3 Smart Ways To Boost Your Business Operations
The whole landscape of hospitality has changed significantly over the last decade. Australians now expect more from their pubs and clubs. We’re seeing festivals, art shows and even laundromats being added to venues across the nation. As a result of shifting entertainment appetites, licensees are always trying to find new strategies to improve venue performance – and much of that comes from diversification.
Diversification isn’t new to the seasoned venue manager, pubs and clubs have been adapting for years: offering tea, coffee and cake for afternoon tea, installing gaming machines, hiring out function rooms and putting on varied types of entertainment to bolster their bottom line.
But thanks to technological advances, digital trends and tech-savvy younger generations gracing venues around Australia, diversification tactics are now more numerous and creative than ever before. In this post, we share some of the most innovative ways we’ve seen venues boost their operational performance.
3 INNOVATIVE WAYS YOU CAN BOOST YOUR VENUE’S OPERATIONS
1. Make the most of your stock, staff and service
Successful bar secrets says that a venue should run like a well-oiled machine, wherein you:
- Get as much money out of stock as possible (profitability)
- Get as much productivity out of employees as possible (productivity)
- Get as many customers to return as possible (customer service)
When you think about it, profitability, productivity and exceptional customer service are really the holy trinity for every successful business, and a hospitality venue is no different.
While we can’t claim to understand the intricacies of stock management, we are definitely in the productivity and customer service game. We understand that the better your systems, processes and devices support your customer service, the more efficient your floor is going to run – increasing your revenue!
Take this as your invitation to review your venue’s practices, processes and technologies. Keep the holy trinity in mind as you audit the current state and brainstorm ideas for bettering each category. Some ideas to get you started:
- Install tech devices like smart POS machines and cash recyclers to make your staff more efficient.
- Install a cash machine in your bar, to lessen the frequency of the customer paying by card at the bar (which can slow down service). A cash machine (ATM) can also bring more people into your bar to draw out cash for their day or night out.
- Start regular weeknight events to entice people back into your venue – what about trivia or karaoke?
- On your busy gaming floor, investing in a cash redemption terminal (or more than one) takes care of pay-outs, and frees your people to focus on the customer.
- Kickoff routine staff training events to keep them in the loop and ready to give their best – things to cover could include new processes, technology, insights, menu options etc.
2. Optimise your devices
Make your devices work harder for you by maxing out their profitable features. Some examples:
- Allow members to use their loyalty points to pay for ATM transaction fees.
- Make use of your ATM and cash redemption terminal on-screen advertising to promote specials, deals or events.
- Enable patrons to use your ATM to top up digital wallets (sports betting and PayPal) using cash.
The more transactions made, the better your bottom line, so make sure you’re doing everything you can to provide utility and service in your devices.
3. Build an environment of efficient service
One of the highest impact ways to improve venue operations is to focus on delivering the most efficient and high-quality customer service. Once you’ve invested in your digital systems to speed up and help with manual processes, don’t forget to train staff on how they can better use their time on the customer.
Customer care is something that is very close to our hearts at Banktech, and something we study closely. Forbes suggests that one of the crucial keys to providing a great customer experience is to empower the staff to make decisions that impact customer experience. If a customer cannot get on a machine they want, the staff should have authority to offer them a drink while they wait, for example.
This kind of empowerment also contributes to smooth operations, as niggling issues don’t need to repeatedly bottleneck with the manager on duty.
Digitised systems can take care of repetitive, laborious tasks and therefore ensure your people spend more time creating a personalised customer experience. Such efficient, high-quality environments show a customer a great time, but can also be more profitable, because customers are more likely to stay longer, spend more and also be enticed back into your venue.
Interested to learn more about how Australia’s top pubs and clubs are keeping up with trends, attracting patrons and turning a profit? Our free ebook Pubs and Clubs of the Future will give real-life insights and key takeaways to implement in your venue for continued success. Download it now.
