

When a restaurant describes itself as sustainable, it means that it operates in ways that minimize its impact on the environment.

This can mean a lot of different things, but often includes:

  • Environmentally-conscious packaging and to-go containers
  • Ingredient usage that doesn’t deplete the environment of its natural resources
  • Business practices that support the environment (such as minimizing paper and electricity consumption)

How embracing farm to table could help your restaurant

Becoming a farm-to-table restaurant could help your restaurant improve its business in a variety of ways. Here are four benefits that you could get out of embracing this trend.

Appeal to more customers with a healthier menu

More than 80% of customers say that healthy menu items influence their choice of restaurant to at least a certain extent.

When your restaurant can justifiably describe itself as farm to table, then there’s an immediate association that takes place in a consumer’s mind. They intuitively understand that they’re going to be able to find healthy options on your menu.

This could help you bring in more traffic and, ultimately, increase your bottom line.

Charge higher prices

You may also be able to increase your menu prices if you shift to a sustainable business model. Data shows that 60 to 70% of consumers are willing to pay up to 10% more for natural and ethical foods.

That means making this shift could also help to increase the average value of every customer that you see.

Strengthen the local economy

Though so much of the world is interconnected nowadays, every local region still has its local economic forces at work within it.

When small businesses in a region support one another, that tends to strengthen local economies. And when economies are stronger, customers have more money to spend on trips to restaurants.

Additionally, many customers will appreciate that your restaurant is playing a role in strengthening the local economy. That may make them more likely to choose your business over a competitor’s.

Attract a new type of customer

Customers who are especially environmentally conscious will prioritize going out to restaurants that practice the same beliefs.

That means if your restaurant develops a reputation for its sustainable business practices, you could build a following among a new category of clientele. 

What does a farm-to-table restaurant look like?

If you’d like to become a farm-to-table restaurant, then it’s important to know what they look like. So here are four features that your restaurant can deploy to establish itself in this niche.

Seasonal ingredients

The way that a restaurant procures and uses ingredients is one of the best signs of whether or not it’s sustainable.

That’s why it’s a good idea for your company to begin using seasonal ingredients. Doing this will show your customers that you’re only using ingredients when they’re fresh enough to be procured locally.

Plus, it’ll give you a good reason to change up the dishes on your menu regularly. And when you continuously have new products to offer your customers, they have a good reason to keep coming back.

Farm names on your menu

Being a farm-to-table restaurant is all about showing your customers that the food they’re eating is from local sources. There isn’t a better way to do that than by attaching farm names to your menu.

For example, you might serve a steak dish. Instead of just listing the type of meat that you’re using, you could say “fresh flank steak from Manor Farms.”

Doing this solidifies the fact that your restaurant is operating locally and sustainably in your customers’ minds.

Growing some of your own produce

If you want to develop a reputation for being sustainable, you might also consider growing some of your own produce.

Of course, your ability to do this will be limited by the amount of space that you have. But even if your restaurant is tiny or you don’t have any outdoor space, you can still grow fresh herbs indoors.

Looking for and taking advantage of opportunities to reduce waste

Outside of the ingredients that you use, another big part of making a name as a sustainable restaurant is implementing sustainable business practices.

That means taking an honest look at your restaurant’s current practices and understanding how they impact the environment. If you can find some examples of this, then there’s a good chance that a more sustainable or environmentally-friendly alternative is available.

For example, you could use recyclable cardboard to-go containers instead of plastic ones. You could also look for opportunities to consume less water and electricity while preparing dishes and ingredients.

What sort of technologies make embracing sustainability easier to do?

Investing in the right technology can speed up your transition to becoming a farm-to-table restaurant. Here are three examples of technology you can leverage to achieve your sustainability goals.

Digital signage

Digital signage can completely replace all of your paper-based communications – both for your customers and your team.

You can use it to advertise your items, restaurant events and various communications without wasting paper to do so. And you can also leverage it to share important messages with your team while they work.

The best part is, you can display digital signage messages on your existing TV screens. So getting started with this technology could be as simple as picking the right digital signage software.

Learn More

POS systems

You may also be able to leverage your POS systems in more environmentally-friendly ways than you are now. It’s easier to do this when you combine your POS system with digital signage.

For example, your POS system can inform your team when an ingredient is running low. By integrating with digital signage, you could display that message to your back-of-house staff so that they can take action.

When you’re able to get ahead of ingredient prep in real-time like this, it reduces the amount of potential waste associated with over-preparing items like meats and vegetables.

Digital menus

You could also look at replacing your paper menus with digital alternatives. Most everyone has a smartphone now, and you can set up a system that allows them to scan a QR code at their table with their phones to see your menu.

This can reduce the amount of material that you consume to keep printing new menus when the old ones lose their form, and it can also help your company from a business perspective in a few ways.

First, it lets customers see your menus faster so that they can figure out what they’re going to order faster. That could help them get their food sooner than they would be able to otherwise.

Additionally, you can save money on materials if you’re not having to continuously reprint more and more menus. Over time, that could give you more funds to devote to staff training, purchasing higher-quality ingredients or investing in advertising.

If app downloads are important to your business, you can even encourage customers to download your app for your menus. Incentivize this behavior by teasing that they will receive an exclusive in-app coupon that they can apply to a future order. 

UPshow makes it easier to bring sustainability to your company

Digital signage can facilitate a smooth transition for your company from where it’s at now to becoming a sustainable, farm-to-table restaurant.

UPshow provides digital signage software that makes this process easier. Our software has everything that you need to:

  • Replace your paper-based advertisements and internal staff communications
  • Entertain your customers
  • Integrate with your POS system to implement more sustainable food prep practices
  • Help position your brand as a trusted farm-to-table restaurant

If you’d like to achieve all of those things, then investing in UPshow could be just what you need to make it happen.

Get a Demo

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Environmental Trends in Business in 2022

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Research shows that 50% of Americans believe protecting the environment is more important than economic growth.

In the modern world of seemingly unlimited choices, consumers are increasingly voting for that environmental preference with their wallets.

What this means for businesses is that it’s more important than ever to be knowledgeable about key environmental trends to stay ahead in 2022 and beyond. 

Keep reading to discover 7 key emerging environmental trends that are set to impact the world of business in 2022.

1. Exposure of company greenwashing

Many companies are well-aware that they can win new business by selling greener products. Though some are unwilling to put in the work it takes to develop these.

This has given rise to a trend called greenwashing – the practice of conveying a false or misleading impression that a company’s products or services are more environmentally-friendly than they are.

This is typically done through carefully-chosen language, which creates an impression of an environmentally-friendly product while being careful not to make any specific claims.

In the early days of the environmental trend, many businesses were able to get away with this practice without being called out on it. But that’s no longer the case.

Consumers are wisening up to the greenwashing tactic. Companies that continue using it risk having their campaigns backfire on them. 

Because if a customer thinks you’re greenwashing, they’re very likely to form a negative impression of your brand – and that could ruin your chance to do business with them again in the future.

So if you’re going to claim that your products are good for the environment, you need to make sure that you can back those statements up with facts.

2. Commitments to net-zero carbon or net-zero emissions

More and more countries are committing to working towards achieving net-zero emissions by 2050. This means that they’re attempting to hit a balance between the amount of carbon that they release into the air and the amount that they take out.

If we can achieve worldwide net-zero emissions, then our greenhouse gas problem will not get any worse. And that could be essential to the future of our planet.

Companies have a big role to play in this process and consumers know it. That’s why more and more are choosing to support businesses that have embraced net-zero carbon goals.

The number of net-zero companies doubled in 2020 and analysts expect the trend to continue growing in the years to come.

3. Transparency around sustainability policies

Environmental-conscious consumers are starting to expect the companies that they support to have clearly-defined policies around sustainability.

It’s no longer enough to just say that your business is working towards a sustainable future. You also need to give your audience specific details on how you plan to get there and when.

Many companies are even starting to update their customers on their sustainability progress at set intervals. This can be an excellent way to convey that you’re serious about working towards a more environmentally-friendly future and may even help you win new business.

