Keys to Your Next POS Purchase: POS Advice from Restaurant ... · Page 5 Chapter 1: Controlling key...

Keys to Your Next POS Purchase: POS Advice from Restaurant Operators

By Richard Slawsky | Contributing writer, Pizza Marketplace

When choosing a point of sale system for a pizzeria, hearing the experiences of other operators can be invaluable.

DEVELOPED AND PUBLISHED BY: SPONSORED BY:

Gabe Connell, Owner, Hot Box Pizza

Mary Jane Riva, CEO, Pizza Factory

Edward Han, Owner, Dagwoods Pizza

Ray Levasseur, Franchisee, Papa Murphy’s Canada

Ray Cantelo, Manager of Operations, Beggar’s Pizza

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© 2016 Networld Media Group | Sponsored by Speedline 2

Page 3 Introduction

Page 5 Chapter 1: Controlling key costs Managing inventory Controlling labor The unique requirements of pizza point of sale

Page 8 Chapter 2: Systematically boosting sales Smart selling Creative couponing The lazy customer Top tips for successful upselling

Page 12 Chapter 3: Increasing delivery profits Integrated delivery mapping Work your delivery data Successful delivery operations

Page 15 Chapter 4: Managing growth Managing menus for multiunits Managing employees across multiple locations Advantages of enterprise software

Page 18 Chapter 5: Apps, add-ons and integration Third-party online ordering Eye in the sky 3 ways to build online ordering volume

2 Conclusion

Published by Networld Media Group © 2016 Networld Media GroupWritten by Richard Slawsky, contributing writer, Pizza MarketplaceTom Harper, president and CEOKathy Doyle, executive vice president & publisherShelly Whitehead, editorBrittany Warren, custom content editor

CONTENTS

About the Sponsors

SpeedLine Solutions Inc. develops point of sale and restaurant management software that drives profit for leading pizza, delivery, fast casual, and quick-service chains. The company serves franchisors, franchisees, and independent restaurant operators in six countries.

Pizza Marketplace is the premier online destination for C-level pizza executive leadership seeking cutting-edge intelligence for their multiunit restaurant concepts. Our coverage seeks to unearth trends before they manifest and teach executives through the words and experiences of their colleagues, via hard-hitting editorial, industry leader-penned blogs and our yearly face-to-face summits.

http://www.pizzamarketplace.com/companies/showcases/speedline-solutions/


INTRODUCTIONYears ago, running a pizzeria meant busy Friday nights answering phones, writing out orders by hand on a ticket pad and looking up customer addresses on a wall map. During slack times, it meant hours in the walk-in with a pencil and a clipboard, trying to strike a balance between ordering enough cheese, meat, vegetables and flour to avoid running out, but not so much that the business had more money sitting in the cooler than in the bank.

Marketing meant having an employee work the neighborhood with doorhanger coupons and making sure every order went out with a boxtopper advertising next week’s specials.

And at the end of the week, seeing a good return on those efforts could depend nearly as much on luck as effective management.

All that has changed.

In many of the most successful pizza companies today, the point of sale system is the heart of the business: correctly pricing orders, calculating food and labor costs prompting for upselling, and helping spot and solve problems. Integration with online and mobile ordering systems is helping increase order accuracy and reduce the number of employees needed to answer phones, while integration with mapping software is helping speed up delivery times, improving sales and customer satisfaction.

Even so, most operators use only a fraction of the power contained in their POS systems.

“For us, our experience is that we probably utilize only 20 to 25 percent of what our POS system is capable of,” said Gabe Connell, owner of the 17-unit HotBox Pizza chain in Indianapolis. “What we want to keep doing is figuring out how to be more efficient with how we operate our business.”

Connell’s experience is typical. It’s likely that no operator uses all of the tools the POS has to offer.

“As a franchisor, we are still just scratching the surface on the amount of data we are able to pull from all the stores and compare,” said Mary Jane Riva, CEO of the 117-unit Pizza Factory chain, based in Redding, California. “I’d say, right now, we are about 20 percent into it. There are so many reports, you would never be able to run and review them all.”

By Richard Slawsky | Contributing writer, Pizza Marketplace



So when considering the purchase of a new point of sale system, an operator should consider a few important questions: What would I like to control with my POS system? How easy will that be? Whom can I call when I have a problem?

