Digital Menu Boards Are No Longer Optional For QSR

Digital menu board benefits

First and foremost, digital menu boards are far more eye-catching and engaging than traditional static menus. QSRs are all about efficiency and upselling, and Digital menu boards help to drive both objectives.

By investing in digital menu board software, QSRs can easily and quickly change their menus to promote different items throughout the day. For example, promoting breakfast items in the morning, lunch items during the midday rush, and dinner items in the evening. This type of “dayparting” is not possible with static menu boards.

Another huge benefit is the ability to run promotions and specials. For example, QSR’s can promote iced drinks and ice cream treats on a particularly hot day. If it’s cold outside, they can promote warm drinks and soups. The trick is to adapt the content to real-time events without any human interaction.

Digital menu boards also give QSRs the ability to upsell side orders or promote extra toppings and desserts. Studies have shown that these high-margin items can take up 50% of space on static menu boards.

Finally, digital signage is simply more efficient than traditional methods like printed menus or chalkboards. It’s easy to make changes and updates on the fly. There’s no need for costly printing or labor-intensive chalkboard maintenance. Instant changes mean there are fewer mistakes that could frustrate guests.

Increase the WOW factor!

Add animations to your menus.  It’s a proven fact that adding 3 to 5% of animated content will significantly improve your guest’s experience.

Shorten wait times with live messages

Take-out restaurants can use on-screen messages to keep guests informed.  Promotions can be shown next to or above live messages making sure guests will notice them. Use live messaging for queue management and to reduce perceived wait times.

There are typically two types of QSR digital menu boards:

In-restaurant menus:  Digital menu boards are ideal for displaying food items in a way that is appetizing and enhances the brand. Digital menu screens are programmed to show a constantly changing mix of products and infotainment. It can promote high-margin items and engage guests.  This results in increased sales and a better dining experience for everyone.

Outdoor signage and Drive-through screens: Exterior digital signage helps with the order-taking process right at the point of decision.  It’s a great way to attract drive-by traffic and help move orders more efficiently. Using digital menu board software, QSRs can display dynamic content on outdoor signage and drive-through screens to promote specific menu items, cross-sell and speed up ordering.

Improving the drive-through experience

Thanks to advancements in QSR technology, digital drive-through signage now has the capability to provide personalized menu suggestions in real-time based on different circumstances. Imagine a high-resolution LED display that recommends side items based on a customer’s current order or displays a special promotion for ice cream sundaes on a hot day. These innovative features enhance the customer experience and offer tailored recommendations, creating a more engaging and dynamic drive-through experience.

Since the Covid pandemic, restaurant drive-throughs have become essential to QSR restaurant’s survival. The trend began when restaurants were asked to close their dining rooms and switch to curb pick-up and drive-through orders. QSR chains soon realized the drive-through experience, enhanced by digital menu boards, was the key to their survival.

Advanced digital menu board solutions

Web-based solutions, such as Navori software’s Content Manager, are perfect for designing and building your own menu board layouts. Graphic artists and web developers can also create content using HTML5 to display live data. This is the ideal scenario for advanced QSR deployments.

How to manage limited-time offers (LTOs)

By using digital signage software that interacts with a database in real-time, digital menu boards can constantly adapt to show regular and promotional items. Whenever an LTO promotion ends or a new item is added, changes happen on-screen as soon as the media player refreshes its data.

How to give local staff control over their screens

With new mobile CMS dashboards, staff members can modify what’s playing on their store’s screens or digital menu board using any smartphone or tablet. Content can be triggered on-demand and left on-screen for as long as needed which is great for instant promotions or when answering guest questions.

Staff can also upload photos taken with their smartphone and instantly publish them on their screens. Store managers can also use this feature to publish instant notices or increase guest engagement.

The future is here, is your software ready?

Navori Labs’ QL Digital Signage solution can easily communicate with any point-of-sale software or cash register system to automatically retrieve the correct item pricing and keep this information updated in real-time.

The manager on duty can be given local access via the software’s QL Content Manager and use any web browser and manage their own digital menu boards without any outside assistance.  They can also use QL Mobile on their smartphone to launch a new promotion, and manage items on a predefined screen area to show animations, event notices, birthday messages, and more.

Staff members who are granted access can also remove sold-out items from their digital menus and make changes as required. System administrators control each user’s credentials and can monitor their media player’s performance from any location.

Navori Labs’ QL Player software can also automatically turn remote screens on or off based on the restaurant’s schedule to save on energy costs and extend the life of each digital menu board display.

The QL software advantage

Powering all this hardware requires sophisticated software that can interface with external databases, drive multiple screens and large LED boards reliably, and provide conditional content delivery that responds to external events.

Navori QL is the best digital signage software for QSR restaurants. With its available “insane playback rendering”, QL can deliver and play 8K content across one or more screens with fluid transitions and flawless playback. QL’s dynamic data feed support means a single menu board layout can be delivered to thousands of restaurants with each location displaying individualized menu items and pricing. QL also supports smart AI programming with conditional playback rules that can launch content based on real-time events (weather, pricing, stock levels, etc.).