The Wait for the Bill is Over! Wagamama Embraces Digital Dining

Wagamama has officially launched a new mobile payment app. Wagamamago, allows customers who have already downloaded the app to walk in, order, eat, pay and go! 

The restaurant chain’s chief investment officer wanted to find a way to eliminate any unnecessary stress diners can feel waiting to pay for their bill at one of their airport outlets. In response to this, Masterclass helped develop this new cashless technology.  

Wagamama claim the app will save diners an average of 12 minutes every meal, seeing as they will not have to wait to ask for the bill or wait for it to be presented to them and pay for it.

Wagamama customer director Emma Woods said: “Customers are now used to one-click payments for online retailers and walk-out payments from Uber, but there was no app out their offering the same functions for restaurants, hence why we decided to create this app.”

One group of people that may suffer from the introduction of the app are the waiters, as they fear they may lose tips or even lose their jobs. However, Wagamama strongly believe that their app will not impact on tips or staff numbers, because customers can only order starters and some drinks through their app. Wagamama say that the app has been put in place to simply save people time when they want to leave.

For the app to work, diners have to open the app upon entry and when the customer has been given a four digit code. The waiter will give the customer the code to match with the till, then the till will take payment automatically and a receipt will be emailed to the bill-payer/s as customers can split the bill through the app.  

Vice president of product innovation for Mastercard, Jennifer Macrae, said: "We are bringing our digital ordering and payment technology - Qkr - into an app tailor-made for Wagamama's loyal customers. Wagamama is the first to use this technology within their restaurant and we think other businesses will follow suit.”