The Restaurant Software Diners Love: 2025 Tech Trends

There’s lots of different technology options available for venue operators when it comes to swapping manual processes for digital systems that make your life easier.  

From booking management systems, to restaurant billing software, to online food ordering systems for restaurants – your hospitality business can be all singing, all dancing in no time. But, is that what your diners want? 

Our recent Beyond the Booking 2025 report highlights some interesting diner preferences regarding technology in the hospitality industry. 

The right restaurant software for the right setting 

How can restaurants toe the line between leveraging technology and preserving the dining experience to keep diners happy?  

It all comes down to right place, right time.  

Imagine you’re a customer placing an order on a self-service kiosk at a fast-food joint or pre-ordering a coffee through a coffee chain app. These are seamless, expected interactions that add convenience for the diner.  

But if the same process were required at a fine dining restaurant, the experience would be vastly different, as this is a setting that should prioritise service, ambiance, and attentiveness, rather than pure efficiency.

In this situation, technology would interrupt the experience and diminish instead of enhancing. The key is understanding which tech solutions fit the service offering you want to deliver and sticking to it. 

Diner opinions on restaurant software 

ResDiary surveyed 113 diners across Australia and New Zealand about their attitudes towards dining out and discovered a lot about their restaurant technology preferences. Explore their responses and the comparison between countries in our exclusive 2025 Dining Out Trends and Restaurant Stats infographic.

So, where do Australian and New Zealand diners draw the line when it comes to restaurant software?

Best Restaurant Reservation Software

Beyond the Booking 2025 data revealed that 69% of diners prefer to book by calling the restaurant directly. 

It was also revealed that if a diner called to make a booking and were unable to get through the first time, 59% would call twice before trying elsewhere, and 12% would immediately try an alternative restaurant.  

This highlights just how important it is for venues to have a system in place for taking booking enquiries via telephone, in an age where the assumption is that everything is online-first.  

ResDiary’s ResPhone feature is the perfect tech to support you with this -  allowing customers to place a booking when nobody can come to the phone. ResPhone accesses your diary, entering in a customer’s details for their desired time. If their preferred time isn’t available, ResPhone will offer them the closest available slot. So, don’t worry about losing a booking because your staff are too busy or it’s outside of hours - it’s all taken care of! 

Despite phone bookings being the number one choice for diners looking to make a reservation, 52% say they like being able to book or edit bookings online – with 57% expecting to be able to do this as standard. ❤️ Definitely a ‘Love’ from the diners for this tech trend. 

With ResDiary, not only can diners make and edit reservations via a widget on your website, but you can also capture all diner data to increase repeat bookings, promote offers, access ResPhone for multi-channel booking, and measure performance across of all these too.  

It’s clear that the majority of diners love a restaurant with online booking capacity, and using a restaurant reservation system can provide this and so much more.

No matter how your customers want to make a booking, ResDiary is here to help. 

Restaurant Billing Software

Efficient billing is essential for a smooth dining experience. 

Having restaurant billing software automates and simplifies the payment process, reducing errors and saving time for both diners and staff.  

Systems like Triniteq or Bepoz provide you with intuitive setups that allow you to accept various payments, automatically prompt promotional offers and deliver more accurate orders with ease. They can also offer at-table payment - eliminating the need for guests to wait for a server.  

Interestingly, data suggests that 51% of diners do not like being able to pay for food via their mobile phone at the table. But this ultimately comes down to what type of establishment they are at. 

Fast-casual, yes. Fine dining, maybe not. 

If you’re a busy lunch spot in a shopping centre, a countryside pub frequented by walkers, or a bar near a sports venue on game day, where convenience and efficiency are key, then pay-at-table options could be perfect for you. Providing guests a quick and easy experience, speeding up the turnaround of tables – what's not to love? 

If you’re a fine dining venue on the other hand, pay-at-table via mobile is probably not for you. This is a setting where diners want attentive service from your restaurant team – favouring the personal touch over tech efficiency. You might therefore opt to keep the billing process internal, and ditch QR-code payment options if they don't suit your service offering. 

Even if you’re not using pay-at-table options though, you can still absolutely use your billing software to utilise features like split bills, contactless payments, and promotional discounts to significantly enhance operational efficiency.  

Just think twice about whether you’re using systems in the right way for diners and your restaurant mission.

Online Food Ordering System for Restaurants

Diners have a similar sentiment towards online ordering at restaurants, as they do towards pay-at-table options, with Beyond the Booking 2025 data suggesting that 61% of Aussies and Kiwis don’t like ordering food via their mobile phone at the table.   

Again, this all comes down to right software, right setting.  

Online ordering is a natural fit for fast-casual dining and takeout venues, with tools allowing for easy mobile and kiosk ordering. If you’re a fast-food outlet, this is essentially standard practice nowadays and it's what diners want. Speed and efficiency.  

If you’re a full-service restaurant, you might also utilise an online food ordering system like Triniteq or Bepoz to drive orders through services like DoorDash or UberEats, for example. However, for customers dining-in, full-service restaurants might want to focus on customer interaction instead and keep the technology out of diner reach. 

The goal is always to provide convenience without compromising the quality of the dining experience, so be sure to consider the best options for your diners and business. 

Restaurant Loyalty Software

Building a loyal customer base is crucial for long-term success in the restaurant industry – and diners who feel appreciated love to come back time and time again. 

Restaurant loyalty software helps venue operators encourage these repeat visits by offering tailored rewards, tracking customer preferences, and running personalised marketing campaigns.  

The easiest way of doing this is by linking your loyalty programme to the rest of your restaurant software.

For example, ResDiary links seamlessly with Talkbox – allowing you to capture diner data from bookings, push it into your marketing automations and automatically send relevant offers and rewards to the right people!

Diners love it because loyalty programs create a sense of value and connection, which venue operators can capitalise on much more in 2025 to further drive bookings and revenue increases. 

For further insight into diner trends and venue predictions for 2025, download our full Beyond the Booking 2025 report.