Qu, the leader in unified commerce for fast-casual and quick-service (QSR) brands, has officially announced the launch of new platform innovations, each one geared towards empowering operators to boost average check sizes, improve guest experiences, and at the same time, make faster, more informed decisions amid today’s challenging economic landscape.
To understand the significance of such a development, we must take into account one Nation’s Restaurant News’ article, which reveals that fast-casual and quick-service restaurants are experiencing softer sales and declining traffic, causing significant profitability challenges and tighter margins. Against that, full-service concepts were found to be more stable and resilient through May 2025,
Anyway, talk about how Qu’s latest effort will address these challenges, we begin from the promise of intelligent kiosk upselling and promotions. As brands using kiosks have consistently seen higher check averages, Qu is set to deliver new upsell and cross-sell capabilities that, on their part, will prompt guests through timely, high-margin add-ons at both kiosks and POS. This comes after Qu customers are already realizing increased check averages of up to 22% from kiosk cross-sell alone.
In fact, even when idle, kiosks can display branded video content or screensavers, leveraging wait time to open up a real promotional window.
Next up, there is a facility for smarter cross-sell performance tracking. Basically, operators can come expecting to access dedicated data regarding which prompts drive the highest acceptance rates and revenue lift, something which should simplify the process of optimizing promotions and pairings.
Another detail worth a mention relates to a feature focused on bolstering third-party order acceptance. You see, Qu’s technology has historically shown to reduce third-party order failures to just 0.2%, well below the 0.7% industry average. For locations with $50,000 in monthly marketplace volume, the stated savings make up over $3,000 in recovered revenue per location annually.
This advancement also fetched Qu the exclusive “Excellent” rating in DoorDash’s new Preferred Integrations Program, the only POS platform to receive te distinction.
Moving on, the company would further go on to launch multi-currency POS capabilities. Going by Americas Franchising Group’s word, U.S. franchises are projected to expand their international footprint by 12% in 2025.
Hence, Qu can now facilitate seamless transactions in Canadian dollars and Mexican pesos. Beyond that, we have automatic currency conversion and unified reporting features coming into play to optimize operations for border-region and international locations.
Then, we have a real-time item state tracking solution that can help you achieve real-time kitchen orchestration. This intelligent kitchen display system is basically designed to guide prep teams in the context of when to start and finish items, improving speed and reducing errors during peak shifts.
The said innovation can be shared with guests to enhance transparency and reduce miscommunication at handoffs.
Hold on, we still have a couple of bits left to unpack, considering we haven’t yet touched upon Qu’s commitment to bolster voice and chat reporting. Here, the company’s Notify app jumps into action to conceive access for real-time sales, labor, and campaign performance insights through voice and chat.
Such a mechanism eliminates any need for manual reports. Joining that would be a new feedback feature which empowers users to rate responses and improve the accuracy, as well as relevance of future answers.
Rounding up highlights would be the prospect of integrated energy and equipment monitoring. Qu’s IoT integrations come in handy in the said area to track equipment performance and energy usage in real time.
Founded in 2012, Qu’s rise up the ranks stems from its industry-leading, cloud-native Unified Commerce Platform which is known for combining the ordering, operations and guest engagement functions to generate real-time data and ensure more informed decision-making.
Qu’s excellence in what it does can be understood once you consider it is backed by leading restaurant entrepreneurs and investors, including Cota Capital, Enlightened Hospitality Investments (EHI), Bobby Cox Companies and NRD Capital.
“Traffic is down, but expectations aren’t,” said Amir Hudda, CEO of Qu. “Our job is to help operators make every guest visit count — whether that’s boosting check averages with strategic upsells, reducing wait times with faster fulfillment, or delivering a unified technology experience that ensures every guest leaves satisfied.”
