Dash In, with more than 50 stores, has been testing self-checkouts from NCR. With labor costs rising, the chain began looking for ways to improve labor efficiency, says Vice President of Retail Mark Samuels.

“Self-checkout, along with self-serve food ordering kiosks, were easy adds to help streamline our operations and utilize labor in areas where we feel we can improve the guest experience,” he says.

The self-checkout units saw “immediate adoption,” he says. “Customers like the flexibility of completing their own transactions.”
Among the learnings: Retrofitted self-checkout in existing locations proved cramped because of space limitations. After completing three retrofits, the company decided to include self-checkout only in new builds.

“This gave us the opportunity to improve the self-checkout layout and place the full-service registers in the optimal location behind the counter,” Samuels says.

Dash In is also developing its loyalty program with mobile-app, order-ahead and mobile-payment services. “All of these technologies help speed transaction time and keep our guests lives in motion. Our mission [is] to make every guest transaction quick, engaging and frictionless.”