Although the answers to those questions depend in large part on both the wishes of the pizzeria operator and the capability of the POS vendor, it may be helpful to see what others are doing with their POS systems and the types of problems they use those systems to solve.

In this guide, sponsored by SpeedLine Solutions Inc., we’ll look at some of the ways pizzeria operators are using their POS systems to run their businesses more effectively.


Controlling key costsIt’s no secret that restaurants operate on razor-thin margins, and the economic turmoil of the past few years hasn’t helped.

According to Dallas-based research firm Black Box Intelligence, same-store sales at the more than 24,000 restaurants tracked by the firm fell 0.4 percent in the first quarter of 2016, breaking a streak of seven consecutive quarters with positive same-store sales. More than 60 percent of brands reported data showing same-store sales growth worsening in the first quarter compared with the fourth quarter of 2015.

At the same time, prices for some of the commodities used in pizzerias continue to rise, although the increase for 2016 isn’t expected to be as bad as it has been in previous years. Staples such as flour, milk and meat are predicted to rise as much as 2 percent over the course of the year.

In addition, communities all around the country are implementing higher minimum wages, increas-ing pressure on labor costs. And while fuel costs have been at their lowest levels in years, history indicates that situation isn’t likely to last.

With those factors combining to make it increasingly difficult to eke out a profit in the restaurant business, managing the cost of food, labor and other supplies is more important than ever.

An old business adage says, “If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.” That’s where the right point of sale system can come into play.

Controlling inventory and food costFor most restaurants, calculating the food cost of an individual menu item is simply a matter of dividing the price the operator paid for it. If a business paid $5 for a steak and sells it for $15, an easy calculation reveals that the food cost for that dish is 33 percent.

At the end of the week, if the operator compares the number of steaks missing from inventory with the total number sold during the week, it’s easy to see if there’s a problem.

CHAPTER 1



For pizzerias, though, the task is a bit more complicated. With a nearly infinite number of combi-nations available, calculating the food cost of each item can be an almost impossible task.

However, a POS system can make that task a snap, automatically calculating the cost of virtually any combination, using the cost of those various items and their selling price to determine the optimum food cost for each menu item. When the manager does a physical inventory at the end of the week and compares the actual food cost with the optimum food cost, discrepancies can be flagged to drill down and identify problems.

Cheese costs that are 5 percent higher than expected, for example, could indicate that staff is over-portioning, calling for additional training or new scales or portion-control cups. If overall food costs are out of line, that may indicate theft.

Pizza Factory, for example, manages its costs with the help of a point of sale system from Speed-Line Solutions.

“Their inventory system is pretty amazing,” Pizza Factory’s Riva said. “You can enter your inven-tory into the system, and it calculates food cost automatically.”

In addition, target quantities for stock items and integration with food vendors simplify purchas-ing and receiving.

Controlling laborLabor costs are increasingly becoming one of the biggest challenges for pizzeria operators, as communities around the country push for wage increases to as much as $15 per hour.

With labor already running at about a third of a pizzeria’s overall costs, operators need to be even more vigilant about controlling those costs and making sure they’re not overstaffed. On the other hand, running an operation without the proper staffing levels ultimately results in dissatisfied customers and lost sales.

The unique requirements of pizza point of sale

The differences in a pizzeria’s point of sale needs are apparent in four key areas:

• The unique menu selections of a pizzeria

• The operational processes behind pizza delivery

• The practical and technical requirements of phone ordering, online ordering and customer database marketing

• The complexities of pizza inventory

Some general restaurant POS systems attempt to address these needs through add-on delivery modules, but the result can be unstable and fraught with challenges.



The POS system can be an integral part of effective labor control, tracking sales volumes and making scheduling recommendations.

“The system can gather all the data that you need, and you can know you’re making the right staffing decisions,” said Marla Topliff, president of Rosati’s Pizza, a Chicago-based chain with 170 locations. “You can see when your busy hours are, and you can even track what registers are doing more work, so you can see who the fastest workers are.”

Because the POS system tracks hours, it can send alerts to managers when workers start getting close to overtime.

In addition, some operations are moving to a tip-credit system for delivery drivers, paying those drivers one wage when they’re out on the road making deliveries and earning tips and switching to a higher wage when they’re in the store performing tasks such as washing pans and folding boxes.

