Business Partner News | Zonal talks tech: hospitality tech terminology explained

Want to know your AI from your EPOS? IoH business partners Zonal understand that hospitality technology can be intimidating and sometimes even baffling, so they’ve created this jargon-busting glossary of terms to help licensees make sense of it all.

Artificial intelligence (AI)

In pubs, this happens when arguments and theories become more spurious the longer the night goes on. In tech, it means intelligence demonstrated by machines rather than humans or animals. Advanced Google searches or Alexa answering your questions are both common examples.

Backend

Tech circles will affectionately refer to this as ‘under the hood’. This is the bit of the computer which allows it to operate and is not typically accessed by the user, it includes data and operating systems.

Click & Collect

Prior to the pandemic, the practise of buying online and collecting at a venue was more generally associated with retail and the weekly shop. Smart pub operators pivoted during enforced closure periods to sell meals and drinks online that customers would collect at the venue. For many, it has provided a valuable and continued revenue stream.

Digital technology

A catch-all term for basically everything involving computerised technology. It also covers data captured in binary digits. We’re talking smartphones, social media, laptops, desktops, digital photos, EPoS (we’ll get to that) and much, much more.

EPoS

Newcomers to the trade may well wonder what this acronym means. It’s short for Electronic Point of Sale (as opposed to PoS, which covers the likes of posters, beer mats and table talkers). However, EPoS is so much more than just a fancy till system these days. A modern EPoS includes all the tools a business needs to help you run your business better, faster and with as little effort as possible. Find out more about our customisable EPoS solutions for independent pubs here.

Handheld Ordering

Taking the EPoS system to the table with a connected handheld device has many advantages. It dramatically speeds things up, reduces the potential for any errors from either memory, notebooks or inputting into the till and can give a superior guest experience! (Think: a table ordering drinks before their meals, and having those drinks arrive before they complete the ordering process!)

Integrated Payment System

The important bit – receiving your hard-earned money! This technology ensures servers always charge the correct amount and sends that money directly to your bank. Simple. As this technology progresses, you’ll find it built into EPoS, Pay-at-Table devices. handhelds, kiosks, apps, websites… and likely wherever the next frontier takes us…

Online Booking

A software system to allow customers to make reservations online, before they visit you in person.

Property Management System (PMS)

A software system for hotels and venues with rooms. It can encompass facilitation and management of a range of requirements such as: bookings (availability, rates and channels); check-in / out; finance and invoicing; room maintenance; customer details; staff rotas and wages; marketing and point of sale.

Mixed Reality

The next step on from augmented reality, where the real world and virtual reality are combined together to create new experiences. Think, sitting in a pub and enjoying a pint with friends – except they are in another pub…

Real-time Booking

Technology that allows customers to make online reservations with you at any time of day or night and receive immediate confirmation. Connected technology can take this to the next level by giving an ‘in-session’ view of availability for those last minute booking types!

Stock & Order

Running low on stock? Got a big event coming up? Stock and Order describes the process of tracking what lines you have in stock, on order and what you will need to replenish.

Table Management System

Paper diaries are great. Online Bookings are even better. And Table Management makes Online Bookings the best! A good Table Management system will automatically assign your bookings to the most suitable table, allow hosts to plan and refine the session allocations and make greeting and seating a thing of beauty. Using connected technology can even give a hosts live course status’, automatically assign loyalty numbers and even ping pre-orders directly to the kitchen! Check out how we can help with this.

User Experience (UX)

A term that has as much relevance in hospitality as it does to technology. User experience, often shortened to ‘UX’ is used when talking about how easy, effective and enjoyable a device or service is for the person using it. Something tech and hospitality providers strive tirelessly to get spot on.

Virtual Reality (VR)

Another piece of the reality puzzle, where users are immersed in an entirely simulated environment. Examples are already appearing in hospitality via gaming experiences and is likely to grow in the on-trade. This could be used in training programmes or even allow customers to enjoy a version of your venue from anywhere in the world.

Web Ordering

Not just for those Halloween decorations. It’s another catch-all term that covers ordering via any web-based platform. It includes how your menus can be made available on third-party apps and website.

Zonal has a wide range of technology solutions designed to make life easier and businesses more profitable. Find out more about their range designed specifically with pub tenants and licensees in mind, here!