4. The rise of electric-powered transportation

In 2010, there were just a few thousand electric vehicles sold in the United States. That number has since expanded to over 300,000 annual electric vehicle sales.

This shows a clear explosion in the consumer demand for cleaner transportation alternatives. It’s a trend that should only continue growing as the environment becomes an increasingly important part of the average American’s life.

5. The decline of fossil fuel usage

As the demand for electric vehicles goes up, the demand for fossil fuels goes down. This is a trend that was sped up by the COVID-19 pandemic but it will likely be here to stay.

Declining fossil fuel consumption is a big part of many countries’ plans to become net-zero carbon emitters by 2050. This indicates that companies may want to start looking into methods of transportation that are less reliant on fossil fuel usage.

6. Increased carbon taxation

Although no U.S. state currently has a carbon tax, the list of international countries that do is growing. Additionally, talks of implementing a carbon taxation policy in the United States have never been hotter.

This suggests that more companies may face carbon taxation in the near future. Under this type of plan, a business would essentially have to pay a fee for each ton of greenhouse gas that they emit into the atmosphere.

If this is a realistic possibility in the future, then your business may need to start preparing for it now. It takes time to adjust your supply chain and processes so that you can reduce greenhouse emissions. You don’t want to get caught facing hefty fines by waiting too long to start this process.

7. Sustainable advertising

Sustainable advertising is another trend that’s picking up steam. This term can mean a few different things. But the type of sustainable advertising that we’re talking about here is using your company’s ads as a way to help the environment.

More and more companies are starting to do this because their consumers appreciate it. There are lots of ways to do this.

For example, some companies are using outdoor billboards that double as air purifiers or habitats for local birds. Other businesses are focusing more on digital marketing to reduce the amount of paper they consume with advertising.

Strategies for embracing these environmental trends

It’s a mistake to think of environmentalism as a trend. Instead, it’s more of a lasting shift in the way that consumers are thinking about the way that they interact with the world. And a big part of environmentalism is choosing to buy from companies that play a role in helping the planet instead of harming it.

That’s why it’s only going to become more and more important for businesses to embrace environmentally-sound practices moving forward.

If you’re interested in starting to do that, here are some strategies to get you started.

Come up with a clearly-defined sustainability plan

The first thing you need to do is figure out the specific steps that you can take to reduce your impact on the environment. This might include:

  • Reducing the emissions created during your manufacturing processes
  • Reducing the amount of paper your company uses
  • Optimizing your supply chain to reduce fossil fuel consumption
  • Creating more sustainable product packaging

Whatever you decide to do, make sure that you come up with a realistic plan with specific targets.

Set milestones and communicate your progress towards them

Customers today don’t just want to hear that you’re working towards sustainability. They also want to be able to see that you’re doing so with their own eyes.

The best way to do that is by setting specific milestones for your company and communicating the progress that you’re making towards them.

For example, you might set an overall goal of becoming a net-zero carbon emitter. Then you could set milestones of gradual reductions in your carbon emissions and communicate when you reach them.

This makes it clear to your customers and prospects that you’re making progress towards your sustainability goals instead of just talking about it.

Don’t promise more than you’re delivering

Greenwashing is a really big problem and consumers know it. They’ve started to develop a sense for it and they dislike the companies that practice it.

That’s why it’s important to make sure that you aren’t giving off the impression of greenwashing with whatever environmental strategy you commit to implementing.

You can make sure you don’t give off that impression by only communicating what you deliver. That way, customers don’t feel like you’re inflating your efforts just to mislead them and win their business.

Encourage employees to do their parts

At the end of the day, companies are just collections of individuals. So if the individuals that make up your company do more to help the environment, then the company’s overall sustainability will go up.

That’s why it’s also a good idea to engage your employees with your environmental efforts. You can encourage them to carpool or give them an incentive for using an electric car.

You might even want to ask your employees for advice about your environmental strategy. They may have some great ideas that can help you stand out with consumers.

UPshow makes it easier to highlight your environmental initiatives

If you’re going to invest in becoming a more environmentally-friendly company, then you need an efficient way to communicate with your customers and employees.

Digital signage is perfect for this. It’s a simple, but powerful system that can help your company cut back on paper usage, as well as showcase environmental initiatives throughout all of your business’s locations.

Learn More

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Auto Signage: Go Digital To Streamline Your Car Dealership

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The car business is changing in many different ways. That means your dealership is going to need to adapt if it wants to remain competitive. Adding digital signage to your business could be just what you need to do to make sure that happens.

Digital signage can help turn your dealership into a more informative, helpful and useful place for your customers to be. We’ll tell you why that’s true below while also giving you step-by-step instructions for adding this technology to your dealership.

How to streamline your car dealership with digital signage

We’ll dive into the specifics below, but for now, here’s an overview of the step-by-step process you’ll follow to add digital signage to your business:

  1. Set the goals that you want to achieve with digital signage
  2. Buy the hardware that you need to hit those goals
  3. Pick a digital signage software provider
  4. Create the displays that you’ll show with digital signage
  5. Share the displays with your customer, monitor their performance and adapt them as necessary

What you need to get started

Every digital signage system is made up of three components:

  • Screens (like televisions, tablets and kiosks)
  • Digital signage software
  • Media players (only needed if your screens can’t connect to the internet on their own)

The specific screens that you need will vary based on your goals. We’ll give you more information on selecting them in the sections below.

Learn More

Step 1: Decide what you’ll do with digital signage

The first step towards streamlining your dealership with digital signage is figuring out exactly what you’d like to do with that signage. The answer that you give will determine how you need to arrange your digital signage layout to achieve the best results.

There are lots of different things that you can do with digital signage in a car dealership. Here are three examples to get you started.

Dealer showroom signage

Digital signage is the perfect way to make your dealer showroom stand out. You can use it to:

  • Highlight ongoing promotions
  • Show exhilarating driving footage of the cars you sell
  • Play customer testimonials
  • Help people learn about your cars’ best features

Features like these could help customers stay in your dealership longer. And that could be a key step towards converting a higher percentage of your visitors into paying customers.

Waiting area entertainment

When someone shows interest in buying one of your cars, the last thing that you want to do is stick them in a waiting room. But you may have to do that periodically when all of your salespeople are busy with other customers.

When this happens, a customer may get fed up and decide to leave your dealership and go elsewhere. But that’s much less likely to happen if you have an entertaining and comfortable waiting area for them to hang out in.

Digital signage makes this much easier to set up. You can use your digital signage screens to show live streaming entertainment like news and sports, and even have trivia playing.

The best part is, you’ll get to control the commercials that are shown in between this content. So you can easily advertise to your visitors while you entertain them.

Touchscreen kiosks

Touchscreen kiosks are a cool way to let customers personalize their car-buying experience. With them, a visitor can:

  • Customize the cars that you sell and see how they look
  • Learn more about the technical specifications of your various models
  • Educate themselves about the benefits of choosing your brand

It’s another example of how you can use digital signage to help your car dealership achieve its goals.

Step 2: Buy and install the hardware you need to achieve your goals

Once you’ve figured out what you’re going to do with digital signage, it’s time to purchase the hardware that you need to make that happen.

This could include buying:

  • Televisions
  • Touchscreen kiosks
  • Tablets
  • Monitors
  • Media players
  • Cords

You probably won’t need all of these things. But it’ll be important to make sure that you buy enough hardware for your customers to enjoy your digital signage no matter where they are in your dealership.

Step 3: Choose the right digital signage software

The software that you choose to power your digital signage solution is just as important as the hardware that you select. 

With the right software, you can bring your full digital signage vision to life. But weak software could place an artificial limit on how much progress you’re able to make towards your business goals.

That’s why you should take a serious look at UPshow’s digital signage software. It features everything that you need to help your car dealership hit its goals, including:

  • Tons of pre-made display templates
  • Powerful software for creating customized displays
  • More than 500 channels of live streaming entertainment
  • Easy tools for tracking your performance

Step 4: Create your displays

After you’ve installed your hardware and set up your software, you’re ready to begin creating digital signage displays. These are what your customers will see when they look at your devices.