Tracking the times when drivers are making deliveries versus when they’re in the store is critical to paying them fairly and avoiding running afoul of labor laws. Nowhere is that more clear than in New York, where the state’s Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has filed three lawsuits against Domino’s alleging issues including violations of the tip-credit system. The state already has settled cases with 12 franchisees who agreed to pay $1.5 million in restitution to workers.

Central to that case was the company’s POS-based payroll system, which was alleged to have calculated worker pay incorrectly.

With labor already running at about a third of a pizzeria's overall costs, operators need to be even more vigilant



Systematically building sales

There are two main ways of building restaurant sales: attracting new customers or selling more to existing customers.

A POS system can help with both.

Let’s start with selling more to existing customers. A key way to increase sales to existing customers is through upselling: suggesting additional items that customers might add to their meals. In addition to building sales through higher ticket averages, upselling drives profits by of-fering guests more choices and increasing the sales of higher-profit items.

In many cases, though, it can be difficult to get staff to suggest additional items. With two or three phone lines blinking, order takers often try to complete the order as quickly as possible, skipping the suggestive sell to get off the phone faster.

Scripting the process by incorporating pop-ups on the order screen can have a tremendous ef-fect on sales, lowering costs at the same time.

“We find that ease of use with crew members will help with upselling,” said Ray Levasseur, owner of a Papa Murphy’s franchise in South Surrey, British Columbia. “We set the POS to pop up with the question ‘Would you like to add a …,’ and the crew member has to clear the screen to continue on. Repetition is what will eventually drive up add-on sales.”

CHAPTER 2

“Where we were running seven to eight percent for side items, we’re now running 13 to 14 percent.” — Ray Levasseur, Franchisee, Papa Murphy’s Canada



By incorporating those prompts into the training process, employees learn those skills from the start.

“We find in training that if they start out upselling due to the POS reminding them, then they continue to do it,” Levasseur said.

In addition to prompting staff to suggest add-ons when taking orders, some POS systems in-corporate the ability to track which employees are the most successful, laying the groundwork for a bit of friendly competition within the store.

“In one of my other stores, we are watching to see what the average ticket is for certain employ-ees to see who’s upselling and who’s not,” Pizza Factory’s Riva said. “It gives us the opportunity to hold a contest where you can track how many people are upselling breadsticks, for example.”

Creative couponingOne of the most enduring marketing methods in the pizzeria industry is the coupon, with most getting into the hands of customers either via doorhangers, boxtoppers, or mailed postcards.

Gauging the effectiveness of those efforts has long been a mystery, though. Although an op-erator can count the number of coupons redeemed at the store, tracking where they came from can be a bit more difficult.

A POS system that marries a customer database with mapping software can make it easier to measure the results of a couponing effort.

“Our SpeedLine POS system allows us to look and see where our deliveries are, or where they are not, which is probably more important,” Riva said. “That allows us to pick an area and mar-ket to it just to promote those deliveries.”

Connell’s HotBox Pizza restaurants in Indianapolis use “heat maps” available with his POS that clearly show on a map which neighborhoods are redeeming coupons versus which neighbor-hoods aren’t.

“That is great when we do a mailer,” Connell said.

Smart selling

A pizzeria operator might consider a menu item for an upselling campaign for a variety of reasons. Give special consideration to:

• High-margin items: Increasing ticket averages with high-margin items grows profits faster.

• New menu items: Encourage your guests to try something new.

• Extra inventory: Reduce overstock and spoilage.

• Easy add-ons: Consider logical combinations for package deals.

• Consider pricing: Does your pricing structure make an upgrade (for example, to a large beverage or pizza) an easy sell? Can you tweak your prices to make the upsell more appealing? But be sure to consider how much is too much. Although consumers are more receptive to upselling in a restaurant than in other settings, pushing to upsell by more than 25 percent of the original order can backfire.



“We can look at the heat map a week later and see what kind of business were we getting before the mailer and what did we get after,” he said. “That will help us make some business decisions with our next mailer in terms of where we want to focus.”

In conjunction with those efforts, Connell’s restaurants run a report each week detailing all of the customers who ordered for the first time.

“We send them a postcard thanking them for coming in and trying us out, including an offer to encourage them to come back in,” he said.

Tracking customer order historyOne of the most valuable features of a pizza POS system is the customer database.

