Best Digital Menu Boards for Quick-Service Restaurants: WAND Digital vs NCR

Digital menu boards for fast food restaurants, or quick service restaurants (QSRs), and fast casual restaurants are a must-have for the best customer experience and to scale your business. But with an array of technology to pick from, how do you choose the best digital display software and hardware for your franchise? In this article we’ll compare a few key features and offerings of WAND’s digital menu board platform with NCR’s. If you’re just starting your research or need reasons to make the investment in a digital menu platform, read this article on Why It’s Time to Go Digital with Drive-thru Menu Boards.

The biggest difference between WAND and NCR’s offerings for restaurants is that WAND focuses on digital menus, and NCR’s product is a point-of-sale (POS) system with digital menu management as a secondary feature that’s not cloud-based. WAND connects to your POS system and creates a single source of truth for powering, managing, and revising your digital menus. WAND is hosted by AWS and backed by an offline automatic playback system.

NCR offers two options for their POS system: Aloha Cloud, which is cloud-based but does not include digital menu board management, dayparting, templates or changes. The other is Aloha Essentials, which is not cloud-based but does include digital menu board management features. If you already have Aloha and are looking to add or upgrade your digital menu game, WAND can help you integrate our software with NCR’s POS. If you already have a POS system and are not looking for a complete technology overhaul, Aloha is likely not for you. This also makes NCR the more expensive route as you are paying for the whole kit and caboodle.

WAND enables franchisors and franchisees to grow revenue, stand out from the competition, and save money and time on IT through the use of dynamic digital displays and menu boards. These are some of the best tools owners and operators can add to their growth strategy. Because WAND designs and evolves our products and services specifically for QSRs and fast casual restaurants, we know the industry inside and out and can help you increase average order values and your repeat customer rate.

And, we offer digital menu packages for any stage of growth.

NCR is a global corporation with hands in several industries.

Their POS system is made for restaurants, not specifically QSR’s and fast casual, which could slow your time to market and increase costs for customizing the platform to your needs.

In summary, WAND is your digital display software and technology partner designed to increase your customer’s engagement, average order value, and sales revenue. On the other hand, if you need a whole new POS system and a lot of features in addition to digital menus (and you have more time and budget) Aloha might be worth looking into.

Disclaimer: All information was obtained from public sources on or around the date of publishing this article and may have changed since then. References to NCR are for illustrative and educational purposes only. We are not affiliated with or sponsored by NCR.