Of course, the tough bit is in knowing which tech solutions are going to be worth the investment, especially when there are so many options for both front and back of house.
One man with first-hand experience of the current challenges faced by pubs and how tech can help meet them head-on is David Nash from technology supplier Tevalis.
He formerly worked in his wife’s family gastropub business and he’s convinced it wouldn’t be nearly as successful today if it hadn’t embraced technology.
“Pubs in the current climate are getting hit by a number of different negative factors but key among those are that costs are going up and people are not going out. There’s a multitude of ways that technology can help address those issues.
“In fact, these days, technology should be considered as critical infrastructure to make sure your business actually performs how you want it to perform,” says Nash, who heads up Tevalis’s sales team.
Of course, there's a fine balance to be struck between keeping costs down while maintaining the quality of your offer and Nash believes technology is the answer to achieving that goal.
With the cost of labour being a pub’s biggest expenditure, and the hospitality industry facing a staffing crisis, technology can not only help you control staffing costs but, in turn, lead to improved customer service.
For Tevalis, managing staffing costs means monitoring sales data throughout the day via live updates to the dashboard, enabling you to see where the labour force is needed at any given time.
What’s more, with TevStock providing updated stock reports every 15 minutes, it’s easy to see what products have been sold and by whom, and to spot any discrepancies.
Improved staff satisfaction
QSR Automations’ ConnectSmart Host solution also offers the combined benefit of improving the customer experience and helping manage staffing costs.
ConnectSmart Host enables customers to make a reservation, add themselves to a waitlist and stay updated on their booking and ordering status through two-way SMS texting on their mobiles.
Paragon finds efficiency post-Covid
Paragon Pub Group has come a long way with its use of tech since 2020.
Until Covid hit, the 10-strong Staffordshire-based business was still using pen and paper to take orders – and its EPoS system had very limited functionality.
However, in 2021, fearing Covid necessitated offering contactless ordering and payments, Paragon switched tech provider to Tevalis.
Since then, staff have taken orders on iPads, meaning orders are automatically sent to the bar and kitchen, but that’s only one of the many tech benefits the group is enjoying.
“Staff taking orders on iPads doesn’t save on labour per se, but it helps with the guest experience because by the time the server has left the table that order is at the bar. So it makes things quicker and helps minimise mistakes,” says Paragon compliance and projects manager Ben Allison.
The tech solution that’s made the most dramatic difference though is Tevalis’s stock management system, according to Allison.
“We’ve got 10 different venues and six different offers, and because we’ve got multiple different dishes and recipes in our business we need to control what’s being wasted, what’s being over-prepared, what recipes we might need to tweak, which dishes might be creating some losses somewhere, etc.
“The savings that can be made by small tweaks and keeping on top of your GP are huge for a business like ours, and because there’s so many dishes we need tech to delve into that.”
What’s more, Tevalis’s TevStock solution also holds accurate calorie and allergen information for every ingredient, which is automatically updated every time a new item is added to the menu; that information can be accessed by staff instantly and any updates are also automatically created on the menu on the group’s website for customers to see.
“For any food operator, it’s a massive task recording allergens. You have to not only be accurate for the guest but be able to provide that information quickly and effectively, and the best way to do that is using technology,” says Allison.
Other areas of the business where tech is making a big difference are reservations, payments, reviews and gift cards.
Paragon uses Seven Rooms for reservations, Dojo for card payments, Yumpingo for customer reviews and Toggle for gift cards, all of which the Tevalis system integrates with seamlessly.
“We want to work with the best in class, and Tevalis’s integrations with third parties mean we can now, and in the future,” adds Allison.
For pub operators, it takes the role of a restaurant manager, by intuitively knowing exactly what is happening on the restaurant floor, informing the host at any given moment what to do next. They can then reduce labour or relocate team members, typically saving in the region of five hours per week.
Another way in which technology can help you keep staffing costs down is through improved staff satisfaction and thus retention: workforce management technology enables you to create rotas quickly and easily, giving visibility to team members, while seamless integration to payroll means wages are paid promptly and accurately.
Conor Shaw, CEO of workforce management platform Bizimply, says: “At a time when employees can choose where they work, pub operators who make their team members feel valued and create a positive working environment will reap the benefits with a more motivated staff team and improved employee retention.
“Meanwhile, customer experience is enhanced when they are being served by team members who are confident and happy in their work, and motivated to deliver excellent customer service.”
Providing excellent customer service is crucial to business success but so is persuading people to come out to your venue in the first place.
This is something that is becoming harder due to the cost-of-living crisis and is particularly challenging when it comes to young people who, according to Nash, need a lot of convincing that a night at the pub is preferable to Netflix and Deliveroo.
Nash believes a sophisticated CRM (customer relationship management) system is vital here because it can collate all the data about your customers (ie, when they came in, what they ate and drank, etc) and connect with the reservations platform to send out “tailored marketing to entice them back in”.
“We integrate with partners that do the full customer journey, so we can track whether that marketing has worked and if it hasn’t, we can decide if we need to tweak the offer or run with a different offer,” explains Nash.