“The biggest thing we do is have all our guests entered into our POS via phone number,” Levasseur said. “Once in, we can track what they have ordered, the frequency of orders, and issue credits directly to their account if they earn a reward or if there was a problem and you wanted to create a credit of some sort.”

One report available in SpeedLine POS, for example, is the “Repeat Customer Analysis,” which indicates the frequency of existing customers versus the number of new customers. While a high percentage of return guests might seem on the surface to be good, it may tell operators that they aren’t driving enough new customers through the door and that they need to step up their marketing efforts. There is no way of knowing that without a POS incorporating those reporting features.

A great way to leverage the POS system’s customer database is by tracking how often specific customers are ordering and what their favorite menu items might be. In addition, some systems can be programmed to alert management when a customer hasn’t ordered after a designated length of time. That information then can be used to trigger some sort of action to spur sales.

“Currently we have just set our POS to trigger when a guest that has not been in for 60 days,” Levasseur said. “Our Repeat Customer Analysis showed us that 40 percent of our guests are not coming back within that 60 days. Once the POS alerts us of the “Lazy Customer,” we then issue a $5-off card with a two-week call to action.”

Another feature of Levasseur’s SpeedLine POS is the ability to segment guests via what they purchase, he said. Those guests then can be targeted with short-timeline offers.

“I think that the scope of what this system can do is vast, and we are only scratching the sur-face,” Levasseur said.

“We can look at the heat map a week later and see what kind of business we were getting before the mailer and what did we get after” — Gabe Connell, Owner, Hot Box Pizza



“The system in place when we opened was a disaster,” he said. “We recognized the shortcom-ings of that system in our market and undertook the customization of a new POS with Speed-Line. This system is a thousand times better, and the support is top notch.”

Top tips for successful upselling

A pizzeria operator might consider an upselling campaign for a variety of reasons. Give special consideration to:

• Select lower-priced, high margin menu items for upselling.

• Be enthusiastic! The most successful servers are the ones who are excited about your food.

• Offer an incentive. Suggest an item that goes with the customer’s order and may create a value meal.

• Make assumptions. Don’t ask if the customer wants a dessert or side salad: ask which one he or she has decided on.

• Suggest takeout desserts if customers are too full.

“The scope of what this system can do is vast, and we are only scratching the surface”



Increasing delivery profitsFor more than 80 percent of pizzerias, pizza and delivery go hand in hand. That means one of the challenges pizzeria owners face on a daily basis is overseeing drivers and deliveries. Are you getting deliveries to customers on time? If not, is the problem kitchen inefficiency, under-performing drivers or inaccurate ready-time estimates?

It takes constant attention and a commitment to ongoing monitoring to manage a delivery op-eration effectively. A point of sale system designed for pizza and delivery drives efficiency — for a more profitable delivery service.

But getting orders out the door is only half the battle; drivers also need to make their way safely and quickly to their delivery destinations. An in-depth knowledge of the delivery area, coupled with a good old-fashioned map, can get a driver to most places in good time. But some obscure addresses can stump even the most experienced driver.

Integrated delivery mapping In the days before mobile phones and the internet became widespread, those obscure address-es could tie up a driver for an hour or more, with orders stacking up back at the restaurant.

Today, a POS system can integrate with online mapping software for easy location of delivery addresses and turn-by-turn driving directions. The software can provide directions for a specific address or map the best route for a run that includes multiple addresses.

Some systems can even send the driving instructions to the driver’s smartphone and use the driver’s native mapping app for accurate, hands-free navigation.

“Delivery and pickup represent 80 percent of our business,” said Ray Cantelo, manager of operations at Beggars Pizza, a regional chain operating in the Chicago area. “I’m thankful we have mapping integrated into our SpeedLine system, because it maps routes for us from point A to point B and then back to the restaurant. Having mapping has helped us a lot when we’ve opened restaurants in areas we’re less familiar with.”

CHAPTER 3



SpeedLine LiveMaps provides live map data, including mobile maps for pizza delivery drivers and delivery zones, and live digital wall maps that can be displayed on a wall-mounted TV.

“We use LiveMaps, which is great because we have a screen that’s dedicated to delivery. It will pop up as a pin on the map showing where the address is located,” HotBox Pizza’s Connell said.

“What’s great about it is the driver can look at it and think, ‘Oh, I know where that is,’ or they can click on the address and it will show the driver turn-by-turn direction on how to get there,” he said. “The driver can print that out at the receipt printer as well and take it along,” Connell said,” or get the directions on his smart phone.

