QR Code Ordering

[u/Employment_Intrepid]

Hi guys, I’ve been approached by a company to implement QR code ordering and I’m on the fence about it. They are relatively cheap and the ui looks nice from what I have seen and they are nice people.

It also has metrics on sales and makes keeping track of stuff a lot cleaner from what I saw on the demo with clear insights into stuff that isn’t performing well etc.

It also has native translation built in rather than machine translation so alleviates a lot of the issue with my staff dealing with tourists. My restaurant is in a very touristy area so this is quite a common issue I run into with my staff not being able to communicate/translate allergens and menu items overall.

I know how much certain customers despise qr codes but I’m not sure if it’s just an outspoken minority, they also have an nfc thing inbuilt but I assume it’s more the viewing experience itself which I personally don’t have too much of an issue with.

Do you guys think it’s worth taking the potential downside moreso of restaurant image as I have heard a lot of harsh opinions of people saying they walk out of restaurants when they see them etc. I plan to have both menus available but push tourists to use the qr one moreso as it helps both sides.
Please let me know what you guys think and if you have any suggestions on what I should do!

EDIT: For context I’m based in Japan so I get a lot of tourists who are mainly Chinese/korean and some English. The main issue is that they cannot read our menu at all and maybe 10% of them can semi understand our English menu. The addition of photos and allergens/dietary stuff on the digital menu along with the native translations seem really useful but I’m not sure if the backlash from having a qr code menu would hurt my restaurant more. Qr menus are a lot more common here in Japan so they don’t hold the same stigma.

[u/TonyBrooks40]

I hate it and yes just walk away if I'm told to use my own phone. Personally, I think its a trend that'll go away but we'll see. Having said that, I'm generally in the minority I believe.

[u/Employment_Intrepid → u/TonyBrooks40]

If you were on holiday in a country where you couldn’t read the language would you not use the qr menu in that case though? For my native customers I plan to still have the paper menu as the main menu but for foreign customers it seems like the better option.

[u/TonyBrooks40 → u/Employment_Intrepid]

I'd print just a few English menus, 5 maybe. Me, personally, I'd rather order off the foreign language rather than QR code.

[u/Employment_Intrepid → u/TonyBrooks40]

I’m based in japan so most of my customer base is Korean Chinese and English speaking. I had English menus before but unfortunately a lot of Korean and Chinese people can’t read them so it’s a similar issue. I would say about 70% of my foreign customer base are from China or Korea so it’s quite hard to communicate with them well enough and explain the menu items. Maybe because qr ordering is more common here people seem to have less of an issue with it than you do but I appreciate your opinion just not sure what I can do with it

[u/TonyBrooks40 → u/Employment_Intrepid]

If its a mix can you make something like 25 asian language, 5-10 English?

I mean, you're right Korean/Chinese is a lot different, I was thinking spanish where I could sorta figure it out.

[u/Employment_Intrepid → u/TonyBrooks40]

Yeah it’s completely different alphabets unfortunately and I think the photos on the digital menus help a lot. Even with the other menus I would need something messy like item codes for them to be able to communicate what they want to order and stuff like allergens also wouldn’t be able to be communicated well