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Mobile integration is in the eye of the beholder

Bestselling authors Chip and Dan Heath recently released a book detailing their study of executive decision-making.  In Decisive, the Heaths discuss the biases and other built-in flaws that prevent people from making the best choices.  The authors contend that when a leader faces a difficult decision that seems to present a choice between two options, the first question to ask is:  How can I have both?

A restaurant, and its customers, can have their cake and eat it too

This brilliant turn of logic even applies to mobile and online ordering for restaurants.  A common question from restauranteurs considering a mobile and online ordering solution is, “Sure an app would be great for our customers, but don’t I need to integrate with my POS system?”

The answer is, “yes and no.”  First of all the word “integration” can have a lot of meanings.  One might be the implication that the mobile ordering app will work directly with the software on the POS system.  This is often difficult, expensive and in a lot of cases ultimately unneccessary.  Technical integration is filled with unexpected hurdles.  If integrating a mobile and online ordering system with a POS system results in any extra effort during regular business operations, integration could actually hamper a restaurant’s production process and drag down workflow.

The word “integration” can have a broader meaning, however.  Whether or not a mobile or online order and payment integrates with your POS system, the true mark of a robust mobile and online ordering system is one that integrates tightly into a restaurant’s work flow, and even improves it.  Mobile and online ordering should help a restaurant be more time efficient, increase throughput and ultimately lead to scores of happy customers. To that end, there are two questions a restauranteur should ask him or herself before deciding the best way to receive mobile and online orders:

  1. What is the work flow for my restaurant staff and customers, including ordering, preparation and payment?
  2. What services or devices have we already implemented that the staff is trained and accustomed to using?

With this information one can figure out a working solution for the needs of a particular restaurant, or even solutions if the needs vary from location to location.  For example, Splick-it offers six ways to present mobile and online orders to a restaurant.  Based on how a restaurant operates and the responses to the above questions, we are able to combine one or more order presentation methods to best suit the process and their budget.  If getting a phone notification and an email works better than a paper printout of the order, the system abides.

The point of sale marketplace is rapidly evolving.  The advent of the tablet computer and other more affordable payment systems have given greater influence to a niche of high-tech small business customers.  With new, cheaper, more versatile POS options springing up left and right, it is unwise to make too permanent a commitment.  Every integration of a software system or any other tool to a POS system represents another tether one has to sever before moving on to a better and/or cheaper POS solution.  No doubt POS providers envision a permanent marriage to their customers, but it better suits a restaurant to remain in a position to pivot with the technological winds.

When you think of mobile and online ordering integration, think not in the simple terms of working with this or that POS software.  Integration is really about mobile and online ordering fitting well into a restaurant’s work flow.  Creating hassle by adding extra steps or making a process more cumbersome doesn’t help the staff or the customers.  A well-integrated solution will streamline the process and be practically invisible.

Your POS Provider isn’t an App Developer

The world has changed, the world is changing. Consumers have become hyper local, mobile, social, and brand advocates for everything from tennis shoes to U.N. Initiatives happening half way across the globe. CMOs are just now starting to ge

t “Social” under control; COOs are just now working on enabling mobile transactions. CTOs are being asked to “integrate” on too many levels.

I’m sorry to say that the rate of change in technology and consumer adoption has accelerated to the point that these efforts will result in only marginal returns by the time they are realized at all by the companies that stand to benefit most. Let me rephrase: the rate of change is rapidly accelerating, yet no one will be able to keep up. Therefore, companies must organize cross functional teams in order to be wildly successful in the world of tomorrow, and they must forge strategic partnerships with companies providing relevant services that meet growing consumer demands.

This is precisely the reason why I get upset when I see great restaurant brands choosing their POS providers as their mobile ordering vendor. Brands have a hard time realizing that transaction enablement is not a mobile strategy in and of itself. While transactions are absolutely necessary, they are only a small part of what consumers want in a mobile presence. The fact is that most POS companies are simply not equipped to measure and adapt to consumer needs and habits. POS engineers are masters of big data. They are fantastic at building user interfaces that minimize ordering errors. However, their rigid business model simply doesn’t allow for them to take advantage of the ever-growing and rapidly evolving ecosystem of open platforms.

One could hope that these providers would—at the very least—come up with an awesome mobile ordering platform. But from what’s out there today, they are far too willing to sacrifice an optimized customer experience in exchange for marginal business.

Take a look, for example, at the app for Jazzman’s Cafe & Bakery that was built by an unnamed POS provider. Each page of the app exhibits glaring usability flaws that compromise the user experience.

Let’s start by taking a look at the landing page. The user’s presence on this page inherently implies his or her intent to order just by getting to this point, so why give them three alternatives to finding a location? As a user, I just want to see nearby stores!


And what do you get when you choose nearby stores?


Come on!

Going deeper into the experience, one begins to realize that this “app” does not actually behave like a native iPhone application. The header bar scrolls with the page, the buttons don’t highlight when pressed, the app goes into landscape mode without providing any real value, and the settings area button looks like cardboard cutouts of real iPhone buttons.


In all, it takes a minimum of three screens just to select which kind of tea I want. If I was an actual customer of Jazzman’s Cafe and Bakery, I would have serious reservations about the ability of the person on the other end to correctly translate my order.

As I mentioned earlier, it doesn’t surprise me that a POS company produced this kind of low quality consumer experience; They simply don’t have any expertise in the area. I would venture to guess that its development was probably outsourced. As specialists in designing software for employees and managers, they just don’t know how to build a consumer-friendly experience. For that reason, I certainly wouldn’t put their product in the hands of my customers.

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