The feature includes an expeditor view on an optional second display to speed up dispatching. It verifies addresses via geocode and makes it possible to track actual mileage for deliveries based on the recommended route, and can be especially valuable when training new drivers.

“We operated without LiveMaps for a few years, and now that we have it, we’re very satisfied and don’t ever want to go back,” said Edward Han, owner of Dagwoods Pizza in Santa Monica, California. “LiveMaps allows us to easily see where the deliveries are going, plot routes, and it even gathers statistics that help us make invaluable decisions.”

“We’ve decreased delivery time, and clients get hotter meals” — Edward Han, Owner, Dagwoods Pizza

Work your delivery data

When it comes to marketing, pizza and delivery restaurants have an advantage over other restaurant concepts: the kind of competitive advantage savvy companies use to eat up market share. Information is your secret weapon, and guest intel-ligence is built into the point of sale system.

For a profitable database marketing program, follow these steps:

• Train staff to enter complete addresses: When employees enter incorrect or incomplete information, you wind up wast-ing marketing dollars by mailing to bad addresses. So show staff what information to collect and why it’s important. Make it a requirement for raises or incentive payouts, and coach them on it regularly. Remind them also to ask each return caller if any contact information has changed.

• At least weekly, run a New Customer report to verify that each new address is complete and correct. If information is missing, assign someone to look it up.

• Delete customers who have not ordered in more than six months. Because redemption rates for lazy customer mailings drop sharply after 120 days, deleting old records can help you keep marketing costs in check.

• Purchase a street database with accurate streets and ZIP codes for your trade area. When new customers call, the POS system checks the street database to auto-complete address fields with accurate information — including the correct ZIP code, which order takers often forget to enter.

Source: SpeedLine Solutions



In addition, the system allows anyone on the team to quickly and efficiently group orders going in similar directions without requiring an extensive knowledge of the delivery area.

“Before, we would have to rely on experienced drivers, and even that was prone to error,” Han said. “With the use of LiveMaps, we’ve decreased delivery time, and clients get hotter meals.”

A mapping system not only can help speed up the training of new drivers, building up familiari-ty with the delivery area much more quickly than a system that relies on paper maps, but it also enables experienced drivers to work at an unfamiliar location without missing a beat.

“We have 17 locations, and it is nice that as an owner and franchisor I can go to any location and be part of the shift even though I may not be familiar with the area,” Connell said. “It makes it easier to jump in and help. The POS system takes that unfamiliarity out of it and makes it a more neutral playing field.”

And with driver safety a primary concern, being able to predict how long a group of deliveries should take can alert an operator to a potential problem.

“We have a pretty high delivery rate in a couple of our stores, and when you have six or seven drivers and you are trying to make sure they are all accounted for, it is a good system to be able to watch where they are at and see how long they are taking,” Pizza Factory’s Riva said.

“It’s not always that they are taking too long,” she said. “Sometimes they are too fast and that is just as important, because you don’t want someone out there going 90 miles an hour either.”

Successful delivery operations

For pizzerias that offer delivery, a comprehensive driver dispatch system is critical. A well-designed pizza delivery dispatch system includes:

• A clearly laid-out delivery assign/unassign screen.

• Seamless integration with the customer database and quoted delivery time settings (even if a customer orders online).

• Flags for late deliveries and overdue drivers to assist in labor and performance management.

• Integrated delivery mapping and driving directions.

• Driver banks and enforced cash drops.

• Flexible security settings to protect both the store and the driver.

• Enforced insurance renewal reviews.

• Complete delivery statistics and performance analysis.

Many add-on delivery modules offer some of these capabilities at an extra cost, but typically only a pizza- or delivery-specific POS builds in all the tools a pizza operator needs to effectively manage a delivery operation.



Managing growthIt’s a good bet that the hope of most pizzeria operators is to expand beyond a single location and grow into a multi-unit pizza empire. While growth has many benefits, it can introduce a host of new challenges as well.

Fortunately, the right POS system has the capacity to manage multiple locations, equipping chains of all sizes with enterprise reporting and management tools that help them compete.

Managing a restaurant chain profitably requires clear visibility into performance at every location, every day, in real time. An effective enterprise reporting solution automates data transfer and the distribution of key reports, and gives operators the tools to manage restaurant menus and POS settings from a central office.

