Proprietary Digital Chit App

Description

In this era of the digital consumer, members of the Detroit Athletic Club have come to expect near-instant gratification with impeccable execution. As part of the Club’s strategic plan, the Food and Beverage Department ordered up a digital platform to provide seamless beverage service during the Club’s many member activities. Enter, the digital chit app.

To elevate the quality of service to members and their guests, the DAC developed this app to provide efficient and accurate beverage ordering and delivery using a handheld device. The app, whose back-end software incorporates built.io and the Content Stack content management system, integrates with the Club’s NorthStar point-of-sale and T-Stream systems.

The app was built so that the user interface looked exactly like the paper chits that had been used for years. This gave a sense of ease through a major change and added a level of comfort.

Goals:

• Implement an exceptional platform that rapidly processes beverage orders.
• Preserve the ordering process by using the members’ directory interface to recognize members’ photos and numbers.
• Customize ordering through menus and global search.
• Eliminate the use of handwritten paper chits to reduce errors and enhance accountability.
• Instant menu modification through Club’s Content Stack CMS.

Implementation

Using the chit app, a server can look up members and registered guests, take their beverage orders either by drink or category of drink, modify the order (An extra olive, perhaps?), add a garnish (A twist of lime?) or add additional drinks. The app also allows the member to select a liquor of choice, add a gratuity, split the bill with another member—and, finally, sign the bill. All electronically. In addition, servers can review members’ previous orders and provide a list of specials.

The Implementation:

• DAC chit mobile app software was developed, allowing a complete digital ordering system that interfaces with the Club’s NorthStar POS system.
• The Club purchased the relevant hardware: iPhones, iPads and check printers.
• Menu categories with corresponding NorthStar POS item codes for each menu item were created in the Club’s Content Stack CMS.
• A series of offline chit URLs were developed for user acceptance testing.
• The chit app was made fully operational in June 2018.