Guzman y Gomez & Adyen: Serving up the fastest, tastiest dining experience in Singapore

Guzman y Gomez (GYG) is a Mexican casual-dining chain that started in Sydney in 2006. Since then, the franchise has expanded its international footprint to Japan, the US, and foodie paradise – Singapore.

“When you visit any GYG, you’ll notice that the team is energetic, passionate and crazy about the food! It’s our commitment to continually provide the best quality service, the best ingredients – and the best fast food experience – things just keep getting better.

Since launching in Singapore in 2014, we’ve been focused on growing the business, and building what we call our dream team,” shares Josh Bell, General Manager and Master Franchisee of GYG Singapore.

The brand has grown from its first location at Asia Square Tower, in the heart of the city’s Central Business District (CBD), to 11 locations islandwide, with another 4 outlets scheduled for the next 12 months.

“Our partnership with Adyen started in 2018 when we were introduced by our POS provider, Revel Systems. Back then, our POS team identified that we had a number of challenges with order-taking, communication of orders to our kitchen operations, and technology integration. We wanted to improve the speed of transactions, and communications with the various payments solutions.

Once we went live with Adyen, we could see an almost-immediate positive impact on our operations. Order time was greatly reduced, materially improving the customer experience. Every customer order can now be completed in just seconds, which is becoming more and more valuable from a customer perspective. We are a fast-paced quick service restaurant (QSR) brand, so speed is key,” Josh adds.

Reduction in transaction speeds also has a lot to do with a shift in customer payment preferences in Singapore – from cash to contactless payment options.

Following the Covid-19 outbreak, consumers demanded more hygienic payment methods, eschewing cash payments and debit payments that involve keying in their PIN numbers – favoring contactless NFC card payments, mobile payments and QR payments.

In fact, Singaporeans are the world’s most hygiene-conscious consumers. 72% have indicated that they are concerned about payment terminal cleanliness as compared to the global average of 54% in our2020 Agility Report Singapore.

“Customers these days prefer contactless and mobile payments. It’s super easy – we just need to tell them to tap their cards or devices on the POS terminal. We’re also seeing fewer and fewer cash transactions,” says Rachel Ng, Restaurant Manager at GYG.

This growing trend helps relieve stresses faced by the staff during the lunch and dinner service hours too – the 12 to 2pm and 5 to 7pm peak periods QSR brands are very familiar with. How so?

While fewer customers may be dining in due to safe distancing measures and reduced seating, GYG is noticing a higher number of takeaway and delivery orders across its restaurants during mealtimes. And if transactions take too long, orders will start piling up and long lines will form in and around the restaurants.

“With a fast payment process, it’s much easier during peak hours, there are less communication errors and there is a much bigger focus on the menu and customization, rather than the standard back-and-forward with traditional payment methods,” says Bernadette Naguiat, who is part of the front-of-house team at GYG.

Josh: “Because the Revel POS system is integrated with our Adyen terminals, revenue reconciliation is flawless as it’s controlled by technology. There was also significant improvement in revenue leakage and a complete eradication of errors once we switched to Adyen.”

As a reliable payments solution that ensured revenue reconciliation for business owners like Josh, Adyen was also quite popular among GYG’s store managers.

Reconciliation or settlement reports have become easier, as these managers no longer needed to spend additional time at the end of their shifts “matching receipts and checking for variances”.

Rachel, who’s been with the team for almost five years, shares, “All the store managers love it, it’s a real life-saver for all of us. Our end-of-day reports are much simpler. No more sorting of receipts by transactions or payment modes. That’s a whole load of burden taken off our shoulders.

Usually when there is a system change, you’d expect some hiccups. But switching to Adyen was just so easy, we didn’t have to change the way we work – which was surprising for me.”

“Initially, we were skeptical because integration of technology platforms from our experience here in Singapore before we met Adyen was a bit of a pipe dream.

It’s actually very refreshing when the Adyen team came down to our restaurant, spent time in our operations – deeply understanding what POS system we use, and helping us identify the ways their technology can improve our operations,” Josh mentions.

While early conversations between GYG and the Adyen team surrounded pricing and streamlining payments for diners, the partnership always focused on business growth and how Adyen can bring better value to the table.

From implementing a digital solution that’s fully compatible with its POS platform to empowering the GYG dream team with easy-to-use payments terminals, Adyen helps ensure the business is always ready to leverage technology to stay ahead. This is crucial as the world is going through accelerated digitization and demands greater agility from F&B businesses.

Perhaps Josh says it best: “Having the Adyen infrastructure in place and operational meant that we/GYG could seamlessly and effortlessly adapt to this tectonic shift in consumer behaviour and payment preferences. There are no barriers, roadblocks or bottlenecks, and our customers have full flexibility and freedom when coming to dine with us”.

The more we can use technology to remove friction in the ways we work, the customer experience we offer, and execution risks in the business, the more efficient we are going to become. With a partnership with Adyen, we know we’re going to be at the forefront of technology, innovation and adaptation as the world continues to quickly evolve.”