By Collin O’Neill , Fingermark VP Commercial Operations
Or your utility bills for the next couple of years. Or the loyalty program and digital menu boards on your wish list. Or a bigger marketing push in your area.
It’s a bold claim. It’s also a more useful way to think about the investment.
A lot of operators look at kiosks as another capital expense to justify. Unit cost, installation, and integration with a POS that wasn’t built for it. And the ongoing maintenance costs. Nobody should ignore that.
Most operators only price a fraction of what a kiosk does.
We call kiosks an ordering point. They’re much more than that.
Walk into any QSR with kiosks and look at what they’re doing before anyone even places an order. They’re showcasing your food, promoting your latest LTO and reinforcing your brand. Long before they take an order, they’re already influencing purchase decisions.
That’s not just an ordering point. It’s a digital billboard that also happens to take payment.
In high foot traffic locations like airports, malls and food courts, it becomes even more valuable. It’s often the first thing a hungry customer notices. It attracts attention, builds familiarity and draws people towards your restaurant before they’ve decided where to eat.
Then it starts selling.
Every order gets the upsell. Every single time.
The kiosk doesn’t skip the upsell because it’s tired or because it’s already thinking about serving the next person. It doesn’t call in sick when you need it most. It doesn’t judge and it doesn’t add pressure when guests are deciding. So guests add more.
The numbers back this up. Many QSR brands have reported average checks hitting close to 30% higher at the kiosk than at the counter. Run that against your own store. If average spend increased by 25% across even half your transactions, how quickly would that investment pay itself back?
Now ask a different question.
What could that additional profit fund? A remodel? New kitchen equipment? A bonus for your top performing crew members? A lower price on a hero item to win market share?
The conversation quickly changes from “can we afford kiosks?” and becomes “what can kiosks help us pay for?”
The real value is that one relatively small piece of hardware is performing multiple commercial roles at once.
It markets.
It attracts.
It sells.
It upsells.
It frees your people to create better guest experiences.
All from the same footprint.
There is a labor angle too, and it’s real. Kiosks handle the repetitive part of ordering, leaving your crew to focus on the bit screens can’t do – making your guests feel taken care of. But that’s the smallest piece of this, not the headline.
So the question is – where will you invest your extra revenue?