Top 5 Benefits of Accepting QR Code Contactless Payments in your Restaurant

Accepting QR code contactless payments in your restaurant provides many business benefits. Whether printed on guest checks or affixed to tables, QR codes can let restaurant guests quickly view and pay their checks at the table.

Let’s take a look at the top five ways that offering QR code contactless payments can benefit your restaurants:

QR Code Payments Benefit #1 : Attract higher-spending guests

Successful people know how to use technology to their advantage, and they know the value of time. These are the guests who will be attracted to restaurants where they can use technology to save their valuable time and to enhance their dining experience. People who use technology to their advantage earn more, and will have more income to spend dining out. If you provide QR code contactless payments in your restaurant, these tech-savvy, higher spending guests will discover it and keep coming to your restaurant to use it.

QR Code Payments Benefit #2: Increase efficiency

QR code payments in restaurants are all about increasing efficiency. Think about how much time is lost when, once a server has already dropped a check, they have to leave the table to give the guest time to review it, then come back and take a guest’s credit card from the table back to a terminal to authorize payment, then bring authorization slips back to the table, then give the guests time to decide on a tip, then go back to the table again and get the signed authorization slip and manually type the tip into the POS terminal (hopefully without misreading handwriting that could lead to a chargeback) and close the check. Even reading that sentence takes too long!

In contrast, a server can drop a check at the table with a QR code printed on it. Then, the server can quickly leave and get back to selling more food and drink to other parties, and to ensuring other guests continue to receive great service in your restaurant. The guests at the table can scan the QR code, view their check, split it if they wish, add tip, and then get up and go (haha).

QR Code Payments Benefit #3: Turn tables quicker

When the party at a table can pay quicker, they can leave quicker also. From our experience, customers leave tables anywhere from 4 minutes to over 15 minutes sooner than when paying by credit card directly with their server. When guests leave tables sooner, those tables can be seated with new guests sooner. If you run a busy restaurant with a waitlist, and on short supply of available reservations, this means you can accept more business in a shorter amount of time. You’ll turn away less business.

If your average check amount stays the same, but you can have more of them during the available time of your tables, you’ll increase revenue. If you increase revenue while fixed costs like rent and scheduled labor stay the same, these extra seatings will be even more profitable than the fewer ones you’d have without a QR code pay at the table solution. You get very profitable extra seatings with contactless payments.

QR Code Payments Benefit #4: Improve the guest experience at your restaurant

Running a restaurant is about more than food, it’s about providing an all-around experience that modern guests expect. It’s important to remember that paying is part of the dining experience. Payment is a crucial part of the experience to get right because it’s at the very end. If it’s bad, it’s going to be the last thing the guest remembers on their way out. The payment experience is your last touch with the guest. If the guest has to wait a long time to pay their check, then no matter how great your food and ambiance is, and no matter how great the experience was up to that point, it can all be ruined. A terrible payment experience can lead to a bad review.

Make the last touch with your guest as good as every other touch. It’s amazing how much impact a convenient payment experience can have on a guest’s overall dining experience.

QR Code Payments Benefit #5: Drive return visits

This might sound counterintuitive since by the time a guest is paying for their meal, they’ve already come in and spent money with you. What you have to recognize, instead, is that the payment experience is not only the end of their current visit to your restaurant, but it’s your first interaction with your guest’s next visit to your restaurant. Over 67% of guests paying with Up ‘n go reported that the presence of Up ‘n go would drive them to visit the restaurant again. So a good payment experience can bring a guest back.

The end of a payment experience is your first chance to present an offer to get the guest to return. Since the guest is paying on their phone, you’re getting a digital presence on your guest’s phone and you can use that opportunity to get them to join your loyalty program, or you can use that opportunity to let them quickly reserve their next visit. You can use that opportunity to get their email address or get them to follow your social media accounts. You can use those to communicate with guests after they’ve left your restaurant, and share all kinds of great reasons to come back, including specials.

Bonus Benefit: Accept Apple Pay

QR codes from the right technology partner can make it easy to accept Apple Pay in your restaurant. There are many reasons why you should accept Apple Pay in your restaurant. Mainly accepting Apple Pay in your restaurant will help you attract more guests, increase payment security, and reduce your credit card liability. Apple Pay will also help you reduce chargebacks.

As you can see, there’re numerous benefits to having QR code contactless payments at your restaurant. Your guests, your staff, and ultimately you as the restaurant ownership, have a lot to gain.