What's Square's 2024 Campaign for Restaurants All About?

TLDR

Square is gearing up to take on competitors like Toast by transforming the restaurant experience with new hardware and software products for orders, payments, and operations. The company recently launched a suite of products targeting restaurant chains, including a custom kitchen kiosk, a redesigned point-of-sale system, and integrated payments that let customers pay using cards, mobile wallets, or QR codes. The goal of these products is to make managing a restaurant easier through more automated and tech-enabled solutions. This could allow restaurants to serve more customers during peak times while maintaining control over the menu and customer experience.

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Square's Campaign Targets Big Chains and QSRs

Square POS is targeting big restaurants and more quick-service restaurants this year. The company launched Square Kiosk, which combines hardware and software for self-ordering and payment. Available this summer for all Square for Restaurants merchants, Square Kiosk accepts contactless and chip cards, among other methods.

The company also redesigned its restaurant POS to improve navigation and added customized layouts. It introduced Scan to Pay, enabling customers to scan receipts to pay. An updated Orders Tab shows all order types on one dashboard so servers can track orders better.

These moves aim to attract more large restaurants and quick-service clients, who value efficient operations and customer experiences. Per Diem, Square’s white-label ordering app, will further streamline multi-unit management. By integrating the app with Square POS, restaurants can customize the ordering experience and analyze data to optimize menus or staffing.

With over 4 million businesses worldwide, including 62% of Chicago restaurants paying $15.80 per hour or more, Square targets clients seeking innovative yet affordable solutions. The 2024 campaign focuses on big restaurants and quick-service chains needing seamless management across locations. By offering customized hardware, software, and apps for dine-in, takeout, delivery, and self-service, Square provides an all-in-one restaurant platform to boost operational efficiency, sales, and customer loyalty.

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New Square POS Offerings Streamline Restaurant Operations

Square for Restaurants is Square’s full-featured point-of-sale system tailored for restaurants. This year, Square launched updates to streamline restaurant operations. With Jack Dorsey as the lead, the company is planning more changes to further improve the product for restaurants in 2024.

An Updated User Interface

Square redesigned its restaurant POS software interface to simplify navigation. The refreshed interface features an updated menu layout and dashboard to provide servers and staff with an intuitive experience. The new interface aims to reduce errors and accelerate order-taking and table servicing.

Integrated Self-Ordering

Square Kiosk, available this summer, enables customers to place and pay for their own orders via an on-site kiosk. The kiosk accepts contactless and chip card payments in addition to other methods. Self-ordering kiosks can help offset labor costs while improving customer experience, especially for quick-service restaurants.

Enhanced Order Management

An updated Orders Tab provides an aggregated view of all dine-in, takeout and delivery orders in one place. Staff can instantly see the status of every order, enabling faster service and fewer mistakes. The Orders Tab aims to streamline operations for multi-unit restaurants.

Third-Party Integrations

Square continues to integrate third-party services into its restaurant POS. For example, Per Diem is a white-label mobile ordering app that Square for Restaurants merchants can offer to customers. Integrating Per Diem and other services helps Square create a comprehensive restaurant management solution.

With a redesigned interface, new hardware options, enhanced software features, and third-party integrations, Square’s latest offerings attempt to simplify restaurant operations at every level. For enterprise restaurants and quick-service chains in particular, these new tools may help boost efficiency, reduce costs, and improve the customer experience. Overall, Square appears focused on becoming an all-in-one restaurant management platform.

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Integrated Per Diem App Powers Multi-Unit Management

To streamline operations for multi-unit restaurants, Square integrated Per Diem, a white-label ordering app. With this integration, restaurant groups can use Per Diem to enable online ordering without going for Franchise mode across all their locations using a single digital menu management and set of product data.

Limiting Risks and Fraud

Per Diem allows restaurant operators to limit egift card amounts and block suspicious customers to reduce risks and fraud. By enabling multi-unit gift cards and a centralized customer database, the app helps restaurants limit fraud across locations.

Optimizing Staffing and Inventory

The app provides real-time sales reporting and analytics to help optimize staffing, inventory, and operations across multiple locations. Operators can view sales, menu performance, and customer data for individual restaurants or roll-up reporting across the entire group. Using these insights, multi-unit restaurants can make data-driven decisions to improve efficiency and profitability.

Streamlining the Customer Experience

With a single digital menu, ordering process, and loyalty program, Per Diem delivers a consistent customer experience across locations. Customers can sign up once and use the same account and payment info to order from any restaurant in the group. The app also enables multi-unit gift cards, allowing customers to use the same card at multiple locations.

By integrating an advanced online ordering system with its point-of-sale platform, Square provides multi-unit restaurants with a complete technology solution to optimize operations and transform the customer experience at scale. Per Diem, combined with Square's other products, helps large restaurant groups streamline management, increase efficiency, and boost customer loyalty across all locations.

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Final Thoughts

With new hardware like the Square Kiosk and software updates to POS, online ordering, and payments, it is apparent that Square wants to become the premier end-to-end solution for all types of restaurants. Whatever your restaurant's needs, Square is expanding its ecosystem so owners can run every aspect of their business from one provider. This unified approach can increase efficiency. As a restaurateur, it may be worth exploring if Square's newest offerings are right for your establishment in 2024. You owe it to your business to stay informed and consider if Square could enable you to better serve patrons in the years ahead.

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