“Right now we have about 50 stores using SpeedLine’s POS system,” Riva said. “There are so many reports available you would never be able to dig into them all. We can compare average tickets, for example, so we can look at a store in an area with the same type of demographics as another store but is not doing as well as that store. We can then look deeper and try to identify problems.”

Unfortunately, at some point nearly every operator is going to be faced with theft by employees or managers. The ability to compare data between stores can help pinpoint those issues and keep losses to a minimum.

One report shows notable activities that the computer questions, Riva said.

CHAPTER 4

“We can look at a store in an area with the same demographics as another store but is not doing as well” — Mary Jane Riva, CEO, Pizza Factory



“It includes an area that shows you what tickets were adjusted after hours,” she said. “We caught a driver who was stealing from us because he was going in and adding coupons at the end of the shift.”

Another report allows multi-unit managers to see voids that occurred at a particular restaurant, which can be invaluable in preventing theft by shift managers.

“We can go in there and see what it was, who it was, and what part of the ticket was voided,” Riva said. “As an off-site owner, I am able to go in and see if it is a true void or if there is a problem going on.”

Managing menus for multi-unitsMany restaurant chains use master corporate menus to control food cost and brand consis-tency throughout every location. By standardizing menu offerings, recipes and portion sizes, chains protect their margins and deliver a consistent product across multiple locations.

Still, tastes can vary from one area to another. The deep-dish pizza that’s popular in Chicago may fall flat in New York. Ethnic and demographic differences can narrow the scope even more: the spicy veggie pizza that’s popular on one side of town may be a slow seller in another neighborhood.

With regional differences in tastes affecting sales, being able to get a top-level view of what’s popular and what’s not is critical. Having that information can help the corporate office ensure that inventory matches demand, and that marketing efforts line up with customer preferences.

A POS system with chain-friendly menu management tools allows an operator to define a master menu and tailor it to each region as needed. Head office staff can create and maintain one or two menu files to use across the entire chain or a region, keeping the core of the menu consistent.

Some POS systems will allow operators to tailor a single corporate menu to allow for different prices, coupons and offerings at individual locations or regions.

A more efficient enterprise

• Manage more efficiently and cost-effectively. Running individual and consolidated reports for all locations from a secure central database is integral to running a profitable multiunit business. The ability to push out menu changes, coupons and upgrades to a region or to the entire chain saves time and money and avoids unnecessary administration.

• Easier payroll. Payroll becomes faster to administer for multiple locations, with minimal potential for data-entry errors. Automated data transfer can cut hours of payroll and purchasing-related paperwork — and improve accuracy.

• Effective management. With consolidated customer data from all locations, you can efficiently manage da-tabase marketing from a central office. Compare training records for employees at all locations. And easily compare numbers at a high level or down to individual transactions for a single restaurant, a region or all your restaurant locations.



“Our SpeedLine POS is really good at spotting what coupons are working, which ones aren’t and what times of the day work better than others,” Riva said. “If we send out an offer by text, we can track it in real time to see what is and what isn’t effective.”

In addition, the system has helped Riva’s Pizza Factory operation gauge the impact of menu changes and price increases before rolling them out system-wide.

“At one of my stores we have a lunch buffet, and because of the cost of everything we had to raise prices. Although our sales were up, we were able to go in and identify how many lunch buffets we lost versus last year at the same time because of the price increase,” Riva said. “So now we are going after that market to try and get them back.”

Managing employees across multiple locations The sales history recorded in the POS database is the key to automated forecasting and labor planning aids. Can the employee scheduling system recommend ideal labor targets based on each location’s historical and projected sales for the week?

A pizzeria POS system should account for lunch and dinner peaks, and forecast by order type, so managers can schedule the right number of drivers, servers and kitchen staff to handle the workload. Restaurant traffic can be unpredictable, but accurate forecasting takes much of the guesswork out of scheduling and can save hours in administration across a chain.

If centralized payroll makes sense for a concept, an enterprise POS system can provide the tools to make it happen. Automatic collection of detailed schedule and time clock data from each location can save hours of work in payroll administration. In addition, the ability to com-pare sales and labor information between individual restaurants can help create benchmarks that can be used to improve the overall operation.



