Your staff are on the front lines of your business, so arming them with a powerful POS that can increase their efficiency and enhance the customer experience is key to your restaurant’s success. Now that you’ve decided to purchase a new POS, getting buy-in and adoption from your staff is essential. A thoughtful presentation of your operational changes will make all the difference.
This 10-step guide will help you set expectations for day-to-day use, introduce your employees to new staff management features, and ultimately prepare your team for easy point of sale training.
1. Involve Your Staff Early On
If you want your team to welcome your new POS with open arms, whether it’s a cloud-based POS system or a traditional one, be sure to include them in your decision-making process from the get-go. First, identify what you, as a manager, are looking for in a POS, then evaluate how the system can help meet your staff’s needs as well. Plan a brainstorming session with your employees on POS features – the good, the bad and the ugly. The key takeaway from this meeting should be a concrete list of staff input, relieving a little stress from the decision maker’s job and giving your employees a voice in the process.
2. Provide Training
Training is a win-win. You’ll be doing your due diligence by not only providing your staff with the resources needed to be successful, but also by minimizing frustrations and decreasing the amount of time needed for onboarding. When you invest in thorough restaurant POS system training for your staff, you’ll save time and reduce headaches in the long run.
3. Don’t Overwhelm Them and Focus on the Essentials
Pulling a 180 in your restaurant’s operations is likely to overwhelm your staff. Your kitchen staff don’t necessarily need to know the ins and outs of cloud reporting, so to keep potential anxieties about the transition at bay during the point of sale training, focus only on the areas of the system that are relevant to them. Introducing your POS’ wide range of abilities in small, thoughtful steps will allow them to focus on the areas of the system that you really want them to master.
If you’re switching from another POS, you may want to consider starting off by introducing your staff to any features they’re already familiar with and how they work on the new POS. Once they’ve got the hang of it, introduce them to all of the enhancements your new and improved POS has to offer. A gradual introduction to all the bells and whistles of your new POS will help ensure your staff don’t experience information overload during the transition.
4. Set a Dry-Run
The best learning experiences are hands-on – give your staff a chance to really get to learn how to use the POS system software prior to going live with it. Setting up a test account for your employees will allow them to get familiar with the software without any repercussions. Practice makes perfect, so encourage staff to practice tasks such as processing sales, splitting a bill, or inputting customer information. It will make them more confident and comfortable when the time comes for them to use the new POS to serve a table of customers.
5. Take Feedback and Encourage Questions
Organize a meeting in order to gain insightful feedback from your staff following your dry run. By establishing open lines of communication, you can make sure any and all questions or concerns are ironed out prior to your launch. After you go live, check in regularly with your staff about how the POS adoption is going – they’re in the trenches daily with the POS, so take their feedback seriously.
6. Nurture Your Superstars
Instead of having your whole team at your restaurant POS system training, identify a few POS “superstars” to help ease your staff into your venue’s transition. By designating a few superstars to be POS ambassadors on stand-by, you can lighten the load of questions or concerns that may come your way.
These superstars will also help create excitement and interest around your new restaurant POS, which will trickle down to the rest of the staff. To identify these superstars, look for employees who are respected within your restaurant and who will be confident in situating themselves as the go-to expert for all things POS.
7. Reward the Natural Leaders
Not every employee will jump at the idea of change. To encourage quick adoption you can incentivize your staff to familiarize themselves with the new POS and all of its abilities. For example, since TouchBistro prompts servers for any upsells available per order, create a competition around how many servers can get a customer to add chicken breast to their caesar salad or guacamole to their nachos. Publicly recognize staff members when you see them embracing the new POS and present upsellers with a prize to reward them for their POS skills. This competition will also help to familiarize your staff with TouchBistro’s modification features, reminding them they can use this tool in other service situations, such as accompanying dessert with a coffee.
8. Encourage Staff to Self-Teach
While an initial restaurant POS system training session is helpful, some employees may require additional assistance. TouchBistro understands that not everyone can become a POS superstar overnight, but with the help of our online support resources, equipped with countless POS tips and guides, they can come pretty close.
Further, empower your staff to self-teach by letting them know where to find these resources online and having some of the training documents on hand and available for access in your venue. This way, they can learn how to use the POS system without feeling overwhelmed or time-constrained.
9. Let them Know How it Directly Benefits Them
While accounting management and cloud reporting may be essential for managers, these features won’t necessarily excite a server, but the ability to turn tables faster and make higher tips might! The advantages of adopting an iPad POS differ for managers, servers and kitchen staff, so be sure to let your employees know how they too can reap the benefits of the system.
10. Lean on Your POS Support Team for Quick Service
Help is just a hop, skip and a phone call away – TouchBistro offers around-the-clock support, through phone or email, for any issues you may encounter during your transition. On the off chance that a manager or POS superstar isn’t available to help out, TouchBistro always is.
Since TouchBistro is built by industry experts, we understand the aches and pains restaurateurs experience on a daily basis. You talk, we listen – at TouchBistro, we encourage any and all customer feedback. Bonus: our product is shaped by customer feature requests – even more incentive to get your staff to speak up.
This is an exciting time for you and your restaurant! Your new restaurant POS will give you deep insight into your business and make your staff’s jobs easier and more efficient, but most importantly, it will enhance your customers’ experience. By following these 10 steps for restaurant POS system training, you can onboard your staff smoothly, and you will be well on your way to reaping all the benefits of your new iPad POS.
Jackie was a Content Marketing Specialist and Social Media strategist at TouchBistro before moving into business development role. She covered the latest food, dining, and technology trends for the restaurant industry. A lover of all things coffee, Jackie’s hobbies include breakfast, lunch and dinner.
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The right POS should help you increase sales
The right POS should help you increase sales.
