When customers come to your restaurant, you want to provide speedy, seamless service that creates a smooth experience for both your guests and your staff. You can do that by offering frictionless payments. 

A survey by PYMNTS found, “97% of top performing restaurants offer digital wallet payment capabilities, while only 53% of bottom performers do the same.” Digital wallet payments—a type of frictionless payment—are used by most high-performing restaurants and are increasing in adoption across all restaurants. The survey also found that 60% of restaurants offer the ability to pay with digital wallets. 

Is your restaurant keeping up with this trend and offering frictionless payment options? And if not, what’s holding you back? 

Here is what you need to know to start offering frictionless payments and speedier service at your restaurant. 

What Are Frictionless Payments?

Frictionless payments refer to types of payments that have reduced the barriers to buying. They are checkout processes that make transactions easier for both the buyer and the seller. Frictionless payments: 

  • Provide a faster check out
  • Minimize waiting time 
  • Decrease customer strain 
  • Blend in with the customer experience

There is no one type of frictionless payment. Rather, it is a descriptor that can be tied to multiple payment types. For restaurants, the most used frictionless payment types are: contactless pay, mobile and digital wallets, and in-app payments. 

Types of Frictionless Payments for Restaurants

If your restaurant wants to offer frictionless payments, consider how these payment options might work best for your business. 

Contactless Pay

Contactless pay allows customers to tap-to-pay using their smartphone, credit/debit card, smart card, fob, or other devices. It uses NFC (near field communication) technology, a radio frequency that allows a card or device to communicate wirelessly with a point-of-sale (POS) system. 

With contactless pay, a customer can tap their card or device during checkout to seamlessly provide payment information.  

Mobile or Digital Wallets 

A mobile or digital wallet, also known as an e-wallet, stores payment information on a mobile device and can be used to make in-store payments. Digital wallets are often used as contactless pay. A customer waves their phone near a POS to pay using their digital wallet through a delta wallet service such as Venmo, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Samsung Pay.

A mobile or digital wallet is a contactless pay option customers can use to tap-to-pay at checkout.   

In-App Payments  

In-app payments are a way for customers to pay through their account, rather than through a physical checkout. A customer has a profile which stores their credit card information. They can then order online and pay through the app. Once purchased, they can receive or pick up their order with or without interacting with staff. 

Customers at a restaurant could use in-app payments to order and pay from the table. They could also order through the app and pick up their order from a counter. 

What Are the Benefits of Frictionless Payments?

There are multiple reasons why more businesses are adopting frictionless payments. 

Speed Up Service 

One of the biggest benefits of frictionless payments is that they can speed up the checkout process. With fewer barriers to payment, customers can quickly make their purchase and make room for customers coming behind them.  

Meet Customer Demand

Customers crave convenient payment options, and frictionless payments give them what they want. The PYMNTS survey found, “Nearly a quarter of all respondents say the ability to pay with digital wallets would make them more inclined to shop with a given restaurant.”

Improve Customer Experience

Paying is the least pleasant part of a purchase. Frictionless payments allow the checkout process to blend in with the customer experience. It offers faster service and easier check out. Customers don’t have to wait as long to pay, and they can choose to use payment methods that work for them.  

How to Offer Frictionless Payments at Your Restaurant 

If you want to offer types of frictionless payments at your restaurant, you can get what you need through Lavu’s restaurant POS system. 

Through a partnership with Verifone, the Lavu POS includes Verifone’s FLEX payment solution and its Advanced Payment Method platform. The platform enables Lavu POS systems to offer frictionless payments such as contactless pay, digital and mobile wallets, and even crypto payments.  

Lavu’s iPad POS system can also easily integrate with online ordering and apps to make it simple for customers to pay through accounts on their phone or computer. 

Offer More Payment Options at Your Restaurant 

If you are interested in offering frictionless payment methods to customers at your restaurant, Lavu POS can provide what you need — along with hundreds of other features to help you run your business. 

Lavu’s restaurant POS includes features that support payment processing as well as 200+ other tools that help you manage orders, your team, inventory, reporting, and more. 

To see Lavu’s POS in action and learn about additional features, schedule your free demo today. Or, download our Restaurant POS Buyer’s Guide to learn more about choosing the best POS for your restaurant.