The restaurant environment is prone to spills and breakages. Just as the restaurant needs to withstand this daily wear-and-tear, your POS hardware needs to be durable enough to survive everyday use.
Picture this; your restaurant gets its new fleet of shiny new POS hardware systems that are ready to go with ordering, scheduling, sales reports, and inventory tracking.
It’s the nerve center of the restaurant.
The six systems you have purchased for $3,000 apiece gleam under your restaurant’s lighting—a total investment of $18,000.
You’ve reached the evening rush, and the fast-paced chaos causes two of your servers to almost crash.
They don’t bump into each other, but there is a casualty.
One of the new POS systems has taken a big hit by a spilled 32-ounce Coca-Cola. It creates a sticky, gooey mess on the touchscreen. The POS hardware isn’t dead, but the screen will never be the same.
A few more spills, and you can say goodbye to that machine. You know cola eats through rust and corrosion on car batteries. Just think about what’s happening to the inside of your POS system when it seeps in through spills.
The cracks where the screen edges meet the housing are a fine collector of liquids, dust, and airborne grease from your restaurant.
And if your restaurant is, or has an outdoor area, the elements of weather, bugs, along with the hazards mentioned above, can wreak havoc on your POS hardware.
Environment plays a huge role in the wear and tear of your restaurant’s POS hardware. Still, other factors can come into play, such as mobile ordering endurance, failing internal equipment, and data security.
Let’s take an in-depth look at three reasons why durability is a must-have for POS hardware:
Restaurant Environment
Restaurants are messy–servers, hosts, and other employees are all navigating the busy floor with trays of drinks and plates of food. As a result, there are a good chance glasses will break, and food will spill.
For that reason, the technology that your staff uses on the floor should be able to withstand these hazards.
You don’t want the entire system to crash if something spills on it during a midday shift.
As you attempt to clean the screen after a spill, be careful with the cleaning products. Ammonia-based products will discolor the screen, and excess spray can drip in-between seams and damage the circuitry.
POS hardware should ideally be spill, dust, and crumb-proof. This is possible with flush screens that prevent liquids and crumbs from getting into the crevices of the system. Systems without hard drive cooling fans also eliminate the possibility of dust getting into the machine and affecting performance.
Make sure that all other components of POS hardware, like printers and keyboards, are as durable as the primary system.
Data Security
Along with the durability of the actual hardware, your POS system should be able to withstand external security threats. The technology’s primary function is to process customers’ credit cards and other sensitive information, so it needs to be as secure as possible to maintain guests’ trust.
Discover why it’s important your restaurant is PCI compliant here.
Certain hardware issues like failing network cards, faulty wires, and misconfigured routers can compromise the network connection and create security issues. Faulty wires, for example, can cause errors on the network and corrupt the data sent between systems.
For hardware that isn’t secured (like consumer-grade tablets), owners should also install antivirus and endpoint protection software to reduce the potential of malware and other attacks. These tools scan software on the device and detect problematic files that need to be removed to guarantee the malware doesn’t result in data theft.
Customer Checkout
In 2021, 53% of businesses integrated mobile POS technology, including POS tablets. Many restaurants are opting for this customer-facing technology to improve efficiency and cut costs, especially in busy café environments.
However, keep in mind that in a high-volume and high-impact environment like a café, the hardware should withstand potential spills and endure constant use.
Since tablets are handheld devices that are constantly being passed between people, they should also survive the occasional drop.
Additionally, the durability of battery life is critical for this type of POS hardware. A tablet dying in the middle of a transaction would slow operations and frustrate customers.
Instead of tablets, you may also opt for a customer-facing display built-in on your point of sale. This technology performs the same functions as the tablets, such as easy checkout, convenient tipping, sign by finger, and e-receipts. However, versus having a tablet customer-facing display and your POS, this design, when both are attached, is much more effective and long-lasting.
Conclusion
With the right (and durable) hardware, your business can prevent revenue losses associated with hardware crashes or stolen data. These systems are critical to restaurant operations, as they help owners and managers run an efficient restaurant that keeps costs down and profits high.
A solid POS system, which includes durable mobile ordering, is central to your restaurant’s operations, from ordering to inventory and scheduling. That’s why it’s critical that no spills seep into the system, which can cause failure.
The Mad Mobile restaurant POS hardware has a flush, bezel-less screen which not only appears nice and sleek but also prevents liquids or crumbs from falling into the edges and crevices that other devices have.
The current version of the Mad Mobile has a 32GB solid-state hard drive. Besides making the device quieter, using this type of drive allows us to avoid using a fan inside the device, which can suck in dust and other gunk, potentially affecting performance.
Our hardware is designed from the ground up for the demanding restaurant environment. Learn more about our restaurant-tested durable hardware today.
