If you run a busy bar, whether on a high street, in a nightclub, or at a food market or festival, you’ll know it’s a numbers game; how many drinks can you serve within a given timeframe? The point of payment is an essential component in keeping your orders flowing, which is why our technology is built to achieve consistently fast payments for bars. Read on to learn how we’ve helped fabric, OXO Bar, and Hickory Food halves their order speeds.
As a bar operator, you want your guests to have a good time, which means getting them served as quickly as possible with fast payment processing. You also need to maintain your order volumes. You have a limited time in which to sell drinks, so you need to get through as many orders as you can as fast as possible. “It’s a volumes game,” said Eljon Shehu, Bar Manager at OXO Bar. “We sell some of the cheapest cocktails in town and we need to do it as fast as possible.”
This is especially important when you consider that many hospitality operators are experiencing a squeeze on their margins at the moment. “Our main challenge is spiralling costs,” said Luke Laws, Operations Director at fabric. “And you can’t pass them on. Added to that, you’ve got a reduction in people going out and a reduction in their spending power.”
This challenge doesn’t just apply to static bar venues; operators of mobile bars and food trucks are also under pressure. “We don’t have an event like CarFest every week,” said Spencer Finch, owner of Billy Bob’s Street Food. “We have to maximise our profits. So, for us, it’s all about volume. You’re often feeding 1000 people in a four-hour window. And if you’re slow, they will go elsewhere.”
But it doesn’t matter how slick your mixology is, or how fast you can turn around six burgers and six beers. If your POS and payment setup is slow, everything will grind to a halt. “You spend years fine-tuning your unit, getting things faster and faster, and it’s incredibly frustrating to be stuck with a slow payment,” said Paul Robson, owner of Westlands BBQ. “We once used a system that took 15 to 20 seconds to process a payment and it often timed out. That might not sound like a lot but, if you have a 12 to 14-hour trading day, these seconds start to add up and you’re suddenly looking at between 60 to 90 minutes of people standing there waiting for a payment to go through. That can cost us £1000 a day.”
The need for speed is one of the primary reasons our customers choose to work with us. We’ve invested time and effort in ensuring we can deliver fast payments for bars in these three key ways:
Ask our clients, our payments are fast; with processing speeds typically 40% faster than the industry average. Since working with us, Westland BBQ averages between three and four seconds per transaction. OXO Bar halved its payment processing speeds. And Luke from fabric told us in a recent interview: “We now have transaction speeds of three and a half seconds. When you compare that to the 17 seconds we had before, that’s incredible. I’ve never come across a supplier with speeds to match that.”
Importantly, this speed isn’t reliant on connectivity, which can be as bad in a town centre as it is in a muddy field. NOQ’s terminals come with offline processing capabilities built in so they will automatically switch to offline if connectivity is lost. This is hugely appreciated by Brian Galbraith of Hickory Food, which operates bars at events like the Scottish Open golf tournament. “NOQ’s offline service was fantastic,” said Brian. “We could just continue processing orders, which is what you need to do.”
Another one of our speed drivers is our all-in-one terminals. These mobile devices are the size of a smartphone and contain all the functionality needed to take an order and process a payment. No need for a fixed till point, no need for bartenders to wait their turn to use a terminal, everything is done from the palm of their hand.
This has been a game-changer for OXO Bar. “With NOQ’s all-in-one terminals, staff can input the drinks order, pull up the total, and hand it to the customer, all in just a few taps,” said Eljon. “This makes things so much faster.” It’s also been a huge help for Hickory Food: “NOQ’s handheld terminals are great,” said Brian. “You place the order, you tap your card and ‘thank you very much’ – your drinks are there. What you’re not doing is faffing about on an iPad, and then the till as a separate element. You’re doing it in your hand. It’s just brilliant.”
These terminals are available to both rent and buy, so you can scale up and down as needed. For Hickory Food, the benefit is twofold. Not only do you just pay for terminals when you’re using them, but you always have the latest kit. “If you’re leasing something,” Brian explained, “you get all the latest updates. For us, it’s far more efficient to operate like that; we don’t get left behind.”
We’ve all experienced the frustration of being stuck behind a person ordering five different cocktails when all you want is a bottle of beer. To get around that, we’ve devised a solution that lets people order ready-made items (like beer or soft drinks) via their phones. Once the order is placed and paid for, they can head to a collection point, show their QR code and grab their drink from the bar. We call this NOQ Express and it has proved popular with event bar operators such as Hickory Food, which used it at its bars during the Scottish Open. “It’s a great solution, especially for the busier bars,” said Nikki, bar manager for Hickory Food. “It’s easy selling for us; we get the orders through, produce them quickly, and it saves people queuing.”
Do you want to half your order processing speeds and sell more drinks to more people faster? We’d love the opportunity to show you how we deliver fast payments for bars. Click below to get in touch and we’ll set up a demo.