Here are some strategies that you can use to make sure that your displays are as effective as possible:

  • Understand your audience and what they care about
  • Ensure your displays are visually interesting
  • Add a strong call to action to your ads
  • Use clean, engaging fonts

Step 5: Monitor your performance and adapt

According to Neilson, the average return on investment for marketing expenses is just $1.09 for every $1.00 spent. That means if you want your digital signage campaigns to be effective, you need to go beyond what the average company does.

It’s why it’s so important to monitor the performance of your digital signage displays and adapt them based on the information that you find.

For example, you might notice that a display with a specific call to action isn’t performing as well as a similar one with a different CTA. This could tell you that you should be using the higher-performing CTA across more of your ads.

This process of gaining gradual insights into your digital signage campaigns and adjusting is essential to getting as much as possible out of this technology. If you don’t do it, then your upside with digital signage will be limited.

Things to be careful of

While digital signage can be a super powerful way to streamline your car dealership, adding it to yours won’t automatically improve it. You need to make sure that you avoid the following potential pitfalls if you want to optimize your usage of digital signage.

Over-stimulating your car shoppers

You can do a ton of unique and interesting things with your digital signage. But you’ll need to exercise some restraint to avoid overwhelming your audience with a flurry of videos, images and ads.

The best way to do this is by being strategic about how many screens you place in your dealership and where you place them. Make sure that the screens are easy to see from most places but also that there aren’t so many as to be distracting.

Failing to tie digital signage displays into your other campaigns

When you install digital signage in your car dealership, it’ll be important for you not to think of it as an isolated medium. Instead, this technology should fit into your existing marketing strategy. 

You can do that by looking for opportunities to connect your digital displays with your other marketing efforts.

This might include:

  • Sharing a QR code for customers to download an app or sign up for an email list
  • Creating displays that follow up on advertisements customers might have seen on TV
  • Offering customers discounts for engaging with your brand on other platforms
  • Flyers or takeaways featuring the same trackable custom QR code you can advertise on-screen for a particular action, like leaving a Google review for your business.

Not taking any risks with your displays

Your customers have probably seen thousands of advertisements for cars during their lifetime. If they just see the same boring ads in your dealership, then you’re not going to get very much out of your digital signage.

That’s why it’s important to take some risks and get creative with your displays. Sharing imagery and videos that truly engage your audience is key to tapping into the full benefits of this technology. And the only way to do that is by showing your customers something they haven’t seen hundreds of times already.

UPshow makes it easy to streamline your car dealership with digital auto signage

Are you ready to add digital signage to your car dealership? If so, UPshow can help you make it happen.

Our software is packed with features that help you engage, inform and entertain your audience. It’s the perfect way to unlock the full benefits of digital signage technology.

Get a Demo

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Improve Your Strategy with Cross-Channel Functionality

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We talked previously about the importance of using multiple channels to communicate your marketing messages. As we said then, if you’re only using Twitter to promote your business, you’ll only reach the types of people who regularly use Twitter.

To reach the broadest possible audience, you need to market across multiple channels, even to customers or patients who are on-premise at your location. 

Here’s what some might call a hot take: you should consider using paper.

Not just any paper. Paper is “dumb” — you can’t measure interactions with it and you can’t easily understand ROI. Instead of traditional “dumb” paper, you need to use digital paper. 

That’s why we’ve created Smart Paper. Smart Paper from UPshow connect is a powerful marketing tool that allows you to: 

  • Increase revenue
  • Drive more repeat customer visits
  • Improve campaign reach

How? When you create a QR code campaign with UPshow Connect, you can reuse that QR code on paper to track customer engagement and action.

Learn About Connect

Get a Demo

Increase Revenue

With Smart Paper from UPshow, your business can clearly and easily understand which paper advertisements are successful and which aren’t. 

Smart Paper allows you to track engagement printed pieces like:

  • Menus
  • Special offer redemption
  • Event registration posters
  • Form download signs

While form downloads may not drive revenue for healthcare providers, they’re still very important — and your clinic should be able to measure patient engagement.

Across the other examples, Smart Paper makes it possible for businesses to measure engagement and, if the scan sends customers to a landing page, measure conversions. 

Giving your customers and patients more opportunities to access special offers directly translates into more revenue for your business or clinic.

Drive More Repeat Visits

Smart Paper can help you bring customers or patients back. 

How? Simple: place your printed materials in high-traffic areas throughout your location that:

  • Invite customers to return for a special event, such as trivia nights or big sporting events
  • Lets patients sign up for an in-clinic event where they can learn more about products your clinic sells, such as Invisalign or skincare lines
  • Incentivizes multiple visits by providing discounts after attending a given number of classes or making so many purchases
  • Provides access to your business’s loyalty or rewards program

All these things bring customers or patients back to your location over and over again, creating more loyalty. 

Improve Campaign Reach

Scientists have determined that most people can only remember up to seven things for 20-30 seconds. Considering how much is on the minds of the average consumer, do you want to gamble that your message is one of those things?

Instead of rolling the proverbial dice, use Smart Paper to extend the reach of your campaigns. Don’t rely on customer or patient memory when they arrive at your location. Instead, use Smart Paper to prompt them to take action on your most important marketing campaigns. Invite them to download your app, redeem a special offer, sign up for a class and so much more. 

Smart Paper extends the life cycle of your campaigns beyond the internet, TV or radio, bringing your messages into your locations with ease.

Get UPshow Connect Today

Don’t let your campaigns fail because paper is dumb. Make Smart Paper from UPshow an integral part of your marketing strategy, and watch that “dumb” paper become a powerful tool to measure engagement, ROI, retention and so much more. If you’re ready to get started, we’re here to help. Get a demo of UPshow Connect today.

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Back-of-House

Use a Xenial POS System? Try Pairing With Digital Signage

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With more than 135,000 restaurant customers, Xenial is one of the largest POS providers in the industry. But if you’re one of those customers, you may not be getting as much out of Xenial’s software as you could be.

Combining your Xenial POS system with digital signage can help you unlock the full potential of your business. We’ll tell you why that’s true and give you an overview of how to get started in the sections below.

Let’s get into it.

Here’s what you’ll need to get started

Before diving into the benefits of pairing Xenial POS with digital signage, let’s first take a look at what you’ll need to deploy this solution in your restaurant.

Here’s an overview:

  • Xenial POS software
  • Digital signage software
  • Strategically-placed screens and tablets
  • Possibly media players – but only if any of your screens can’t connect to the internet on their own

That’s really all you need. So if you already have Xenial POS software and screens throughout your restaurants, then implementing this solution could be as simple as selecting your digital signage software provider.

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Why leveraging Xenial POS and digital signage is a smart move for your business

There are a lot of ways you can make your restaurant stand out by combining digital signage software with Xenial POS specifically. Here are five of the top examples of how to do that.

Supercharge your conversational ordering

Conversational ordering is a new type of POS-based ordering that lets cashiers add items to a check in the order that a customer mentions them. This is beneficial because it reduces order-taking times by minimizing errors and allows the cashier to interact more with the customer.

Xenial POS offers conversational ordering already, but combining your system with digital signage software could help you get even more out of the feature.

While a customer is placing their order, you could leverage digital signage technology to show them targeted ads. Some of these could be for add-on items that – if selected – would increase the overall value of their order.

With conversational ordering, it’ll be simple for your cashiers to take the customer’s order and add the supplemental items to it without interrupting their flow of thought. 

Deploy mobile ads without paying for a mobile campaign

If you use Xenial POS in your restaurants, then you also have the option of deploying the company’s mobile-ordering POS system. This can be a smart move for your company, as 46% of consumers now expect a restaurant to offer this service.

What’s cool about this is that you can combine Xenial’s mobile POS with your digital signage solution. This essentially lets you show ads for your products on your consumers’ mobile devices – all without having to pay any mobile advertising fees.

This unique feature could help you connect with your customers in a new way – and that could in turn help you increase your revenue.

