Fast food business is constantly changing. Digitalisation has paved the way for new ways of ordering food, changing the customer culture and expectations with it.
Born in Finland, Hesburger opened its first restaurant in 1980 and has since become an international chain with over 500 restaurants all over Europe. Hesburger’s goal is to stay ahead of the curve in the fast food world by adopting new technologies and user experience best practices. Teaming up with Taiste and Arado, another Finland-based software company, was a means to achieve this.
We have worked together closely with them since 2017 and have grown to be their main technology and design partner – making the restaurant experience streamlined and more sustainable for both customers and employees alike.
Client
Hesburger
Industry
Restaurant
Platform
ERP / Employee software / Restaurant software / Mobile app
Services
Service design / Digital design / Software development / Continuous improvement
Customers expect high quality from digital user experiences. In order to meet those standards, Hesburger is committed to constant improvement and updates when it comes to their services. Here are some customer-side implementations we’ve helped them with:
Hesburger’s smartphone application offers a quick way to order, pay and pick up the meals from the restaurants. It also includes digital versions of the classic Hesburger coupons and a loyalty card for mobile.
Found in a large number of Hesburger’s restaurants and available in various languages, self-service kiosks enable the customers to place and pay for their orders at their own pace, customising the meals to their liking if needed.
After placing the order, the restaurants’ pick up screens make it easy to follow what happens next. No matter which purchase method the customer chooses, they’re always up to date on what the status of the order is.
Digitalisation and the pandemic years has rapidly increased the use of different sales channels: including self-service desks and mobile services such as Wolt and Foodora, making managing the workload more complex for the employees. Here are some of the tools we’ve developed to answer their needs.
Hesburger’s new sales system is designed to make the daily lives of the restaurant staff more stress-free and organised. To achieve this, we’ve been developing the system in close co-operation with staff members. In order to make the system as easy as possible, we need to understand the operational environment on a practical level, too. We’ve established a method called Hesburger Test Lab, a regular co-design and user testing session where the restaurant employees and managers join brainstorming forces with us at our office.
The order tablet is a tool that allows the restaurant staff to process the incoming orders from all sales channels. It includes features like an easy checklist for communicating with the customers. Hosting all different order types within the same user interface has been an inspiring challenge from both design and development perspectives.
Hesburger’s Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system hosts product, sales, pricing, discount site and company information. It functions as the centerpiece of Hesburger’s business, communicating with the point of sale system, external sales systems, order tablets and order number displays. The ERP is custom-made for Hesburger. The system is modular, meaning it allows the developers to swiftly build new features for it when the need arises.
In a long partnership like this, a mindset of constant learning is key. Our processes are designed to leave room for evaluation – so that we can do better with each iteration.
Kari Salmela
CEO, Hesburger