englanddg
One Little Spark...
The primary advantage of a well designed tablet menu system is that people order for themselves, and the server becomes little more than a delivery mechanism / suggestive salesperson.
The best conceptual demo I ever saw of this had tablets where the patrons tapped what they were interested in, which linked to the handheld device where the server could "override / confirm" their orders. I don't think that ever made it to mass market.
Anyhow, point is, it's coming...sooner rather than later.
The displays (which are really nothing more than LED or LCD TVs) are the first step. This has been in testing in restaurants for years. Any Orlando residents may remember there was a McDonalds in Downtown Orlando that was testing self ordering kiosks...they didn't catch on, mostly due to the fact that it was found it does NOT alleviate labor cost. At least at that point.
When we tested LCD displays, we found that through the use of suggestive animations, we could push low volume, high profit, menu items using short "commercials". In our test markets, it showed amazing success. The animation caught people's eye, and it was far simpler than trying to "train suggestive selling" to teenage and young adult cashiers.
That being said...if this sort of thing is overused, it will become cliche, and like billboards, will largely be ignored by the public eventually. But, we are not there yet, so expect animated displays in the near future at Disney. As I said, they are already prevalent in the industry.
The best conceptual demo I ever saw of this had tablets where the patrons tapped what they were interested in, which linked to the handheld device where the server could "override / confirm" their orders. I don't think that ever made it to mass market.
Anyhow, point is, it's coming...sooner rather than later.
The displays (which are really nothing more than LED or LCD TVs) are the first step. This has been in testing in restaurants for years. Any Orlando residents may remember there was a McDonalds in Downtown Orlando that was testing self ordering kiosks...they didn't catch on, mostly due to the fact that it was found it does NOT alleviate labor cost. At least at that point.
When we tested LCD displays, we found that through the use of suggestive animations, we could push low volume, high profit, menu items using short "commercials". In our test markets, it showed amazing success. The animation caught people's eye, and it was far simpler than trying to "train suggestive selling" to teenage and young adult cashiers.
That being said...if this sort of thing is overused, it will become cliche, and like billboards, will largely be ignored by the public eventually. But, we are not there yet, so expect animated displays in the near future at Disney. As I said, they are already prevalent in the industry.
