Hygiene standards are important. So the popularity of restaurant kiosks was steadily increasing before the arrival of Covid-19. The current pandemic has created a boom in demand for these contactless booths in the food and beverage industry.
What has made these self-service kiosks so highly sought after has primarily to do with the hygiene and sanitary benefits they offer? As dining rooms open up across the country, there are very tight regulations in place and new measures are needed to adhere to these. Kiosks are valuable because they fulfill so many of the health and safety requirements all in one go.
Social distancing is being touted as one of the most effective methods of stemming the spread of infection. By ordering through a kiosk, face-to-face contact between restaurant staff and customers is reduced significantly. Given the speed and efficiency of a kiosk, ordering times have become faster, thus reducing queues and preventing another possible health hazard which is the gathering of crowds. Thereby boosting hygiene standards.
Kiosks can be all-inclusive, from ordering to payment. Cash is perhaps one of the dirtiest items to be handled in a restaurant and with so much uncertainty surrounding how long this novel coronavirus can survive on surfaces, it is sensible to avoid exchanging currency. A kiosk can offer a customer different payment options - debit or credit cards, mobile wallets and QR codes being the most popular. For those customers who insist on using cash there are now kiosks that can process notes and coins too!
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The wonderful thing about kiosks is that they are not simply about ordering and payment; there are a range of new functions that can be performed by them. One valuable task for a restaurant is the all-important temperature check. Now a standard routine before entering any public space, temperature checks could be harmful to staff who conduct them, given prolonged exposure to a steady stream of visitors. The kiosks automate this risky process with the added advantage of being able to record and store data for future reference. They can be programmed to flag customers running a fever and send an alert to staff for further action. This itself shows how they are able to boost hygiene standards.
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While kiosks can play a key role in keeping restaurants hygienic, they need to be sanitized regularly in order to be effective. In fact, not cleaning them will only increase the spread of germs and so exacerbate the current coronavirus problem. Ideally, surfaces touched by customers should be disinfected after each use, either by placing sanitary wipes for customers to wipe down the screen with or deploying a member of staff to do so. Where there is contact there is potential for contamination and infection, and so kiosk surfaces must be kept absolutely clean.
In this time of worry and fear, restaurants need to go beyond serving good food. Both customers and staff need reassuring that their health and wellbeing have been prioritized. Kiosks are a low-cost and effective measure that will immediately elevate the hygiene standard of a restaurant and minimize potential for infection.
Published July 24, 2020