Customers reject touchscreen ordering due to coronavirus fears

Nearly two-thirds of UK adults (61%) have said they will avoid using touch-screen kiosks to order food and drink in hospitality venues after the lockdown measures are lifted.

The results of new research released from mobile order and pay provider Wi5 show that fears over sharing the screens with other customers is likely to hugely affect usage.

Of the respondents, 59% said they would now be more likely “to use my own mobile to order and pay from a table” than before the crisis took hold. Of those who said they’d avoid using a touchscreen, the number one reason was “not liking the thought of touching a screen used by so many other people before touching my food”.

However, the research also found that 59% said they were likely to return to fast food, casual dining restaurants (51%), pubs and bars (51%) and cafés (58%) within weeks of venues reopening.

When asked what would make them more likely to visit a restaurant, bar or café after the lockdown, most wanted to know there are clear hygiene measures in place, with 58% saying they would want to know the venue is being regularly cleaned, and 54% wanting to see provision of hand sanitiser throughout the venue.

The next most important issues related to social distancing, with 48% wanting to see limits to the numbers of customers in each business, and 36% saying they would be swayed positively by seeing floor markers for social distancing.

Gavin Peters, chief marketing and strategy officer for Wi5, said “These results clearly show how customer behaviour in hospitality will change after the lockdown ends, with ordering kiosks likely to be seen as too much of a hygiene risk for most customers.

"Helping customers use their own devices for ordering, making some simple operational changes to limit any perceived unnecessary hygiene risks and, crucially, communicating those changes well to customers will be key to helping rebuild consumer confidence and ensuring the sector recovers as fast as possible."