ClowID Blog

Working in a restaurant or a café means navigating in a fast-paced environment. Greeting new customers and taking their orders to the kitchen while other customers are waiting at their table for the possibility to pay... All this requires paying attention to a lot of details to ensure everyone has as good customer experience as possible.

Luckily there are several technology solutions for the industry that can make these processes easier. We have picked our top 5 hospitality trends for 2021 that we think will break it this year.

Let's face it: dealing with paper receipts is difficult. They tend to become creased, their ink faded, and more often than not they are hiding somewhere the moment you would need them.

As a small business it might feel overwhelming trying to find ways to compete with larger corporations. After all, small businesses have a harder time competing with fundamentals such as price, since they don't yet have the same market share or buying power that larger businesses do.

However, this doesn't mean there aren't any areas where small businesses could put up a fight – and in some cases smaller size can actually grant a better chance for succeeding.

Even though restaurants and cafes don't typically have membership programs like retail businesses do, it doesn't mean it would be impossible for them to identify their loyal customers.

But before we get into how that can be done, let's discuss why this is important.

While businesses are going through digital transformations, consumers are becoming more concerned with data privacy. Implementing digital processes is necessary for a modern business, but you need to be cautious to not scare away your customers.

This is where building trust becomes a key practice.

As with most things, change can be difficult for consumer-facing industries. Creating new expectations, or requesting customers to change their behaviour can be scary for industries who are so beholden to fluctuating trends, demands, economies, and more. But there is one "trend" that is not going anywhere, and if you want your business to have a future, it's crucial that you start thinking about your strategy now: improving customer experience.

When we think about customer service in retail, many companies think about friendly and helpful floor salespeople and the pleasant interaction with customers during their shopping experience. But while friendliness and helpfulness are certainly crucial for creating good in-store experiences, they are just the tip of the theoretical iceberg. 

While we're living through the "age of information" and have access to more data points than ever before, retail has a data problem. With current POS systems and retail software, having individual customer data is only possible through memberships and rewards programs. This unfortunately paints a limited picture of your entire customer base.