According to the Garden Centre Association’s Barometer of Trade report, catering sales in garden centres were up a staggering 3,679% in March 2022 compared to the same month in 2021, and have been up throughout 2022 so far^[1], which neatly demonstrates just how important this arm of the business has become. Now playing a key role in driving revenue and footfall, café and restaurant F&B managers in garden centres must deliver on evolving customer expectations in order to continue to drive growth in 2022.

Delivering exceptional customer service in garden centre cafés and restaurants can be easily achieved by implementing the right tech – and technology specifically designed to meet the challenges of a hospitality environment can be employed to give garden centre restaurants the edge.

Here are four ways this tech can help improve the customer journey in your garden centre restaurant or cafe:

1. Booking systems can reduce queue times

Although Brits are known to love a queue, we don’t like to be kept waiting unnecessarily. In fact, according to research we conducted together with KAM Media, a main bugbear for consumers when spending time in a restaurant is being forced to queue for a table, with 55% of consumers citing this as a top frustration.

Implementing a simple and easy-to-use booking system is one solution to alleviating this pain point. Having systems in place that allow customers to either reserve a table, or be added to a waiting list whilst they shop and be alerted when their table is available, is a great way to manage customer expectations and alleviate a major pain point for customers.

Further research also showed that 64% of consumers have reserved a table or space to eat or drink out since hospitality venues reopened in April 2021. With more customers wanting to have the assurance that their table is booked and ready for them, garden centres that provide customers with this facility will get happier customers as a result.

2. Mobile devices can speed up service

Not only do customers not like to be kept waiting, but we know from our research that customers are looking for slick, quick, convenient service. In fact, we know that more than a quarter of consumers (29%) now expect to receive updates about things like the status and timing of their orders, and another 46% would welcome them.

The challenge then, is to deliver a convenient service that doesn’t compromise on the overall quality of face-to-face service and going mobile is one solution to this dilemma. If you offer table service in your restaurants or cafes, or are considering offering it, an easy way to increase speed of service, is for staff to use handheld ordering devices, as this reduces the reliance on fixed terminals and eliminates the need for staff to rekey orders into the POS, both saving your team a significant amount of time as well as reducing any potential mistakes. This will free up staff to focus on delivering great customer service.

Digital order and payment solutions, which enable customers to order and pay directly from their mobile phone, are another easy-to-implement piece of tech that offers customers a quick and easy way to order food and drink or pay for the bill. Post-pandemic, customers have become accustomed to the presence of such services in their everyday lives. Our GO Tech report findings, in partnership with CGA, found that 79% of consumers were happy with the ease and speed of payment when paying digitally. The warm reception from consumers given to order and payment apps is reflective of how valued they have become, making them a valuable addition to any garden centre restaurant or café.

3. Digital loyalty schemes can drive repeat footfall

Our latest report conducted in partnership with CGA found that 80% of customers seek some form of personalisation from restaurants. What’s more, a third of people expect tailored discounts and details as a matter of course. But what does this mean for garden centres?

We know that people want to be treated on a personal level when spending time in other hospitality venues, so there’s every reason to believe they will have the same expectations in a garden centre café or restaurant. Meeting these expectations and providing customers with the personal touches they expect will make them feel valued and hopefully keep them coming back again and again. Having your EPoS system linked to a digital loyalty scheme is a fantastic way to achieve this. The customer data businesses acquire from their EPoS can inform F&B managers on vital sales information about their customers which can be used to create bespoke offers, deals and promotions as well as targeted marketing campaigns.

4. Digital stock management can remove customer disappointment

Specialist hospitality technology can help keep track of stock levels down to every single ingredient – in real time. This is important in terms of reducing wastage and keeping costs down, but it also removes a customer frustration before it has even occurred.

We know that another major bugbear for customers in hospitality is ordering things on a menu that are sold out already and therefore unavailable to them. With an inventory and ordering system such as Zonal’s, menus can be updated as items are ordered by customers and staff can be informed of shortages ahead of customers ordering them, side-stepping a potential customer upset.

Garden Centre Association, April 2022

It seems everything is going up.

News cycles are dominated by hikes in fuel and food prices, utilities, import charges and the general cost of living. Add in a staffing crisis and the pressures of running a hospitality business, and things are arguably more challenging than ever before. The natural temptation is to cut costs and raise prices. And while both of these options have their place, so too does investing in technology that can reduce your costs overall.

Here are eight ways technology can really help your numbers.

1. Keeping a closer eye on stock control

With many ingredients and items facing double-digit price increases, it is vital to know precisely what you are spending. An effective stock management tool will allow you to monitor exactly what is going out of the business and help you adjust accordingly by either changing recipes or searching for new suppliers.

2. What about waste?

Another major issue is losing cash through wastage. Of course, waste of some kind is inevitable, but by using a stocktaking solution that allows you to look at what is either not being ordered, what’s being wasted in the kitchen and what is coming back on the plate, you can monitor portion sizes and reduce over-ordering of ingredients. Keeping on top of waste not only helps the bottom line but also to achieve sustainability ambitions.