Power both your on-premise ads and your POS from any device

Xenial POS is a cloud-based product

This means you can manage it from essentially any device that connects to the internet, including those that use Windows, iOS and Android operating systems. This makes it possible to oversee your POS system from anywhere you have a decent internet connection.

Being able to manage your POS system on a single device from almost anywhere in the world is a powerful enough feature on its own. But what if you could also manage your on-premise ads with the same type of flexibility?

That’s exactly what’s possible when you pair Xenial POS with the right digital signage software.

This gives you a ton of flexibility and versatility with your schedule. You will be able to control two of the most important aspects of your restaurants from almost anywhere, so you won’t have to worry about spending as much time physically in each of your restaurants as you might do currently.

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Save time and money

You likely spent money on the Xenial POS to aim for a positive return on your investment through an improved customer experience and a value add for your venue. 

This positive ROI comes in the form of reducing order errors, improving order times and making it easier to oversee important restaurant processes like inventory.

However, you could be getting an even better ROI on your Xenial POS investment by combining it with digital signage.

Digital signage extends the functionality of your Xenial POS system to also include:

  • On-premise ads
  • Internal communications
  • Back-of-house management
  • A range of customizable templates

That means when you combine the two tools, you can save more money by reducing the amount of time you have to spend on various tasks throughout your restaurants.

Show targeted ads in unique, high-traffic places

It’s important to remember that the Xenial Encounter POS was specifically designed to be used in harsh, rugged environments. 

This means you can use it anywhere in your restaurant without having to worry about the system constantly crashing.

That’s a powerful feature because it allows you to deploy your POS wherever you need it in your restaurants – no matter how packed the environment is in those locations.

When you add digital signage to your Xenial POS system, you can do the same thing with your on-premise ads.

This opens up a ton of possibilities for where you’re able to show ads to your customers. With the ruggedness of Xenial Encounter, almost nowhere will be off-limits to your on-premise ad campaigns. That could help you target your customers more effectively.

Things to be mindful of

If you’re interested in combining Xenial POS with digital signage, there are a few things that could derail your results. Here’s an overview of what they are and how to avoid them.

Trying to do too much right away

Xenial POS with digital signage is a versatile and powerful technological combination. There’s so much that you can do with these two items and you may want to try all of it right away.

But that may not be the best strategy. If you spread your focus over too many of these features, then you probably won’t have the time or energy to dive into any of them.

This could limit the upside that you get from combining Xenial with digital signage. A better solution may be to focus on your highest-priority goals first, optimize the technology to achieve them and then start delving into the other possibilities.

Neglecting to track your performance

It’s also really important to track your performance when using Xenial with digital signage. Doing so is the only way to determine whether the strategies that you’re using are having their intended impact.

If you don’t track your performance and adjust your tactics, then you’re unlikely to get as much out of this technological pairing as you could be.

Digital signage software from UPshow makes this easier to do. It gives you powerful, built-in analytics features, so you can track the performance of your digital signage solution from anywhere.

Forgetting about the internal benefits of POS with digital signage

Restaurants tend to purchase POS systems because they want a better way to take customers' orders. 

However, it’s important to keep in mind that these systems also come equipped with plenty of internal-facing benefits. These benefits can become even more powerful when you combine your POS system with digital signage.

For example, with this pairing, you can enjoy the following internal benefits:

  • Automatically alerting team members when inventory is running low
  • Reminding your team to complete important tasks
  • Providing on-screen infographics relating to progress 
  • Displaying progress towards daily or weekly sales goals

Placing your screens in the wrong locations

Digital signage with Xenial POS is a super powerful way to advertise to your on-premise customers. But the impact of the advertisements that you display will be muted if it’s not easy for your customers to see them.

That’s why it’s important to spend time considering how you want to hang the screens in your restaurants. Ideally, a customer should be able to easily see your ads no matter where they are in your store. 

That includes hanging your televisions at angles that are natural to look at. Otherwise, people will have to crane their necks to see your displays, or not see them at all.

UPshow is the perfect digital signage software to pair with Xenial POS

Are you ready to start getting more out of your Xenial POS system? If so, digital signage software from UPshow could be just what you need.

Our digital signage software makes it super easy to create and share both customized and template-based ads with your audience. It also includes a ton of features to help you unlock more powerful on-premise advertising campaigns.

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General

Communicate More Without Sacrificing Campaign Reach

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Ensuring marketing messages reach their intended audiences is one of the largest challenges businesses face—and when you have multiple messages, balancing them becomes even more challenging.

That’s why we created Campaign Hub as a part of UPshow Connect. Campaign Hub is a mobile-friendly landing page where you can promote multiple campaigns all at once. Simply use your screens to display your Campaign Hub QR code for customers or patients to scan, allowing them to see all your most important messages in one location.

With Campaign Hub, you ensure your customers or patients always have access to your most important messaging, which means you:

  • Maximize awareness of promotions and services
  • Increase revenue-generating opportunities
  • Create additional outlets to provide value

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Maximize Awareness of Promotions and Services

Do your customers know about all your products? Do your patients know about all your services? Campaign Hub makes it easy to increase awareness around promotions, products and service offerings for all industries. 

Start by showing the best of your best products and promotions on your on-premise screens. Feature enticing photos to capture customer attention and direct them to scan a QR code. This QR code will take customers to the Campaign Hub, where you can encourage them to engage with special deals on your products, such as discounts or limited-time offers.

Healthcare clinics can use Campaign Hub to drive patients to helpful services. A primary care clinic can use Campaign Hub to connect patients to specialty practices. Specialty practices can ensure patients know about services that will improve their health, such as in-clinic treatments. Dental clinics can promote specials for ancillary services such as Invisalign.

Increase Revenue-Generating Opportunities

Combining Campaign Hub with other UPshow Connect offerings creates opportunities to increase revenue dramatically. Campaign Hub and Fixed Panel work together to directly increase revenue and maximize customer and patient awareness of promotions, products and services. 

Campaign Hub helps drive additional sales, whether by encouraging customers to look at related products or by driving patients to ancillary services. By enticing customers or patients with a general offer, you can bring them to Campaign Hub to direct them to more lucrative products and services.

Create Additional Outlets to Provide Value

Campaign Hub doesn’t have to be all about the hard sell. Businesses can use Campaign Hub to create additional opportunities to provide value to customers or patients. 

How so? Here’s are some ideas:

  • Sports bars and restaurants can advertise sports games, in-venue events and future specials
  • Healthcare clinics can share important documents, such as in-clinic health and safety requirements, patient intake forms or tools to help patients get the most from their appointment
  • Retail venues like clothing stores can link to out outfit inspiration based on product inventory

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Stop choosing between the number of campaigns your business runs and campaign reach. With Campaign Hub from UPshow, you get both. And if you’re ready to get started, we’re here to help. Get a demo of UPshow Connect today.

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Back-of-House

UPshow's Guide to Managing Restaurant Back of House: 2022 Edition

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Your restaurant’s back-of-house team is just as crucial to your business as your team members in customer-facing roles.

Often, back of house gets less attention than it deserves.

If your back-of-house processes aren’t as streamlined as your front of house, then it might be time to consider investing in technologies to improve communication and increase efficiency. 

This guide will help you do just that. Keep reading to discover practical steps you can take today to set up your back-of-house for success.

What to expect from this guide

After reading this guide, you’ll have learned:

  • Why back-of-house management is important
  • How digital signage can improve and automate your BOH management
  • The equipment you need to start using BOH digital signage
  • Step-by-step instructions for improving BOH performance

Why worry about back-of-house management?

Restaurant owners tend to pay more attention to forward-facing staff and processes because they’re more visible to the customer. 

However, your back of house plays just as big of a role in making sure your guests have a positive experience in your restaurant. 

That’s because BOH is responsible for:

  • Preparing food ingredients safely and correctly
  • Delivering high-quality food and beverages 
  • Ordering, storing, and managing raw materials and inventory
  • Keeping dishes, glasses and silverware clean
  • Maintaining and cleaning equipment
  • Keeping your restaurant safe and secure 

Any one of these tasks can be the tipping point between a positive customer experience and a guest who won’t be returning to your establishment. 

