For such a long time, most retail business owners thought of their point of sale system as a fancy cash register. With technology becoming more advanced, many innovations being developed today are becoming standard features within the POS industry.

1. Wireless Hand Held POS Devices. Wireless hand held devices has become one of the brilliant restaurant handheld POS equipment that can serve your customers quicker and more accurate. Your waiters will be able to present daily specials to your customers on the spot, process credit cards while walking to the next table, send a quick bread requests to the kitchen, and add walk-ins to the waiting list – straight from the handheld device. By this, your servers will be able to spend more time interacting with more customers keeping them happy and keeping them coming back.

2. The “Sticky” Paper Printer. Another one of the newest and most brilliant innovations is the “sticky” paper printers. This type of printer uses paper similar to a Post-It that allows you to post the receipt over and over again. The paper can be printed to whatever length is needed, and stick to any surface where it will remain until it is removed and, even, placed elsewhere. With this type of printer, the paper can stay with the order through the entire order process. The new paper is also liner-free eliminating the need to manage non-recyclable waste and can be easily removed and restuck to a different surface – again and again. Use it for all orders, instant and special orders, as bag tags or any combination.

3. Digital Menu Board or Signage. Want to deliver media rich content, using video, audio and pictures to your customers using your POS system? You’ll find some POS packages have fully integrated and seamless digital menu board software that allow you to create content using the same database. Menu pages, titles, menu items, and prices can all be twined with high-quality multimedia to give your restaurant menu board a dramatic, interactive display without having to purchase an additional system.

With most digital menu boards, you can easily do menu changes, change scheduled price, daily specials and continually update it throughout the day by sending content to be displayed from the store database in real-time.

4. Self-Service Kiosk. Have you ever thought about getting a customer self-service kiosk for your business’ restaurant POS solutions? A self-service kiosk or interactive kiosk, first came to prominence with the photo kiosk machines from Kodak — from wikipedia. Later adopted by consumers who combined it with advanced technologies such as touch-screens monitors. This very useful piece of device, a self-service hardware combined with a self-service software, can be used to cut down on labor costs and speed up the ordering process. Aside from that, most POS packages can enhance the customer’s user experience even further, using sound and motion graphics, to engage your customer.

5. Cell Phone Paging. Some restaurants are selecting to take the more modern approach by paging customers’ personal cell phones. The restaurant host or hostess simply takes your customer’s cell phone number and enters it into their cell phone paging device. And when their table is ready, the paging system calls the cell phone with an automated voice message to notify the guest that he or she maybe seated. This is a very convenient way for guests who want to roam around farther than common pagers will allow and there is no fear of the customer walking away with your pager.

This small list is just the appetizer when it comes to restaurant technology. More to come in the following months…

Michael Tash is Vice President of Customer Relations at POS-for-Restaurants.com — helping you use your technology to be more efficient and more profitable with over 20 years of its restaurant experience.