Contactless Menus – How to Easily Create

In this post:  Contactless menus for restaurants, how to create contactless menus using QR codes, what’s needed, how to implement, why create contactless menus, the importance of safety and cleanliness measures, why customers want this information, why tourism, community and membership organizations should be helping.

While restaurants can do this themselves, I believe it’s more helpful for a local destination marketing organization (DMO), such as convention and visitors bureaus (CVB), tourism development agency (TDA), chamber of commerce, Main Street program or downtown development agency, to take charge and help members of their community, industry or organization. Restaurants need all hands on deck right now.

Why should a DMO help? By assisting restaurants, you’ll be aiding potential customers in making dining decisions and in keeping the industry afloat.

What’s Needed:
  • Two 8.5” wide x 11” high documents, such as those created in Microsoft’s Word or Apple’s Pages.
  • A clean, bold, black type font like Helvetica.
  • The ability to turn a Word or Pages file into a PDF.
The How To Create Contactless Menus:
  • Insert the following words into a text field at the top of the page, such as “Contactless Menu” or “Keeping Our Customers Safe:  Cleanliness & Safety Practices.” Avoid the use of color and color elements to keep printing costs down.
  • Next, insert a pre-created QR Code (more on this below) into an artwork box that links to a menu housed on a responsive designed website and/or to a “Keeping Our Customers Safe” webpage on a restaurant’s website or a page created on your organization’s website for others to use.
  • Then, if you have permission and can secure a restaurant’s black and white logo, place it in a separate artwork box below the QR code. The code should be the largest element on the page.
  • To reinforce your organization’s role in assisting local dining establishments, insert in much smaller type the words, “Provided courtesy of [insert your name],” along with your agency’s logo used in an inconspicuous manner.
  • Finally, save the document as a PDF and forward it to your local restaurant with this message and instructions:  “We are happy to help by providing this Contactless Menu or Safety Information. Please print out the enclosed menu, post it in a big way in your front window, near your entrance or at the hostess stand.
  • Ask if they would like smaller QR codes for their servers to have on hand, too. It’s an easy setup. Perhaps six QR codes on an 8.5” x 11” sheet of paper but without the words at the top and the company logo.
  • Close with “If you need anything, please let us know!”

While customers wait for a table, they’ll be able to access the menu using their smartphones and start making dining decisions. This should improve the restaurant’s ability to turn tables more quickly.

If a restaurant does not feature safety measures on its website, your organization may opt to generate a generic list and post it on your organization’s website. As long as the dining establishment follows those procedures, encourage restaurants to borrow your guidelines and post the contactless details you’ve created on their behalf.

The cleanliness and safety measures can be nothing more than the CDC or Health Department requirements. This information can provide customers with the confidence they need in deciding where to dine. That little extra boost may drive customers to your door.

What’s the Point of a Contactless Menu or Safety Procedures? 

It’s about making it easier for potential customers to use their smartphones. They won’t need to type a business name into a browser and then hit search.

Some menus are buried within a website so a consumer is required to drill down several layers to find a menu. A quick scan of the QR code gains customers direct access, skipping a number of steps. Besides, not every website loads quickly.

These are two great tools (links below) to help create customized QR codes that can include an artwork element from the restaurant. They’re extremely flexible … color selections, use of icons, file size output and file types. At this writing, they are free of ads and the link address is clean, highlighting the restaurant and not the code generator’s name.

If you are an organization providing the QR code, we’d encourage providing the restaurant a non-editable file. Content in editable files can move when shifting from a MAC to a PC and vice versa. This also improves the chances that your “courtesy line” remains intact.

If you find this post useful or if your organization creates Contactless Menu for your industry or members, I welcome your feedback.

https://www.qrcode-monkey.com/

https://www.online-qrcode-generator.com/QR-Code-Generator

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