This is why it’s essential to pay close attention to how you manage your back of house and to improve processes where possible. 

Communication is everything: especially in back-of-house management

Source: Unsplash, Daniel Bradley 

Before diving into the specifics of this guide, it’s important for you to keep this principle in mind: If you want your back-of-house team to become more successful, strengthening your communication will be critical – no matter what strategies you use to do so. 

Making task expectations clear is the first step towards increasing efficiency in the workplace, whether that’s for your back-of-house staff, other deskless workers, or your management team. 

When your team knows what is expected of them, when and in what way, it will be all that much easier for them to succeed. 

Establishing a more communicative and positive relationship with both leaders and BOH hourly workers should go a long way in helping you achieve your BOH management goals. 

Digital signage makes back-of-house engagement easier

Digital signage simplifies back-of-house management by giving you an easy way to communicate with your staff. This helps them remain engaged and on-task more consistently, even when you’re not physically present.

You can use digital signage to share messages that prompt your team to complete important tasks the moment the need arises.

For example, digital signage lets you:

  • Schedule repeated operational tasks, prep work and more
  • Set visible goals for your team to work towards and track progress
  • Remind hourly workers about health and safety protocols
  • Motivate your staff with positive messages and recognize their achievements
  • Boost individual and team performance by sharing progress towards sales goals 
  • Notify staff of training, updates and special events 

Essentially, digital signage acts as an automated and constant leader in your back of house.

Equipment you need to start using digital signage in back of house

  • Screens in strategic locations
  • Digital signage software
  • Media players (only if your screens aren’t connected to the internet already)

Setting up your digital signage system

Setting up digital signage in your back of house is straightforward: 

  1. Mount screens in locations that are easy for your staff to view while they work
  2. Connect your digital signage software to those screens (either through media players or directly to the screens)
  3. Create the displays you want your back-of-house employees to see, and choose the frequency that each message is displayed across the screens
  4. Use your digital signage software to share a variety of content with a dynamic rotation schedule

I want to learn more about UPshow's solution

Improving back-of-house management in 2022: A step-by-step guide

Source: UPShow

Step 1: Deploy digital signage and use it to keep your team engaged

Adding digital signage to your BOH is a great first step towards optimizing your team’s performance. 

Integrating digital signage with your existing POS system can bring even more benefits, such as automated inventory reporting.

There are many options for keeping your team engaged with digital signage. Signage can enable you to easily communicate timely internal messages, celebrate worker milestones and even share profiles of brand new team members.

Step 2: Set goals and track your team’s progress towards them

Providing specific goals – and tracking your team’s progress towards them – is likely to be more effective than simply “expecting more” from your BOH team. 

This is why it’s important to set realistic goals and track these over time. 

Examples of strong goals include:

  • Completing prep work by a certain time
  • Reducing the amount of food waste by a certain amount or percentage
  • Minimizing downtime by completing more ancillary tasks when primary objectives are done
  • Achieving set sales goals each day

If you’re going to set goals for your team, you should consider rewarding them when those goals are reached. For example, you could offer a free meal to workers or give them an additional day of paid time off.

Digital signage enables you to provide reminders of what these goals are, and how the team is progressing towards them, which serves to boost engagement and performance over time. 

Step 3: Consider updating your back-of-house layout

The layout of your restaurant’s back-of-house space can have a big impact on the efficiency of your workers. 

If employees constantly have to wait their turn to use important stations, they can’t complete key tasks as quickly as they should.

Similarly, if you don’t have enough kitchen tools in your back of house, it could delay your team and give them a reason to be distracted.

That’s why you may also want to consider updating your back-of-house layout

If you do, try focusing on how your staff members flow throughout their shifts. Then, build a space that supports that natural flow instead of counteracting it.

Step 4: Involve BOH team leaders in your decision-making

Decisions are more effective when more people are involved from the start – especially when the people you involve will be directly impacted by the decision! 

Bringing your back-of-house leaders into your decision-making process ensures that insights are coming from those who are most familiar with the BOH environment, helping you to tackle key issues or bottlenecks efficiently.  

One way to capture these insights is through surveys. You can leverage your digital signage to display QR codes that link to trackable surveys. Team members feel greater loyalty when they believe their opinions are valued by management. Surveys are one great way to lower turnover and receive valuable feedback.

Step 5: Give more praise than punishment

Your restaurant’s back-of-house performance ultimately depends on your workers. That means if you’re not currently hitting your BOH goals, you’ll need to motivate your employees to perform to a higher standard. 

So, as you work to adjust your deskless workers’ behaviors, make sure to appropriately reward them when they achieve goals that were set forth and perform to expectations.

Step 6: Invest in ongoing training

There will likely always be things you can do to improve your back-of-house performance. 

If you want to continue making progress towards those goals, then investing in ongoing training is a must.

This will be especially important when you make a change and your deskless workers need to learn a new way of doing things. However, it can also be helpful to periodically refresh your staff’s training in areas where you're noticing the most slippage.

For example, if the kitchen staff complains about poorly prepared ingredients, you could offer a quick training session on the proper techniques. It could be as easy as leveraging your digital signage to promote the training session and offering access to it via a QR code on your BOH screens. 

Step 7: Track your progress and adjust

Source: UPShow

Managing your restaurant’s back of house is a never-ending task. As time moves forward, you’ll likely need to adjust what you’re focusing on if you want to continue hitting your goals.

That’s why it’s important to come up with metrics that you trust to track the performance of your back of house. This could be food waste percentage, feedback from restaurant guests, sales goals or something else.

The key is figuring out what metrics best represent success for your restaurant’s BOH. Then, keep track of those and intervene whenever progress has slowed or doesn’t appear to be on track.

Embracing a culture of continuous improvement in this way will go a long way in improving the performance of your back of house.

UPshow’s digital signage software makes it easier to manage your back of house

Digital signage makes it significantly easier to communicate with back-of-house employees and keep them engaged. UPshow makes digital signage software that’s perfect for this.

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Hospitality

POS Digital Signage Integration: Streamline Your Bar or Restaurant

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Point-of-sale (POS) software is one of the most important technologies for bars and restaurants, as it allows you to streamline ordering, inventory management, customer payment and more. 

However, did you know you could be getting even more benefits out of your POS system?

Combining your POS with digital signage could help you unlock the full potential of the technology and take your bar or restaurant to the next level. 

Keep reading to learn the importance of POS & Digital Signage Integration and how to get started. 

POS and digital signage? A match made in heaven

Connecting digital signage to an existing POS system can improve your restaurant performance in numerous ways. 

Here are four primary benefits: 

1. Get more out of your on-premise ads

POS systems help you track inventory and sales, and digital signage helps you communicate important information. When you combine these two, you can use real-time inventory data to display optimal on-premise ads.

For example, your POS system might alert you that your chicken wings will expire soon. If the system was combined with digital signage, you could have used that information to automatically show more on-premise ads for chicken wings in your digital signage menu.

The result? Less waste and more sales. 

2. Engage customers at the point of sale

Advertising to customers while they’re paying for their order can be highly effective, with some research suggesting it could increase the purchase rate by as much as 45%.

POS integration with digital signage makes this type of advertising easy to put into action. 

When you’ve combined the two systems, you can even show POS ads that are influenced by the items that are already in the guest’s order.

What’s more, personalized advertising – taking into account the day and timing of the order, data from customers’ loyalty profiles, and the items selected – can increase repeat sales by up to 22%!

3. Supercharge your contactless ordering system

Data shows that 77% of customers prefer using contactless ordering

However, one downside of contactless ordering is that it reduces opportunities for your workers to up-sell and cross-sell to your customers. 

Digital signage and POS integration solves this problem. 

A digital point of sale gives you a simple way to automatically cross-sell and up-sell to your customers while giving them the contactless ordering experience they want.

The best part? Your staff is freed up to attend to other tasks. 