Apps, add-ons and integration

Ever since the movie “The Net” was released in 1995, featuring Sandra Bullock’s character or-dering pizza via computer, delivery and online ordering have run hand-in-hand.

Papa John’s and Domino’s, for example, reported as early as 2014 that more than half of their orders were coming via their online ordering portals. And Pizza Hut set a single-day digital order-ing record during the 2016 Super Bowl, when it amassed $12 million in sales via its online order-ing channels. More than 60 percent of digital orders coming into the company’s restaurants that day were placed via a smart device. Mobile orders represented roughly one-third of total sales for the company on Super Sunday.

Online ordering isn’t the domain only of the mega-chains. A number of third-party providers are offering smaller players the ability to incorporate online ordering. So with online ordering obvi-ously the future of pizzeria operations, it only makes sense to adopt a POS system that allows for online ordering integration.

Connell, for example, quickly saw the power of online ordering in his HotBox Pizza restaurants after he integrated an ordering system provided by Corona, California-based Real Time Order-ing (RTO) with his SpeedLine POS. When a customer places an online order, a ticket prints out on the kitchen printer and the order appears on the make-line display. If the order is a delivery, it pops up on the dispatch screen as well.

Connell’s HotBox Pizza restaurants started with online ordering about two years ago, and 22 percent of their orders now are coming through online ordering.

“With the stores that have had online ordering for more than a year, it has been increasing by anywhere from 2 to 5 percent a year,” he said. “So if last year it was 19 percent of their business, this year it’s 22 to 24 percent of their business.”

CHAPTER 5



And the benefits of online ordering were readily apparent.

“From an operational standpoint, it makes our life a lot easier because we are not taking some-one off the make line to answer the phone and take the order,” Connell said. “Also, accuracy is a lot better. There is not the situation where someone says, ‘I’d like pepperoni on that,’ and the person taking the order hits the wrong button.”

The customer database in a pizza POS system allows a tight integration with a web ordering site — making it possible to add customers, edit customer information, add and recall orders, and display information on stores, streets and zones. But pizza orders can be complex, so both the online ordering site or app and the POS system receiving the order must be able to handle half-and-half portions, create-your-own combinations and complicated coupons.

Some SpeedLine users, for example, support more than 100 coupons on their websites, re-quiring a depth and flexibility that can be provided only by a fully integrated POS system with smart coupon controls.

“Everything is moving to digital,” said Dagwoods’ Han. “Online orders are growing steadily every month. Many POS systems have a solution, but only one. It is very limiting, and if you don’t like it you have to invest in an entirely different POS. I love that SpeedLine is flexible in this respect.”

Third-party online ordering

A March 2016 technology partnership between SpeedLine Solutions and Chowly Inc. eliminates the time-con-suming and error-prone task of re-entering orders from popular restaurant aggregator sites such as GrubHub and Eat24 into the point of sale system.

“With Chowly, SpeedLine users can receive orders from these third-party ordering sites directly into the POS,” Chowly partner Brian Duncan said.

Orders from third-party aggregators flow automatically into the SpeedLine POS system and print at the appro-priate kitchen printers (or on displays in the kitchen).

“Aggregator sites typically deliver orders to a tablet in the restaurant or by email,” Duncan said. “Restaurant staff have to first notice that an order came in (not always a given on a busy night), and then take the time to re-enter the order, hopefully without errors, into the POS.”

Chowly, instead, intercepts the order, translates it to a format the SpeedLine sys-tem can read and delivers it directly to the POS. The Chowly service can be set up remotely for restaurants anywhere in North America.

“The difference is that orders slide right into the production schedule in the kitch-en,” said Jennifer Wiebe, SpeedLine marketing manager. “Nothing gets missed or delayed. Customers get their deliveries faster, and labor costs drop.”



Eye in the skyWhile it’s possible to scan a variety of reports to spot trends that may indicate theft, the old saying holds true: A picture is worth a thousand words.

If you are battling cost issues you can’t seem to solve, or simply want an extra layer of security, video surveillance may be the answer. Spotting a questionable ticket and having the ability to see exactly what was happening at the register at that time may spell the difference between catching a thief and making an unfounded accusation.

But key to making such a system feasible is integration between the POS system and the video equipment. Not every POS offers that ability.

In early 2016, SpeedLine Solutions rolled out a new integration with IP video company March Networks, the latest of four integrated surveillance video solutions helping pizza restaurants and other delivery operators reduce losses from shrinkage and improve overall performance using insights into customer service, operations, compliance and other areas of their businesses.

