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Restaurant owners are catering to diners who want personalised, memorable experiences, but they’re also dining in more ways than ever: in person, through takeout and delivery. They also expect great service every time.
A Statista survey reveals that approximately 75% of consumers expect enhanced personalisation. Meanwhile, a recent report from the Institute of Customer Service shows that 21% of customers increase their spending with a business due to positive service experiences – highlighting a valuable opportunity for restaurant owners to boost their bottom line.
With so many new ways to dine and check out, it can be difficult for owners to know where to invest their time and resources to meet customer preferences. Staffing remains a hurdle, and there’s always more to manage behind the scenes, from tracking inventory to ensuring quality. So, how do you maintain a personal connection while keeping everything else running smoothly?
This is where technology comes in – not to replace the human side of hospitality, but to make it easier to deliver the kind of service that keeps people coming back. With the right tools, you can offer seamless ordering, thoughtful personalisation and loyalty programmes that make every guest feel valued, whether they’re grabbing a quick lunch or ordering dinner from their sofa. Here’s how.
1. Personalise the dining experience with data
Understanding your customers is the foundation of providing exceptional hospitality. And technology helps make this easier than ever. Using integrated systems, restaurants can gather valuable insights about customer preferences and behaviours without being intrusive.
That’s why Joss Webb, owner of The Pigs Nose Inn – a traditional English pub and independent music venue in the beachside town of Devon – appreciates the value delivered by modern comprehensive tools. “I really do think Square is the best software out there. It has the most features that hit every part of the business.”
When collected in Square Dashboard, the data gathered from these tools becomes a powerful tool for delivering personalised touches that keep guests coming back. Practically, this could mean:
- Greeting returning customers by name and recalling their preferences thanks to the profiles saved in your Square Customer Directory that show detailed purchase history
- Sending personalised offers based on past purchases, like alerting a regular coffee customer about your new breakfast menu
- Creating targeted rewards that match customer behaviours, like offering special dessert promotions to diners who frequently order sweets
Webb also values the seamless integration between the Square for Restaurants app and OpenTable, which effortlessly shares information. His team can access everything within the POS, including floor plans, real-time table status updates, spend-per-table insights and personalised customer details such as food allergies and seating preferences. This not only enhances operational efficiency but also helps deliver a more tailored and enjoyable dining experience for guests.
2. Expand your ordering options
The way customers want to order and pay for their food has fundamentally changed. According to research, nearly nine in 10 customers (89%) use contactless or mobile payment options all or most of the time they visit a pub, bar or restaurant. Meanwhile, 15% of 18 to 34-year-olds prefer to order and pay by scanning a QR code using their phone when the option is available, to avoid waiting for the bill or card machine at the end of a meal.
Offering more ways to order means creating more opportunities to serve customers how they prefer. For example, online orders might capture office workers ordering lunch, while a kiosk might appeal to on-the-go customers looking for quick service.
Multiple ordering options can also help reduce wait times during peak hours. A self-service kiosk, for example, allows customers to place orders independently, cutting waiting lines and freeing up staff for more value-adding tasks. A handheld POS like Square Terminal enables servers to take orders and process payments tableside without crowding the counter. If you stack that with a Square Online site, you can take orders that sync seamlessly with your physical POS and hardware.
The key to effectively managing multiple ordering channels lies in integration. For example, Square POS can unify orders from various sources – whether they’re coming from your counter, website, third-party delivery apps or self-service kiosks – into a single, manageable stream. This ensures your kitchen runs smoothly and efficiently, regardless of where the orders originate, helping you scale without sacrificing service quality.
At the end of the day, hospitality is about meeting your guests where they are and making their experience as seamless and enjoyable as possible. Offering customers multiple ways to order shows that their time and preferences matter, which is essential for building trust and loyalty.
3. Strengthen hospitality with a loyalty programme
When guests become regulars, they become part of your restaurant’s story and creating a well-structured loyalty programme powered by modern tools is a great way to encourage repeat visits and build those connections. Take restaurant entrepreneur Matt Walsh, owner of the Tender Cow chain, who discovered Square at a coffee shop when the point-of-sale (POS) system offered him more options than he had seen before.
“As a quick-service restaurant, we’re all counter service and my kitchen staff wasn’t getting any tips, said Walsh “The Square POS system made it really easy to leave a tip and to join the loyalty programme without anything extra, like a card or an app.”
Data from Square Loyalty shows just how significant the impact can be: Customers enrolled in Square Loyalty programmes spend 53% more and visit 40% more often than non-enrolled customers. At Tender Cow specifically, loyalty programme customers spend 84% more per visit on average compared to customers who are not a part of the programme. These numbers highlight why investing in customer retention is just as crucial as attracting new diners.
Modern loyalty programmes do more than just track points – they create a digital connection between restaurants and customers. For example, Square Loyalty integrates with your point-of-sale systems, so you can automatically identify returning customers, track their preferences and deliver personalised rewards that feel meaningful rather than generic. This digital relationship complements and enhances traditional hospitality by helping staff recognise and reward loyal customers without requiring them to present physical cards or remember phone numbers.
In addition to enhancing the customer experience at The Pigs Nose Inn via Square’s integrated technology solutions, Joss also relies on Square Marketing. He says features such as Square eGift Cards and discounts on birthdays and holidays have “massively improved customer engagement”.
With Square Loyalty and Square Marketing, you can amplify these community-building efforts in so many ways:
- Track customer visits and rewards automatically.
- Offer personalised promotions based on ordering history.
- Enable targeted communication with different customer segments.
- Create incentives to try new menu items or visit during off-peak hours.
- Gather feedback to continuously improve the dining experience.
4. Use automation tools to free up more time for guests
The secret sauce of restaurant technology lies in its ability to free up staff time for meaningful customer interactions. With modern tools, you can simplify back-office operations like payroll, shift scheduling and inventory management. For example, with Square Payroll, you can import your team’s hours and tips from your POS and run payroll faster. Square Inventory Management tracks inventory in real time and sends daily stock alerts when items are low.
When routine tasks like these are automated, your team can focus on what matters most, such as:
- Building genuine connections with guests
- Providing attentive, personalised service
- Addressing special requests and dietary needs
- Creating memorable dining experiences
Deliver memorable experiences at scale
Technology’s role is to strengthen the elements that make your restaurant special, helping you create an experience guests can take home with them. After all, hospitality is about making people feel valued, whether dining in, ordering takeout or getting delivery. The right technology helps deliver this connection more effectively than ever before, across every channel where you serve your guests.