4. Keep your back of house engaged

Combining a POS system with digital signage can also help you get more out of your back-of-house set up by keeping your hourly workers engaged and on task. 

This solution is effective because it lets you show targeted messages to BOH employees based on data collected by your POS system.

For example, when inventory for a certain ingredient gets low, digital signage could display that message to your back-of-house staff. This allows them to respond to inventory fluctuations in real-time. 

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Ready to get started with digital signage and POS integration?

Here’s how to get this winning combo up and running in your bar or restaurant:

Step 1: Understand your goals

The first thing you need to do is understand what you hope to get out of digital signage and POS integration since this will influence the optimal way for you to set up your system.

Here are some examples of the types of goals that you might have:

  • Communicate more effectively with your back-of-house staff
  • Share more targeted ads to your on-premise guests
  • Open up new channels for interacting with your customers

Once you understand what success will look like to you, it becomes easier to build a solution that can deliver it.

Step 2: Set up your hardware

Once you understand your goals, you’re ready to set up the hardware that will help you achieve them. 

This mainly involves making sure that you have the right type, number and setup of screens throughout your restaurant. This will vary based on your goals, but in general, you’ll want to ensure that the screens are accessible and easy to view.   

For example, if you want to enable contactless ordering, you will need more than digital menu board media players; you will need touchscreens or tablets to make this possible, and you’ll want to arrange these in a way that minimizes congestion and long wait times.  

Or, if you want to engage your back-of-house staff, you’ll need screens to be easily viewable while they’re working – having to go out of their way to check screens can result in missed orders and updates. 

Step 3: Select your digital signage software

It’ll be important to select software that is dynamic enough to help you achieve all of the different goals that you’ve set and to track your progress as you do so. 

UPshow’s software is versatile, powerful and easy to use on any internet-enabled device. You can also integrate it with many different types of POS software, giving you access to the benefits discussed in this guide. 

Whichever digital signage solution you choose, make sure to check that it is compatible with your POS system before buying.

Step 4: Integrate POS with digital signage

This is where the rubber meets the road – it’s time to onboard your digital signage software to your existing POS system.

The specific steps for this process will depend on the digital signage software you select and your existing POS setup.  

Reaching out to UPshow is a great way to get started with your digital signage POS integration.

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Step 5: Create engaging displays

The next step is creating the displays that you’ll show through your integrated digital signage system. 

You can use templates from UPshow to make these quickly, or you can build custom displays from scratch with our built-in editing tools.

The key will be creating a digital signage menu display for every goal that you have – even if you’re not going to use every display all of the time.

For example, let’s say you want to advertise certain dishes when you have lots of their ingredients in your inventory. You would want to have a display ready for that situation so you can capitalize when it arises even if you won’t use it immediately.

Step 6: Share displays with a dynamic rotation schedule

After creating your displays, you’re ready to set their rotation schedule. You can optimize this to make sure that the correct ads are showing during the right times of the day.

For example, you can make sure your lunch specials get priority during lunch hours and make sure they aren’t displayed during dinner service.

You can also optimize the display rotation for your back-of-house communications to make sure important notifications are visible to your team. 

Step 7: Track your progress and improve

Integrating your POS system with digital signage is a powerful way to improve restaurant performance.

However, as is the case with most new technologies, it may not go perfectly the first time!

This is why it is critical to track your performance over time. 

When you pay attention to the data, it becomes easy to see what aspects of your system are working well and which could use improvements. Paying attention to your performance and letting it guide your long-term strategies is a great way to get the most out of this technological duo.

3 Digital Signage POS integration mistakes to avoid

Though this technology can be extremely impactful for your restaurant, some problems could limit its impact. 

Here are three key issues to look out for:

Lagging displays

Your display rotation schedule is important when you’re using POS data with digital signage. 

For example, if you want to show on-premise ads that take advantage of inventory data, those ads need to be shown when the data is still accurate.

That’s why it’s important to select digital signage software that has a reliable system for display rotations. If yours doesn’t have this, then it could limit the potential impact. 

Unoptimized screen placement

You also need to make sure that the people who you want to see your displays can actually see them. This is true regardless of whether you’re targeting your hourly workers or customers with your POS-integrated digital signage – your screens need to be seen to have the impact you desire!

The height and angle of your screens can also factor into how easy your ads are to see. Your guests and employees shouldn’t have to crane their necks or look at an awkward angle just to see your displays.

Weak software

POS systems can be powerful – you’ll need equally powerful digital signage software if you want to maximize results for your business. 

If you choose a digital signage software that doesn’t offer comprehensive features, it will inevitably limit how you’re able to use the data that you get from your POS system. In turn, that could reduce the ROI that you get from making this investment.

POS Digital Signage Integration made easy with Upshow

Adding digital signage to your point-of-sale system could be just what you need to take your restaurant to the next level. 

If you’re ready to take that step, UPshow’s digital signage software is here to help.

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Back-of-House

How to Use Your Aloha POS System with Digital Signage

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With tremendous Aloha sales, the NCR Aloha POS system is now used by more than 75,000 stores all over the country. Your restaurant may use it too – but are you getting as much out of it as you could be?

Combining the NCR Aloha POS system with digital signage can help you take your restaurant’s performance to the next level. We’ve put together this article to tell you how.

Keep reading to learn more.

Why it’s worth pairing the NCR Aloha Operating System with digital signage

Combining the NCR Aloha POS system with digital signage can help your restaurant make more efficient progress towards its goals in several ways. 

Here are five reasons you should consider integrating the Aloha point of sale system with digital signage technology.

Display targeted ads on your Aloha POS systems based on real-time inventory information

One of the most crucial NCR Aloha POS restaurant benefits is that it makes tracking inventory super easy.

But what if you could also use that information in real-time to serve your customers with targeted ads? 

That’s exactly what’s possible when you integrate NCR Aloha with digital signage. For example, imagine that your restaurant is running low on beef but it has an excess of chicken. If you’ve integrated your NCR Aloha with digital signage, you would be able to use this information to automatically start showing customers more ads for chicken-based meals.

You could use a feature like this to optimize your inventory so that you’re wasting less food and increasing your profits.

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Engage customers at the Aloha POS screen

POS systems with restaurant digital signage also offer a ton of exciting ways to engage customers while they pay. You could use this feature to automatically cross-sell and up-sell to customers based on what they’re going to purchase.

For example, let’s imagine that a customer is getting ready to pay for their food. While they’re interacting with your POS system, you could display an advertisement for a drink pairing that could go perfectly with that meal. Or you could show an ad that highlights side orders that people tend to purchase when they order the items that have already been selected.

The potential for this is almost unlimited. Since the recommendations are based on data, you’ll know that you’re always offering the perfect up-sell or cross-selling no matter what the customer orders.

Bring your contactless ordering to life with Aloha POS

Research shows that 77% of restaurant customers still would prefer using contactless ordering after the pandemic ends. 

However, if your team members don’t get to interact with guests before they buy, it reduces the possibility of boosting the value of each order.

This is another reason why a system like Aloha POS that’s integrated with digital signage can be so effective. You can use the technology to highlight the best items on your menu while a customer is ordering.

You could:

  • Show high-resolution pictures of popular dishes
  • Provide customers with additional information about ingredients
  • Offer detailed nutritional data

Features like these can serve to make your dishes more appealing to customers, which can be extremely profitable for you – especially since this is all happening while a guest is submitting their order.

Create efficiencies in the back-of-house with Aloha systems

Combining your Aloha Point Of Sale system with digital signage can also help you get more out of your deskless workers. 

You can use Aloha’s ability to provide real-time inventory updates to influence the tasks that you assign to your hourly workers and when you assign them.

For example, let’s imagine that it’s dinner time and your cooks are starting to run out of prepared ingredients. As soon as that happens, your back-of-house workers could get a notification that tells them to prioritize preparing more of these types of ingredients. 

That would save you or a team member from having to step away from what you’re doing to communicate that information. It would also keep the alert displayed in the back-of-house area until it’s taken care of. That way, it’s much less likely to get lost in the shuffle.

Choosing the right digital signage software will make this much easier to achieve.