3. Mistakes will be made…

You may have the best staff around, but human error will always be a factor in any busy hospitality business. This can be tracked using reporting functionality within your EPoS. Not only can you see what is and isn’t selling, it can also pinpoint where errors are being made on the till or with payment devices and highlight them to reduce the problem.

4. Cash free payments

More and more businesses are going cash-free, and it’s easy to see why. Contactless payment devices are not only more efficient, but they also remove any risks associated with cash. The less cash you have in the business, the less there is that can go missing.

5. Make them an offer they can’t refuse

Tech allows you to create, schedule and tweak promotions linked to what is working in the business and what stock you have available. This saves time and also potentially money in terms of hours worked. You can consider producing bounce-back offers on receipts and by collating data you can also create offers for customers on key occasions such as birthdays.

6. Order and pay

It was on its way before, but the pandemic certainly changed the way customers feel about ordering and paying with technology. For many it became a preferred option, meaning they can order drinks or food without running the risk of losing their chosen spot or facing a queue at the bar. With recruitment and the cost of staffing an ongoing issue, this reduces the strain on your staff, and allows the staff you do have to achieve more, by getting customers to perform some of that role themselves.

7. Money up front

Not only are customers happy to order themselves they are also becoming increasingly more comfortable with the concept of deposits. In research last year, 51% told us they would be happy to pay a deposit when booking a table in a restaurant or pub. . Taking deposits will reduce the dreaded no –shows, which have so many negative consequences including lost revenue and wasted stock, but also means more cash flowing into the business.

8. Turning tables into profits

A digital table management tool, such as the one in Zonal’s suite of solutions, is more than just a way of knowing how many customers are coming to dine with you. You can also set the system so it knows the volumes you can cope with during given trading periods, taking the strain off your team. Having the ability to control those numbers and access to the data at your fingertips means you can reduce money spent on staff and give available tables to walk-ins. Again, having such an effective system could reduce labour hours and help your profits.

Long gone are the days where garden centres were simply a place for consumers to pick up a petunia or two. As the popularity of Santa’s Grottos at Christmas demonstrate, a trip to a garden centre is now a full experience and, as a result, food and drink has become more important than ever.

Restaurant and café operations have become an increasingly vital revenue stream for the sector. However, with new opportunities, come new challenges, and with the recent eye-watering increases in overheads, the pressure is on to find ways to drive increased spend and improve the customer experience.

In order to achieve this, technology that’s geared up to handle the unique demands of an F&B operation is key. As hospitality tech experts with proven experience in the garden centre sector, we’ve put together our three top tips on how garden centres can leverage hospitality tech in their restaurants and cafes to reduce queues, increase speed of service and grow profits.

1. Quicker queues and less waiting!

While trading in garden cafés and restaurants remains steady through most of the day, there are nevertheless key trading times, as there are in any hospitality venue. It’s therefore important to have the right technology in place to help staff manage high footfall and reduce the amount of time customers are required to queue to be seated or served. For example, technology that enables customers to be added to a wait list and be alerted via a text when their table is available. This speeds up service, enables customers to shop while they wait for their table rather than simply leaving to find an alternative, and allows staff to serve more people – improving the overall customer experience.

While pre-booking a table may not have been something that has played a huge role in garden centre restaurants and cafés to-date, we know that three quarters (76%) of consumers say they have pre-booked to eat or drink out since the end of Britain’s first lockdown in summer 2020. Having the assurance that their table is booked and ready waiting for them has become a customer priority. With this in mind, implementing booking technology that allows customers to reserve a table, helps to improve the customer experience, as well as reducing queues and wait times during peak times – such as when the Santa’s Grotto is running or over the summer holidays.

2. Go mobile to speed up service

It’s important for F&B managers to take into consideration the main points of friction that can occur during the customer journey. We know, something which is echoed in our GO Technology report from this year, that convenience and speed of service is important to customers. More than a quarter (29%) now expect to receive updates about things like the status and timing of their orders, and another 46% would welcome them.

The key to speeding up operations whilst maintaining high-quality customer service is by leveraging technology to process customer orders quicker. Handheld ordering devices for staff is a solution, which is cost effective and can also speed-up orders and wait times. Providing staff with handheld devices reduces the reliance on fixed terminals and can also help to reduce mistakes when inputting orders. This also frees up staff to focus on delivering great customer service.

3. Grow profits

There is also back-of-house tech, such as stock and ordering technology that takes the guesswork out of stock control by providing real-time availability. If implemented into garden centre cafés and restaurants, managers will be able to more easily ensure they are maximising the profitability of each product they stock. Meanwhile, inventory and ordering systems developed specifically for the hospitality sector, would give garden centre café and restaurant managers tighter control over their purchasing. Such systems eliminate the risk of over-ordering, minimise wastage and avoid a situation where cash is tied up in stock.  Consolidating and joining these systems will also highlight where inefficiencies lie, improve reporting at all levels and increase profitability as a result.