Switching Technologies—As Easy As Ordering Dinner

When we eat at your restaurant, what do we have to do get our meal? The answer is: nothing. We don't have to buy ingredients, prepare them, present them or serve them. We just have to order, and you do the rest. And we know that during the meal, if we need something, your staff is always there to help.

That's exactly what it's like when you switch your POS system (at least with Maitre’D and our partners it is). You don't have to do anything except tell us what you want. We do the rest—smoothly and without any disruption: just the way you serve your guests.

Almost all of the work takes place away from your restaurant, so there's no downtime for you, and no confusion while servers and chefs dodge programmers and engineers. The only exception to that—ahead of the actual installation—is an analysis of your existing hardware. We'll want to look at your computers to make sure they meet the system requirements. We'll be poking our heads into your ceiling to make sure your cabling is in good shape and up to specification.( And we'll work directly with any Electrical Contractor you might have if changes need to be made.)

Discovery—gathering all the information about your business—is the critical step. We have to analyze the way your current POS is formatted, and the workflows and processes you follow—on the dining floor, in the kitchen and in the back office. To maintain the tightest continuity between old and new solutions, we examine your screen layouts and menus, how instruction lists are presented, how additions and modifications are made, and so on. We examine your underlying systems: your operating system, drivers, databases and more. We also gather employee information to ensure there's no time wasted after Go Live doing things like resetting or recreating passwords. We reach into the back office as well, looking and learning about your closing process, your reports—both content and format—and any other functionality like Time and Attendance. We'll talk through it all with you, probing for the things you like about the POS you're replacing, the things you don't, and the things you want to add.

Then we go away and build your POS. Our development centers use the same hardware configuration and OS that you're using. We recreate the elements of your existing POS that you want to retain: from menu and screen layouts to employee data and reports. We add new functionality so that it integrates smoothly and intuitively. We establish the configurations for connectivity, backup and recovery, security and more.

Then we come back for a two-phase installation. First, we do a partial install at your site, for training. We'll work with you to figure out the best training schedule—including whether we do a "train the trainer" program, or conduct training for everyone. Then, we install it during a period when the restaurant is either closed, or traditionally slow. And when you Go Live, a Maitre’D support engineer will be with you on site, to answer questions, resolve issues and in general ensure things go smoothly.

You run a restaurant, not a data center. You shouldn't worry about specifications, connections, integrations. Your POS vendor should make switching POS solutions just like dining out: easy, comfortable and disruption-free.