Engage your back-of-house staff 

Your workers impact your business’s bottom line. Using your screens to improve their experience will both, directly and indirectly, impact your revenue. 

Screens can be used to highlight sales goals. The right digital signage software can integrate with your Aloha restaurant software to power sales leaderboards. Workers can see how their sales directly contribute to the bottom line either in terms of revenue or unit sales.

Friendly team competitions with rewards or incentives can help motivate team members to pay attention to leaderboards and check their progress toward sales goals. 

Implement cross-restaurant NCR Aloha POS terminal displays with a single solution

NCR Aloha can scale to cover as many restaurants as you want. Digital signage from UPshow can do the same. That means, together, you can use these two tools to create uniform displays across your entire chain of restaurants.

You won’t have to worry about adding, subtracting and editing displays on every screen in each of your locations. 

Instead, making a change to your POS system or digital signage will be something that you only have to do once and it will auto-populate everywhere it needs to go instantly.

Here’s what you need to get started combine digital signage with Aloha restaurant systems

Are you ready to get more out of your Aloha POS system by integrating it with digital signage? If so, this is what you’ll need to get started:

Screens and Tablets

Both POS and digital signage require screens to function. And if you’re going to combine these two technologies, you may need both tablets and television screens in strategic locations throughout your restaurant.

You could need tablets to double up as Aloha cash registers for your staff to input order information and manage your inventory. If you plan on offering contactless checkout, then you’ll also need tablets for front-facing Aloha cash registers that your customers can use independently. These should go where you anticipate they’ll be the easiest to use.

Television screens are what you’ll use to display on-premise ads to your guests and important information to your workers. They should be set up in locations that receive the most traffic.

Aloha Computer System Compatible Software

If you’re already using the NCR Aloha operating system, then you’ll just need to focus on securing digital signage software that can integrate with it.

On top of that, it can be helpful to find software that:

  • Gives you access to both pre-made ad templates and tools for creating your own ads from scratch
  • Can entertain your customers with a multitude of channels options
  • Can be managed from a single internet-enabled device
  • Includes analytics features so that you can track your ads’ performance over time

UPshow makes digital signage software that offers all of these features and more. It could be just what you need to get the most out of integrating digital signage with your NCR Aloha POS terminals and system.

Media players

You may also need media players to connect your screens to the internet so that they integrate with your digital signage software. But you only need these if the screens that you choose don’t have built-in internet connectivity.

Integration Challenges with Aloha Restaurant POS Systems

Digital signage and NCR Aloha’s POS system fit together like a hand in a glove. However, that doesn’t mean your integration is guaranteed to be successful. 

Here are a few potential problem areas that you’ll need to avoid to get as much out of this pairing as possible:

Poor screen placement

Poor on-premise Aloha terminal screen location can derail what you get from integrating your POS system with digital signage. 

You need your screens to be in locations where they’re easily viewable by your staff and customers.

If you place your screens at awkward angles or in spots that don’t receive a lot of traffic, then you’re creating an artificial limit on how effective they can be for you since not as many people will see them.

Limited POS digital signage software

The NCR Aloha system is a powerful solution that can help you manage many different parts of your restaurant.

You’ll need powerful digital signage software that can match it if you want to get as much out of this integration as possible.

Failing in your staff Aloha POS training initiatives

Combining your Aloha Point Of Sale system with digital signage can help your staff become much more effective at their jobs. But an Aloha manager is not going to take full advantage of this new technology if you don’t show them how to do so.

That’s why it’s a good idea to offer your entire staff some basic training on how to use these tools together when you add them to your restaurant. That way, everyone knows what they need to do to give you an optimal return on your investment.

UPshow can help you get the most out of your restaurant NCR Aloha POS system with digital signage

The digital signage software that you choose will have a big impact on the efficacy of your NCR Aloha computer system's integration with multiple features. That’s why you should select UPshow. It includes all of the features that you need to unlock the full potential of this powerful technological duo in your restaurant.

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General

Promote Key Marketing Initiatives On-Screen Longer with Fixed Panel from UPshow

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As marketers — or as owners filling a marketing function — we have to acknowledge the limitations of our channels. Twitter posts only reach the kinds of people who use Twitter. You can only send emails to people who have given you their email addresses. TV screens can only display one message at a time.

If you’re using your on-premise TV screens as marketing tools (and you should be), prioritizing campaigns isn’t always easy! 

That’s why we’ve created a new feature on UPshow’s platform called Fixed Panel. With Fixed Panel, you ensure your most important messages are always visible.

Even better? Fixed Panel comes with UPshow Connect.

Let’s look at some of the great ways you can use Fixed Panel to:

  • Increase revenue
  • Drive more repeat customer visits
  • Capture more reviews for your business

Learn About Connect

Increase Revenue

You know certain marketing initiatives will drive more revenue. Buy-one-get-one specials, for example — or promotions that give customers a savings after they spend a certain amount. 

But you can’t keep these messages on screen all the time. Well, you could, but then you lose out on some of your softer sells. Maybe you want to highlight an upcoming event like a football game or a patient support night. Perhaps you want to educate patients or run trivia games to entertain guests. If you focus exclusively on revenue-generating messages, you lose opportunities to build an emotional connection with your customers and patients.

Fixed Panel bridges that gap, allowing you to keep revenue-generating messages on-screen alongside secondary messages. 

Never again sacrifice one type of marketing message for another: build connections with customers and drive more revenue. 

Drive More Repeat Visits

With Fixed Panel, you can more easily bring customers or patients back to your premises. 

How? Simple. You could:

  • Run offers that are only valid on a subsequent visit. For example, your sports bar will offer a discount to guests who come to watch a future game if they make a specific purchase now.
  • Provide access to your app. With your app installed on a customer’s phone, you can utilize push notifications to inform them of special events, sales or new services.
  • Make follow up appointments easier to schedule. Combine Fixed Panel with QR code campaigns for this. Simply ask patients to scan the QR code and take them to your scheduling page.

With a bit of creative thinking, there are plenty of ways to utilize Fixed Panel to keep customers and patients coming back.

Capture More Reviews

Your business’s online reputation is more important than ever before. Not convinced? 79% of shoppers say they trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations. 

With so many options, people look online to evaluate if a business is worth their time. Have others had a good experience? How does business A stand apart from business B? These and many other questions run through people’s minds as they evaluate what’s available in their area.

Fixed Panel allows you to continuously capture more, positive reviews from your current customers or patients so that you have a better chance of attracting new patrons to your premises in the future. People will read about the fantastic experiences others had or the quality treatment they received and be much more inclined to choose your business instead of your competition.

If more reviews are a priority for your business — and they should be — Fixed Panel is the ideal solution.  

Get UPshow Connect Today

Fixed Panel from UPshow allows you to control your on-screen marketing like never before. And if you’re ready to get started, we’re here to help. Get a demo of UPshow Connect today.

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Back-of-House

10 Employee Engagement Strategies to Keep Back of House Sharp

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Your back-of-house team plays a huge role in the success of your restaurant. Without them, your customer-facing employees won’t have the supplies they need to do their jobs effectively.

That’s why it’s crucial to keep your deskless workers as engaged as possible. However, this can be tough to do since you likely won’t spend as much time with them as you do with front-facing staff members.

We’ve put together this article to help you figure it out. Keep reading to find 10 employee engagement strategies you can use to keep your deskless workers sharp.

Introduce an employee engagement platform to your back of house

Digital signage is a versatile technology that can provide a wide range of benefits to your business, including powering an employee engagement platform.

Setting up an employee engagement platform for your back-of-house staff allows you to easily communicate with these workers – even when you’re not back there.

For example, an employee engagement platform can empower you to:

  • Keep team members on task
  • Share progress towards goals
  • Remind employees about important health and safety information
  • Communicate urgent announcements
  • Share motivating messages with your team

Collectively, these features can help you improve the performance of your hourly workers by increasing their level of engagement.

