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Beta Member

Customer Reluctance to use Self Serve

After a problematical start last year, we have tried to re-introduce Self Serve ordering since we have staff shortages due to them having to isolate. We are getting some resistance, exasperation and bad feeling from customers when they try to checkout. Those who use ApplePay or GooglePay have no problems but a manually entered credit card is tortuous.

 

I appreciate that, for high value transactions, asking for the five pieces of data: card number; expiry date, CVV number. cardholder's name and postcode is warranted but when buying a cup of coffee and a breakfast, the total charge is less than GBP10. With in-person payment, a contactless card can be waved over the square reader in seconds but self-serve payment takes ages.

 

What makes this worse is that other restaurants such as Nando's, McDonalds or Wetherspoons have easy card payment so we compare unfavorably.

 

So, my question is: What can we do to improve the customer experience and reduce frustration?

 

Other frustrations include the as yet unimplemented feature request for a notes box at checkout for the hungry customer to put: 'crispy bacon' or 'eggs over-easy'. Another untidy feature is that the acknowledgment email says "Thank you for your order!" .. "Your order will be ready for pickup". How confusing when our covering instructions says we will bring the food to your table. Just sloppy implementation of in-house self-serve ordering.

 

One suggestion that I might make is to split ordering away from payment with the not-quite-ready open tickets for self serve. The customer could order from their phone and then pay in person using the Square Card Reader with no fuss. Just a message at final checkout: "Would you like to pay by contactless card at the counter" or something similar would do the trick and close the ticket.

 

Please advise how we can improve our customers' view of the checkout journey.

 

Thanks

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Super Seller

@petersmithI completely agree with you. The credit card entry is quite convoluted at times. I know that once a guest enters their card info, Square Pay used to kick in. Every subsequent order would then be easier: once they enter their email, they get a six digit code that will auto fill everything in. (At least if they opt in to the service). Unfortunately the open tickets beta seems to have disabled Square Pay. I'm hoping that will come back. Realistically though, without the option of handing off the order to the point of sale for payments, there isn't an easy way at all to get the cc entry easier. Even Amazon has to get your card entered on the first order.

 

Having the option for the customers to pay at the counter would be a fantastic way to ease the payment process, that's for sure. It would also allow customers to be able to pay with cash, which is a definite pain point for me as well.

 

I know you can configure emails to better say what you want, but I'm pretty sure there isn't a special email for self-serve orders. Even if there was a way to disable the email for certain types of orders I think it would be helpful.

 

As for the notes section, there was a workaround floated around on the community about two months back that works great:

 

On your online dashboard, go to items-> site items.

Find one of the items you want to have your customers be able to request things

Go to Modifers -> Manage Modifiers

Click on the Create New button

Choose Textbox, configure it as you need.

 

Now that modifier will show up in the modifier list. Just add it to every other item you want the notes field available on. It'll print with whatever title then whatever's in the box. For me, I see Special Instructions: xxxxx on the item whenever anyone uses it.

 

Hopefully through the trials of beta testing and continued feedback we can polish the self serve into something that will make those other places say "woah!". 🙂

Ryan Wanner
Golden Pine Coffee Roasters
Colorado Springs, CO, USA

Super Seller: I know stuff.
Beta Tester: I break stuff.
he/him/hey you/coffee guy/whatever.

Happy Selling!
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Beta Member

Thanks @ryanwanner  Very useful tip about special instructions. I just wish it were easier for customers to get that far!

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Admin

Hi @petersmith, thank you for sharing this feedback!

 

We're hosting a Q&A with team members on the fulfilment team soon, including the Product Manager for self-serve ordering. I'd definitely recommend posting your questions for them on this thread as well.

Tra
Community Manager, Square
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