Restaurants need to not only keep customers happy with good food, but increasingly they also need to reach out across a wide range of channels, including delivery app, their own web presence and even custom apps.
Irish-based cloud software developer Captiva POS, which specialises in providing services to the food sector, meets these needs and more, including through its all-in-one solution Captiva POS Connect.
Ed Carty, chief executive and co-founder, Captiva POS said the company, which is already the preferred partner of both quick service and full service restaurants across all 32 counties, was working hard to deliver new features to its users.
It all starts, he said, with asking restaurants what they need: “We've made huge technological advances in the last few months. We've talked to people in restaurants and takeaways.”
The answer was that they need to enable every possible way to satisfy customers. As a result, Captiva POS can provide the whole package from developing web sites with online ordering functionality, point of sale (PoS) terminals and software, in-store handheld ordering and QR code ordering.
As Captiva POS develops all of its own software, it can respond rapidly to customer demands, Carty said. It also does it without taking a cut, instead opting for a simple monthly subscription.
“We’ve done all that without turning to anyone. We've now added apps, we can offer restaurants their own apps. We're still on the software as a service [SaaS] model with zero commission on the order. There’s just one monthly charge and no front-facing charges,” said Carty.
This is a significant difference between Captiva’s offering and that of its competitors, but it is not the only one: it gets customer revenue over to its users without delay due to its partnership with payments processor BOIPA.
“The international brands are coming in and adding a front-facing cost on the order. As a result, we end up being more affordable, and better value. Really importantly for our customers, we have next day settlement,” Carty said.
Captiva is one of the few companies to offer a full turnkey solution for the dining sector, including full on-site installation, hardware, and software for ordering and getting the order to the kitchen, as well as full inventory and stock control.
Carty said that his vision, and that of co-founder Mark Allen, is of supporting restaurants to meet their customers via every possible channel.
“Mark has been involved in every line of code. He's constantly revising, constantly talking to our customers,” he said.
This can be through the major food delivery apps, which integrate with Captiva’s software, but also by helping them read different demographics, including the all-important local one.
“Our research shows a lot of people living locally will order locally, so we got involved with web site development, including SEO and Google. We also have loyalty schemes and many like to give a discount to their local customers,” he said.
This kind of customer, often slightly older than those using the order aggregation apps, typically also wants more information about their order, such as when it will arrive.
“There's a different type of demographic locally, and we want to help restaurants meet it. From our PoS software staff can put in ‘20 minutes for a collection’, ‘40 minutes or delivery’, or whatever it is, and this sends the message out to the customer so that they can get the plates in the oven,” Carty said.
While Captiva’s software is innovative and continually being upgraded, Carty said that the point was not to deliver ‘flash-bang’ tech but to give deep and wide support to restaurants so that they can do what they do best: provide great food and service to hungry customers.
“Quality will win through. If the food is good, it wins. It’s our job to get that order into the kitchen as fast as possible, allow the chef to make that food without any mistakes and then get it out to the counter or to the door. To do that, what we do is give the customer confidence,” he said.