Make High-Traffic Times More Profitable with These Payment Optimization Tips

The restaurant industry continued to grow in 2024 with sales forecasted to top $1 trillion for the first time in history, according to the National Restaurant Association’s 2024 State of the Restaurant Industry report.

As consumers continue to frequent dining establishments near and far, payment optimization is a great way for restauranteurs to boost their bottom lines and drive growth during high-traffic seasons and beyond. 

 With the right payment optimization strategy, restaurants can reduce costs, streamline processes, improve customer experience, and enhance security.

Reduce Payment Processing and Interchange Fees

Transaction and processing fees can significantly reduce restaurant profits. While that sounds simple in theory, determining the true cost of credit card processing is a complicated and time-intensive task.

Auditing monthly merchant statements can take weeks or even months to complete. That’s time many busy restaurateurs just don’t have to spare. Technology exists that can help make this task a breeze. Artificial Intelligence (AI) auditing technology can help restaurant owners read and understand their monthly processing statements within minutes instead of days. The technology can also help restaurants uncover hidden processing fees and identify opportunities for cost savings.

These tools analyze processing statements, breaking down the intricacies and cost structures of a restaurant’s current system and simultaneously showcasing where cost savings are possible with processing fees, interchange fees, and more.

Streamline Compliance

Restaurants, like any business handling credit card transactions, must adhere to regulations and requirements for securing payment data. These regulations and standards, aimed at protecting cardholder data from theft and fraud, include data privacy laws, consumer security laws, payment network policies, and more. PCI compliance is a major pain point for QSR and fast food restaurants.

Restaurants can streamline compliance with the help of payment orchestration services. Payment orchestration services offer solutions that can help simplify compliance, ensuring that regulations and standards are met, and protecting restaurateurs from penalties and fees.

Diversify Payment Options

Customers today expect restaurants to offer a frictionless payment experience. That means offering payment options that cater to their specific preferences and needs. These payment preferences vary across generational cohorts.

Baby boomers typically prefer traditional payment methods like cash and credit cards. Generation X commonly uses credit or debit cards. Millennials are most likely to use credit cards for purchases, with 65 percent of this generation reporting they have a credit card – the most of all generations of consumers. Digital payments such as Apple Pay, or Google Wallet are gaining traction among younger consumers. According to research by Kantar, over half of Gen-Z (54 percent) and Millennials (53 percent) have used these payment types.

Diversifying payment options enhances customer experience across generations, keeping diners coming back again and again.

Implement Fraud-Prevention Measures

Payment fraud can be a significant source of loss for restaurants. Chargeback fees typically cost between $10 and $50, depending on the merchant's agreement with their acquirer.

Every restaurateur wants to avoid chargebacks which occur when a guest disputes a transaction on their credit or debit card with their issuing bank. When this happens the bank may reverse the charge, withdrawing the funds from the restaurant and refunding the money to the customer.

Restaurants can combat payment fraud by using advanced fraud protection tools. These tools use AI to track and analyze transaction patterns and detect discrepancies that enable them to detect and block fraudulent activities.

Restaurants large and small can make their businesses more profitable, especially during high-traffic seasons by optimizing payments. Payment optimization that reduces costs, streamlines compliance, enhances customer experience, and combats fraud is the key to restaurateurs boosting their bottom line and driving growth.