The new integration, already deployed by a Midwestern U.S. pizza chain, enables operators to find theft and fraud incidents more efficiently and conduct centralized investigations faster, combining POS transaction data with high-quality surveillance video. It provides restaurant op-erators with easy-to-use transaction summary and graphical reporting tools, enabling them to:

• Search across multiple locations simultaneously by transaction type, amount or card number.



• Quickly identify and visually verify suspect transactions.

• Gather strong case evidence, complete with synchronized video and receipt information, to improve apprehension and recovery rates.

The solution also makes it easier for pizza and other delivery operators to adopt optional busi-ness analytics to help them better understand what’s happening in their restaurants. By incor-porating analytics data such as people counting, queue length and dwell time monitoring, the solution turns recorded video and POS transaction data into business intelligence that enables operators to analyze and compare performance metrics such as customer wait times and promo-tional effectiveness to identify trends over time and discover where improvements can be made.

“This new integration allows SpeedLine point of sale users to protect their restaurants with the same intelligent IP video solutions used by some of the world’s largest retail chains for loss pre-vention and service analytics,” Wiebe said.

3 ways to build online ordering volume

Drive phone sales online. Ed Zimmerman of RTO suggests, “One key to successful online order volume is to convert existing regular customers to use your online order system. This frees phone lines and staff to service newer customers who don’t know your operation as well.” Encourage staff to tell customers about the online ordering site, and promote it in your hold messaging.

• Promote web ordering everywhere. Zimmerman adds, “To attract current customers to your website, print “ORDER ONLINE” everywhere: on carryout menus, signs, fliers, boxtoppers, business cards — everywhere ink will stick. Attract drive-by traffic to your site, too: hang a banner in front of the restaurant.”

• Sy Bor Wong from Brygid Technologies agrees: “When I speak with restaurant owners, I remind them that it is critical to promote and advertise to let their customers know they have a restaurant website and offer online ordering. Even something simple like: ‘Order Online Now! Mobile Ordering Available!’ can be very effective.” Wong adds, “Social media and email marketing are also very effective means to reach a wider customer base.”

• Use incentives to move sales online. Wong shared this tip: “We have also seen many restaurants provide incentives to encourage customers to order online, such as offering 10 percent off their order or a free soda or breadsticks or even free delivery as an example. By freeing up your phone lines and your staff, you can handle more orders at lower cost, while reducing ordering time, errors and time answering the phones.”

Source: SpeedLine Solutions



CONCLUSIONWhile all the bells and whistles in a modern pizza POS are impressive, many operators miss out, using the POS as little more than an expensive cash register. It you’re like most pizzeria operators, it can be hard to find time to sit down with a manual and learn about those features on your own. That’s where after-sale support and training can be critical.

For Pizza Factory’s Riva, availability of after-sale support was critical in her decision to move to a new POS.

“That’s one of the reasons we switched to SpeedLine when I took the company over,” Riva said.

“It’s not like some companies where you buy the system and you never hear from them again,” she said. “They do a really good job of continuing the partnership instead of just selling it. They are send-ing out tips all the time about the features available in the system. They really stay on top of it because there is always something new you can learn.”

In many cases, an operator just needs a knowledgeable voice on the other end of the phone to smooth out a problem.

“I have never dealt with a group of support techs that show the knowledge and speed as the Speed-Line crew do,” Papa Murphy’s Levasseur said.

“I personally keep a log of all my support calls, with call center ID, problem and what was the solu-tion,” he said. “About 90 percent of my calls are all things that I have either missed or am trying to do wrong. If I have a problem that seems similar to something in the past, I check my log and see if it is something that I can fix. If I require support, it is very quick, personable and solutions are generally explained in non-tech talk.”

As a final thought, it’s important to remember that the POS is an addition to, not a replacement for, the friendly service and quality experience at the heart of every successful operation.

“It is a tool, but it doesn’t bake the pizzas and it doesn’t deliver the pizzas,” HotBox Pizza’s Connell said. “It is not replacing the interaction with the customer and the quality of the product and the deliv-ery experience. Those things need to be in place without the POS.”

That said, by putting the service cues in the POS system to work for you—from customer order history to table service alerts—you can elevate your service levels and improve the guest experience.


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