The decision to have digital menu boards at your restaurant might have been easy but right from the process of getting the hardware to choosing the right software to manage the menu boards, designing the menu to your need and setting it up might have surely taken some time. 

Once all is setup, it would be nice to closely monitor the influence menu boards have overall for your restaurant. Right from grabbing more ticket value for your orders, faster turnaround, pleasant customer experience and service to easing things out for your staff, all these need to be evaluated to see if any improvements are needed to utilise them well.

5 Ways you can Get Started with the Process and Ensure Menu Boards give you Good ROI

1. Compare the sales figures before digital v/s static menu boards

Surely the decision to go for digital menu boards would not have been overnight. Compare your monthly records for the latest months that you had for paper menu boards and the first month of digital menu boards. Do this for 3 months and you will start noticing the ROI for digital menu boards.

Right from getting more impulse purchases, faster table turnaround, the flexibility of updating your menus remotely, improvement in the ambience as well as the way your menu and food items are perceived.

Paper menus require recurrent costs on printing, shipping and getting designed. Any small error and the entire process needs to be revisited. Digital menu boards surely save you from these and also make the job of menu edits much easier.

You will definitely see a shift starting with 3-5% in your sales thus gradually increasing to 10-12% over a period of 10-12 months.

2. Create a variety of displays for different weekdays/time to see which one works best!

Digital menu boards are flexible in almost anything. With the menu board template editor that some good solutions offer, you can go on to create different menu board templates for each weekday that match the aura of your restaurant and enhance the feel of it.

Monitor the receptiveness of each of the templates and filter out the best ones that work for you. Go on to change the rest matching them. You can also track the hours when the menu boards are used more and make the changes to the templates based on the feedback or receptiveness of your customers for the same.

3. Dedicate one screen for your promotions and videos specifically!

Having a digital menu board is great but a different screen allotted especially for the food videos as well the special promotions that you are running for the day or the week will change a lot of things for you.

It would be nice to prepare some good videos of your food items or special items in your menu. Videos will definitely grab more attention since they tend to have more effect on the viewers than the static content.

This kind of content specifically comes in handy during wait periods when the diners are waiting for their order to arrive. Promotion screen could boost up your overall sales ticket amount.

If you are running late nights or happy hours, having them displayed on a digital menu board will definitely aid in your promotions.

4. Try to measure the order time post the digital menu board implementation

Paper menus traditionally need more order time compared to digital menu boards. The main reason behind this would be that menu boards are interactive enough for users to understand your menu and order quickly.

The best part is on a single screen, you can create a slideshow, showing food images of your famous menu items, videos highlighting what’s best about your menu or a mix and match of both.

Faster order time helps you serve more orders thus positively affecting the overall productivity of your staff.

5. Go on to compare your yearly costs on the digital menu boards and paper menus!

Make a note of all the annual expenses be it printing, design or shipping of your paper menus. Compare it with the sum you spend on digital menu boards.

The hardware for the menu boards is a one time investment. The annual or monthly subscription for the menu board software is generally not much when compared to the ease and flexibility they offer.

Within a year, you will find yourself recovering the costs which will surpass your expenses on the paper menus ultimately working out in your favour.