Everything new in QR, the updates arriving at your tables
Ordering from the table should feel as natural as asking a waiter for something else. You scan, choose, send it to the kitchen and keep enjoying your meal. No need to understand how the system works or start from scratch every time someone at the table wants to order something.
That's why we've deeply updated Last.app's QR experience. The order now better understands what's happening at the table, lets several customers take part at the same time, and connects many more parts of the customer experience: promotions, loyalty points, past orders, preferences and payment methods.
In short, QR stops being just a menu to order from and becomes a channel that's much more connected to the service and to each customer.
Every QR knows which table you're at
Let's start with something simple but important: customers can now see directly which table number the QR they scanned is linked to.
When you have many QR codes spread across the restaurant, terraces or different dining areas, knowing from the very first moment where the order is being placed removes doubt and helps the customer be clear that everything they send will be linked to the right table. It's a small visual detail, but it adds a lot of context right at the moment the experience begins.
One table, several phones, one shared cart
Probably one of the most important improvements in this update.
Now several people can order from different devices at the same time and share the same cart in real time.
If four people are sitting at a table, there's no longer any need to pass a single phone from hand to hand, or have one person collect what everyone wants. Each guest can scan the QR from their own phone, check the menu and add products.
While someone adds a drink from one phone, someone else can be choosing a starter from another. Changes sync across devices so everyone is looking at the same order.
The technology stays in the background, and the experience feels much more like what naturally happens at a table: everyone orders their own thing, but it's all part of the same account.
Log in and bring your promotions with you
Until now, ordering from a QR was a much more anonymous experience. That's changing. Customers can now log in directly from the QR, which makes it possible to recognize them and connect the table order with any promotions and perks they have available.
If the restaurant has active promotions that apply to that customer, they can access them from their account and use them during the order. This brings the QR experience much closer to the relationship the restaurant already has with its customers beyond a single visit: you're not just someone who scanned a code, you're a customer with your own promotions, history and preferences.
Your points, orders and data, always available
The customer account area also becomes much more complete.
After logging in, customers can check how many points they've earned and review their points history, to understand how they earned them and get more visibility into their participation in the loyalty program.
They can also access, from their account:
- Past orders.
- Available points and points history.
- Saved addresses.
- Saved payment methods.
- Personal account information.
This way, a customer who returns to the restaurant doesn't start from zero every time they scan the QR.
The idea is to build a more continuous experience between visits and across the restaurant's different channels. The less information customers have to re-enter, and the easier it is to pick up where they left off, the easier it is for them to order again.
A more personalized experience for each customer
From their personal area, customers can also edit their information and select certain preferences related to their experience. These preferences can be managed through tags, letting the restaurant get to know its customers better and build profiles with useful information for future interactions.
It's not just about knowing how much someone has spent or how many times they've visited. It's also about better understanding their preferences and keeping that information connected to their profile. QR becomes another point from which to keep building a relationship with the customer, rather than an isolated interaction that disappears once the bill is paid.
Decide what you want to show when someone opens your QR
We've also added new customization options from the admin panel.
You can now decide which sections you want to show within the QR experience and better tailor the entry to your menu based on your restaurant.
From Admin you can choose whether to show:
- The cover image or an image carousel.
- Reviews.
- The customer's past orders.
- The most-ordered products.
This lets QR become much more than a list of categories and products.
You can give more prominence to your restaurant's visual side, use reviews to build trust, help regular customers repeat something they've ordered before, or automatically highlight the products that perform best.
Every restaurant sells in its own way. You can now decide which information makes the most sense to put in front of the customer before they start browsing the menu.
More opportunities to complete the order
New product recommendations also arrive during the purchase process. Before reaching the cart, QR can show upsell suggestions to round out the order with other products that make sense. A drink, a side, an extra or a dessert can appear at the right moment without forcing the customer to go back and browse the whole menu again. The idea isn't to add steps to the process, but to make better use of the ones that already exist: making it easy to discover something extra exactly when it makes sense.
You know when your order is already in the kitchen
After placing an order, we also wanted to improve something fundamental: the peace of mind of knowing everything worked. Customers now get confirmation once their order has been successfully sent to the kitchen. That feedback removes one of the most common moments of uncertainty when ordering from a phone: wondering whether the order actually went through or needs to be sent again. Once confirmed, the customer knows the kitchen already has the ticket and can keep enjoying the experience without having to call a staff member to check.
Keep ordering even after some items are already in the kitchen
In restaurants that work with open accounts, QR now reflects much more accurately how a meal actually works. Once part of the order has already been sent to the kitchen, the items sent stay visible within the account, set apart from what's still being added to the cart. This way, the table can see what's already been ordered and keep adding new products without losing track of the whole order.
You order some starters and they're sent to the kitchen. A little later someone wants another drink. Later still comes time to order dessert. All of it can keep being part of the same experience, keeping visibility over what's already been sent and what's still pending. This makes QR adapt much better to the real rhythm of a restaurant, where an order rarely happens all at once.
A QR that accompanies the whole table experience
With this update, we wanted ordering through QR to stop feeling like a one-off action. Customers know which table they're at, can share the order with the rest of the table, identify themselves, use their promotions, check their points, retrieve past orders and keep adding products even after the kitchen has started working.
Meanwhile, the restaurant has more tools to decide what to show, highlight what works best, and get to know the people who come to its tables better. The goal remains the same: remove friction wherever technology can, and let the team focus on what actually adds value to the service.
Because QR shouldn't replace the experience of a restaurant. It should make everything that happens around it a little easier.
See you in the next update.