To add an employee engagement platform to your back-of-house area, you’ll need the following items:

  • Screens
  • Digital signage software
  • Media players (only necessary if your screens aren’t connected to the internet)

The software that you select will have a big impact on how effectively you’re able to leverage this technology to reach your goals. With UPshow SHIFT, UPshow's employee engagement platform, you can do just that.

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Update your back-of-house layout

The layout of your back of house can also play a huge role in how effective your team is. 

There are six primary principles of back-of-house design:

  1. Flexibility
  2. Simplicity
  3. Efficient flow of movement
  4. Ease of sanitation
  5. Ease of supervision
  6. Efficient use of space

If you don’t think that your back-of-house space fulfills all of these principles, then it could be time to make some changes. 

Otherwise, your deskless workers may continue underperforming simply because the layout you’re using doesn’t allow them to work at their full potential.

Ease of supervision is an especially important principle to get right. If you can create a back-of-house space that you have sufficient vision of from your front of house, it will be much easier for you to keep your team engaged and on-task.

Set goals and track performance

Setting restaurant goals and clearly communicating them is another important part of keeping your staff engaged. 

You want everyone in your back of house to have a clear understanding of what their benchmark is for success. Employees should also be able to easily see how they’re progressing towards these goals. That way, they’ll know immediately if they need to start working harder to meet them.

UPshow's employee engagement platform makes this easy to do. You can use back-of-house screens to communicate team progress towards goals like a certain number of sales. The right software can integrate with your point-of-sale system to power sales leaderboards. Workers can see how their sales directly contribute to the bottom line either in terms of revenue or unit sales.

Provide ongoing training to team members

Your hourly workforce has a lot of potential, and it is your job to unlock that potential. One of the ways to do this is to provide them with thorough training, especially during their onboarding.

Ongoing training helps employees become the best versions of themselves. It’s also one of the most effective ways to address common issues or scenarios that could happen in the workplace. 

For example, you might find that your back-of-house team isn’t prepping certain items in ways that are up to standard. You could offer those employees an easily-accessible training module.

With UPshow SHIFT, your screens can be used as a tool to facilitate faster, more efficient training. Use screens to inform workers when they have outstanding training classes and make those training courses easy to access via their mobile devices by scanning a QR code.

Give employees things to work on when they’ve finished their task

If you want your employees to remain engaged throughout their shifts, then they need to have tasks to work on. That’s why it’s a good idea to give your employees a list of things they can do once they’ve finished their main jobs for the day.

One idea is to provide them with a checklist that looks something like this:

Image from EagleOwl

But you can also use on-premise screens to track ancillary daily tasks that have been completed and those that still need to be done. Then you can share that information with your back-of-house team periodically to remind them of what they can work on when they have extra time.

Doing this should help to reduce the amount of idle time that your hourly workers have, and foster greater efficiency with workloads. 

Get buy-in from back-of-house leaders

You can’t constantly monitor your deskless workers. It’s critical that you have buy-in from back-of-house leaders.

Ideally, supervisors and managers in your back of house should be your eyes, ears and voice when you’re not there. 

If you don’t feel like you have that currently, then try to focus on strengthening relationships with your team leaders. Remind them that you’re counting on them and make your expectations clear.

Recognize employees when they’re doing well

People value recognition more than you might think. Research shows that employees who believe they will be recognized are 2.7 times more likely to be highly engaged.

There are a few different ways to recognize employees. The most obvious is doing so verbally, which simply means letting a team member know that they’ve done a good job and that you appreciate them.

But you can also bring your recognition up a notch by rewarding workers for a job well done. For example, you could start giving out an employee of the month award that comes with a cash bonus.

Other ideas for incentives include:

  • Paid days off
  • Free meals
  • A menu item named after them
  • Tip matching
  • Letting hourly workers make their own schedule for a week

Offer career advancement opportunities

Your back-of-house employees are much more likely to remain engaged when their professional goals align with the business. 

In other words, when team members know they have the opportunity to be promoted at your restaurant, they’re more likely to take their jobs more seriously.

That’s why it’s a good strategy to hire for new positions internally and communicate your promotion policy to your team. You can even set staff members up with professional growth plans so they know exactly what they need to do in order to be promoted.

Involve back of house in your decision-making

People tend to buy into strategies more when they feel like they played a part in creating them. So if there’s a change that you’d like to bring to your back of house, make sure that you get their input before making it.

You can do this in a few different ways.

One option is to have regular meetings with your staff. At these meetings, you can tell them what’s on your mind and give them the opportunity to tell you what’s on theirs.

That being said, it isn’t enough to just hear the team out. You should also make an effort to incorporate their ideas into your decisions. That way, they truly feel like they have a voice.

It can also be a good idea to provide your deskless workers with an anonymous way to provide you with feedback. That way, they’re able to tell you what they’re truly thinking without worrying about judgment or repercussions.

Make sure your team has the tools it needs to succeed

Even if you cultivate the most engaged back-of-house team in the world, it won’t do you much good if they don’t have the tools they need to do their jobs effectively.

That’s why another important point is to make sure that you’re listening to your team about what they need and trying to provide them with it whenever you can.

Additionally, when your back-of-house staff sees that you’re willing to take their concerns seriously, they may reciprocate by working a little harder to help you hit your goals.

UPshow makes it easier to keep your back-of-house team engaged

The first step in getting started is selecting the right employee engagement platform. UPshow SHIFT could be just what you’re looking for.

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General

Make Engaging QR Code Campaigns Quickly and Easily with UPshow Connect

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Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, consumers and businesses alike have enjoyed the benefits of marketing campaigns driven by QR codes. In fact, QR code campaigns have become a cornerstone of marketing.

Because QR code campaigns are powerful for businesses, we’ve made them easier to create, design, run and analyze through UPshow Connect.

Utilizing QR code campaigns in UPshow Connect helps you:

  • Increase revenue
  • Drive more repeat customer visits
  • Keep customers on-premise longer

How do you do all that? Let’s look at some examples.

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Increase Revenue

Utilizing QR code campaigns for your business allows customers to engage with your marketing messages immediately, when the action is top of mind. This means customers are more likely to take advantage of on-premises offers.

With QR code campaigns, you deliver actionable messages when and where customers are most willing to see them. Consider using your QR campaigns to:

  • Provide limited-time offers, such as happy hour specials, discounted skincare products during summer months or assessments on breaks after a heavy rainfall.
  • Drive app downloads — research has shown that customers who make purchases on apps purchase more items more often.
  • Increase awareness of ancillary products and services, such as game-day events, popular medical procedures or new fitness classes.

Drive More Repeat Visits

Everyone knows that retaining customers is cheaper than acquiring new customers. With QR code campaigns, you create more opportunities to bring customers back to your business.

That might sound counterintuitive. After all, you can’t tell someone to come back to your business when they’re not on the premises, right? 

Pull yourself back a bit: if you’re asking that question, you’re looking too far out. You can use on-premise screens and QR code campaigns to ensure customers come back. How? Here are some ideas:

  • Special offers that can only be redeemed on the next visit
  • Simplify scheduling follow-up appointments: ask customers to scan a QR code which takes them to a scheduling landing page or takes them to your in-app scheduling.
  • Give guests a membership discount after attending 5 or more classes

If you’re using QR code campaigns to drive app downloads, don’t forget to take advantage of push notifications. Push notifications are one of the most effective ways of driving customer action, and you can only use them after a customer has your app.

Keep Customers On-Premise Longer

You can also use QR code campaigns to keep your customers on your premises longer. Bars, restaurants and retail establishments can create campaigns that promote limited-time sales or specials. Gym and fitness centers can promote remaining open spaces in classes and use QR code campaigns to make it easy for customers to reserve spots.

QR code campaigns also provide access to interactive entertainment options. If you run a sports bar or restaurant, use QR code campaigns to drive customers to sports betting or interactive entertainment like trivia games.

Entertainment features like these keep guests on your premises longer, exposing them to more marketing messages and increasing the likelihood that they will make additional purchases. 

Get UPshow Connect Today

If you’re ready to revolutionize your on-premise marketing campaigns with QR codes, we’re here to help.

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