Faster Casual: How Payment Technology and Mobile Innovations are Disrupting the Industry Disruptor

For a segment that changed the way people eat at restaurants—finding the middle ground between traditional and quick service—the fast casual restaurant is now at a period of evolution itself. Titled ‘Fast-Casual 2.0,’ the movement hopes to change the customer experience, make it easier for the customer to access the product, and future-proof itself through enhancements in technology, mobile innovations, and improvements in the payments process.

The 2.0 trend itself is led by one of the restaurants that defined the industry: Panera Bread. At the NRF Conference in New York, Director of Enterprise Architecture at Panera, Brian Backer, led a discussion on future-proofing the retail business, recommending the following three things for retailers looking at launching their own 2.0 strategy:

• Do no harm and focus on speed to service.
• Pay attention to the accounting equation as all the reconciliation happens at the payment point.
• Ensure the project has top to bottom company support.

But how did Panera 2.0 come to be? A recent Fast Casual Article highlighting the panel discussion took a deeper look at Panera’s strategy and launch which began rolling out in April 2014, noting frictions that Backer needed to address, including long wait times, order inaccuracy and crowding in the order, pickup and payment environments.

Updating the ordering processes, first implemented with ‘Rapid Pickup,’ allowing customers to order up to five days in advance via online or mobile applications, the Panera 2.0 strategy grew to include online and mobile ordering to a customer’s table, and fast-lane kiosks where customers use iPads to place an order.

From here, the company began to focus on mobile payments, most notably working with Apple Pay for its loyalty and payment process:

“We’ve had great success [with Apple Pay] and it’s still emerging. It’s all about speed to service, allowing customer to skip lines. Our Apple Pay in-app option now represents 24 percent of our transactions, one in four, and we’re very happy with that,” said Backer. “It’s proving to be an extremely easy, positive experience for our customers as has the order ahead option which works extremely well with our demographic.”

As more organizations look to take the 2.0 leap, Backer recommends that leaders focus on the dynamic between customer and cashier, focusing on safety and security of the transaction, customer experience, and reliability of the process before, during, and after the implementation.

“It is considerable work and you need to have a cohesive consumer road map that layouts out the incremental pieces you can do in house and those you can partner on. And you have to challenge your partners,” he said.

For the entire article, head to the Fast Casual article, “Panera exec: Payment, Mobile Innovations Achieving Major Success.”

The movement started by Panera 2.0 is only one part of the ever-changing world of payments. Stay up to date with the evolution in payments technology by subscribing to WEX’s email list and following WEX on Twitter and LinkedIn.