“Just having a member of staff in charge of marketing sending out blanket emails is no good anymore – there are too many companies working a lot smarter, not necessarily a lot harder, and getting better results.”
Personalised campaigns
Laine Pub Company, operator of 55 venues primarily in the south-east, fully appreciates the value of tech to help build personalised customer campaigns.
Already using Access Hospitality’s DesignMyNight booking software, Laine wanted to improve its conversion rate as well as vary promotions from site to site using integrated software, so last year it installed Access’s EPoS and its Acteol system.
While the EPoS has helped save the business huge amounts of time and removed human error, Acteol has been invaluable to generate repeat business, says Laine head of brand and development Gordon Keen.
“Acteol helps us understand the customer journey from the second anyone goes on our website up to when they visited and what they ordered. We now have a much better overview of our business and can set up and target personalised campaigns through our app and social with offers that are relevant to each customer.
“We’ve also improved our lost bookings [ie, enquiries that didn’t convert to bookings] by about £1m per year, which is incredible.”
Something you should always look for when selecting the right EPoS provider for your pub is a fully comprehensive and joined-up system: that way, not only do you get all the tech solutions you need in one place, but it also reduces the complexity of managing separate systems.
This kind of integration is a “must-have” for pubs today according to EPoS provider Tabology.
Managing director Phil Neale explains: “The place where more businesses now find themselves is working out how to manage their EPoS along with all of their other systems.
“We’re finding that increasing numbers of pubs see the benefit of an integrated technology suite, able to manage many aspects of their business for them, with everything working together. So new bookings flag up straight on the till and are displayed on the table plan, with deposits handled automatically.
“Rotas can be created on the EPoS back office, with real-time access to sales and an instant view of forecast wage percentages. Loyalty scheme members and previous booking guests are all on the same system, with full tracking of their purchase history and spending habits.”
Solutions for pubs to embrace
The Mardale Inn in Cumbria is one such pub that has been enjoying the benefits of Tabology’s fully connected system.
Sue Goble from the community-run pub’s management committee explains: “The integrated nature of the Tabology system means that as well as being a till, the back office functionality enables us to manage stock and also to get our pricing right.
“We’ve seen incredible cost increases come though the supply chain in the past six months, and we can make sure we’re charging at the right level, not making a loss, which has been really important.”
Clearly, technology is already helping many pub businesses to achieve success, but it doesn’t end there: hospitality tech is continually evolving, with new solutions coming down the line for pubs to embrace, many now utilising artificial intelligence (AI).
Peter Moore, CEO of software company Lolly, says: “From leveraging AI to enabling facial recognition payments, offering crypto currency payment functionality, or barcode ordering, pubs have to keep in touch with changing customer trends to ensure they remain relevant to all.”
To help hospitality businesses stay at the forefront of emerging tech, Lolly has added a range of new products over the past 18 months, including LollyVerify – a facial recognition system for verifying a customer’s age, which the company says “delivers consistency and objectivity every time”.
With LollyVerify, no picture is taken but, via the user’s device camera, the software compares digital face markers using an age estimation algorithm. If the customer is potentially below the required age, the software prompts the server with a ‘please verify age’ message.
Moore adds: “What pub owners and managers mustn’t forget is that as we move into the new era of augmented reality, having a system, infrastructure and the right levels of bandwidth in place to support this will be vital.
“Whether overtly or covertly, the use of AI will be enormous in the year ahead across every sector. It is here to stay and must be embraced.”
Easier order placements
Chefs everywhere will be familiar with the pain point of ending a long shift and being faced with the task of ordering ingredients for the next day.
Usually involving a late-night phone call or a hastily typed email, invariably the order doesn’t quite get through to your suppliers as intended, leading to inaccurate deliveries.
Eight years ago, chef Ronen Givon decided there had to be a better way, and REKKI – an ordering app for restaurants – was born.
The app enables chefs and owners to search for suppliers, place, and pay for orders at any time, from anywhere, all safe in the knowledge of the utmost accuracy.
“It’s revolutionised restaurant ordering,” says REKKI user Jesse Dunford Wood, owner of Parlour in Kensal Green.
“Historically, chefs have only ever done it one way, which is calling at the end of the night and leaving a voicemail, but there's always that problem with foreign accents, pronunciation, misunderstandings over quantities.
“Then REKKI came along and it saves time, money, efficiency, and it’s great for communicating with the supplier and to your colleagues because you all know what got ordered last night.”
Fred Puglisi, executive chef for Urban Pubs & Bars, used to email orders but now, with the group’s approved supplier list all stored within the app, he and his team use REKKI.
“REKKI is much more time effective: you’ve got your product list, you know it’s that product, you can't order the wrong one, you’ve got all the up-to-date prices, and you can do it while you’re still in the kitchen checking your fridges, or on the way home if you forget something.
“We get an electronic copy of the invoice through REKKI so we’re not losing any invoices. It’s a great tool,” he says.
