(Image source from: sentinelassam.com)

With the covid-19 outbreak in India, the last thing on people’s mind now is to go out and eat. This has been affecting the restaurant industry for the worse. While restaurants have been trying to one up their game, Zomata is trying to completely change it for them by introducing “contactless dining”.

Under this, it reduced customer’s interaction with someone else and something that other people might have touched. It is expected to be done with the elimination of some of the “high touch” elements that are found in the restaurants.

The idea behind this is to focus on a full stacked tech based dining experience for the customers with minimal interaction with authorities and prevent touching anything around the restaurant that is not needed.

The contactless dining comprises of three different components:

• Contactless menu allows the users to use a QR code on the table to explore the menu that the restaurant is offering, thereby preventing touching any menu.
• Contactless ordering allows you to order through the application, so you wouldn’t have wait for your turn or even sit and interact with another person.
• Contactless payments promote making digital payments for your food via the application instead of using cards or even cash to pay.

The note added to this further explained that doing this will remove the need for menu cards, bill books which come in contact of many people. Every single staff working or serving your food will be wearing a mask and following all the standard protocols when it comes to sanitisation.

Zomato also said that they are working on including additional features on the application that allows the users to order multiple courses and the option to clear the payments for the entire table on one goes.

This is expected to make the overall dining experience a lot more hassle free and streamlined.

Contactless dining also ensures that the diner doesn’t have to wait for their orders or wait for making their payments as well. This helps make the overall experience a lot more seamless.

The team at Zomato have also mentioned that they are working on more safety features for the application where the restaurant will be able to share their safety protocols and guidelines they are following.

Some of these include hand sanitisation, food hygiene, sanitised premises, temperature check of the staff, hygiene of the staff, table layout and more.

The press release further clarified that the application will further reveal the restaurant’s hygiene levels and records to assist you better on it. Any kind of deviations can also be reported by the consumers on the application for further investigation by the authorities.

Zomato clarified that their main aim is to focus on proactive approach towards safety and normalising the lives of people in the country. The team at Zomato are also going to start reaching out to restaurants in the coming weeks to further educate them on this and make them understand the concept of Contactless dining better.

By Somapika Dutta