Convenience and cost-effectiveness—those are the driving forces behind technological novelties in business. The restaurant business is no exception. Psychologists say that while eating a person feels secure. It seems that mobile apps help to extend this feeling to other parts of the restaurant-going process—ordering, making reservations, payments—while at the same time allow restaurateurs to save where it counts. Here are some of the most valuable features.
Mobile reservations
Thirty-six percent of diners say the ability to reserve a table online is already an essential feature of a restaurant, as well as online or mobile ordering capabilities (19 percent).
Open the app and choose the time when you’d like to attend the venue with your friends and/or family – and you’re done. No need to call and have conversations with the restaurant staff. And in many cases during the peak hours, the caller listens to a busy line, which is not the case with an app. For the restaurant staff it is a perfect way to know how many clients will attend the venue and allocate resources wisely. And not have servers waste time on the phone when they can be helping in-store customers.
Menu view and in-app ordering
Menus with colorful pictures and dishes descriptions will be a key part of your app, as well as pricing and “add to basket” button. By offering your clients a mobile app with ordering opportunities you avoid a situation when they search for new restaurants and delivery options in directory websites and thus remain your clients for as long as possible. Besides, mobile ordering helps minimize human error, which makes orders more accurate and improves guest satisfaction.
About 25 to 50 percent of the population are introverts that dislike talking on the phone, so, you make it convenient for them to make online reservations instead of calling. In turn, you become open to bigger amounts of clients.
Loyalty program
Running a loyalty program is one of the most common and effective ways to use an mobile app. Staff workers can forget about the need to punch the card and visitors don’t need to think about bringing it. Besides, a restaurateur can save money on reissuing lost cards and cards with mistakes. Everything is done through the user’s and server’s mobile devices.
Orders history
Orders history allows the restaurant visitor to quickly find the order they previously made and repeat it. So, again, no need to talk to the staff describing the exact pasta you ordered last time.
Marketing insights and activities
You will get access to the statistics and the opportunity to analyse the audience data—the goods they choose, their favorite dishes, number of orders and much more. News, promotions, banners and push-notifications—a whole marketing toolkit is available. Replace the conservative sms and email blasts, which cost you quite a sum, with the more effective push-notifications that produce much bigger open rates. Besides, your restaurant’s app is going to be branded according to your corporate identity guidelines increasing brand loyalty. Imagine every client having your restaurant’s logo on their smartphone screen.
”We don’t get any return on investment with your mobile apps.” That was the take of a recent client. ”We don’t think we should keep on collaborating.” Taking into account a decent number of success stories we had with our customers and our client`s app showing 750 per cent ROI (including loyalty program economy, 20 per cent delivery growth, and other parameters), that was quite a puzzle our project manager had to face.
She immediately checked the customer’s website, social media channels, asked colleagues if they visited the restaurant and saw table tents there and if waiters suggested installing the app. The research showed no adds and information about the app at all. The same result with the app control panel—zero promotions, zero push-notifications, zero banners and only 1 news created (which came as a surprise!).
Imagine you have a spade and expect your garden to grow with the mere fact that you possess it. It’s not gonna work that way! It’s the same with mobile apps—that’s a tool you need to use correctly to reap benefits. According to statistics, 25 percent of people have at least one restaurant app on their smartphone, which means 1 out of 4 are ready to communicate with a restaurant through an app. So, here we list several things you could do to bring your app closer to the visitors:
- Employees should suggest installing the app to the venue visitors.
If you ask us, we consider the waiter to be the fastest and most efficient channel to tell the customers about your mobile app. That is why staff training gets essentially important (it has always been). Write scripts on how, when and whom to offer the app. The employee needs to know how to install the app, what kind of issues may arise during the process and, the last but not least, why the visitor needs to install the app (as long as you know the possible motivations things get much easier).
- The delivery couriers should tell the customers about the app
It’s almost the same as with in-store employees. Scripts will not be out of place. And additional loyalty points for installing the app and ordering with it too.
- The delivery food package should also tell the customers about the opportunity to install the mobile application.
The food package is not only about delivering food in proper condition to the customer’s table. You can use it to pitch the things you need. And if your mobile app downloads are not going up, “App Store“ and “Google Play“ logos on the package cover may come in handy.
- In the restaurant, there should be table-tents within customer’s view
It’s the same as with the delivery package—use your tables for pitching. But do that wisely with neat and well-designed table-tents. Doubled with a promotion, information about the app can potentially be interesting to your clients.
- Don’t forget to mention the app in your social media channels and the website
Make it part of your web and social media strategy to remind users about the mobile app you have and the loyalty points they can get for using it. Make special promotions and contests for users that haven’t installed the apps yet.
- Incentivize the review process
If the customer enjoyed the delivery and the food quality they would be glad to leave a review and… get some more points too. Surely, negative experience can, and in many cases will, spark a review as well. But since the user has left it, it means they’re not indifferent to your business and that’s something you can work with. Comment. Maybe, offer a free dish and deal with the problem. That could be something you didn’t even know about—something you can make work better in your restaurant.
- Sending push-notifications is vitally important for client retention
Sending push-notifications is one of the best ways to interact with your audience directly. In some aspects, the benefits of push-notifications outweigh those of emails—users read push-notifications instantaneously, while emails wait to be read in their inboxes. The reason for that is push-notifications being shown on the lock screen. Apart from higher open rates, mobile apps using push notifications have higher retention rates. But you need to use this tool wisely—not less than once a week and not more than four times a month. Besides, the message must be short, specific and contain a clear call to action. Vary your content and make sure that it’s topical and contains what’s important first.
Our client’s (a network of five restaurants) findings show that sending push-notifications helps increase delivery orders by 20 per cent and venue attendance by 7 per cent.
Upon the whole, our clients promoting and using mobile application the right way achieve up to 30,000 downloads of their apps (per restaurant network). So, don’t wait for competitors to lure your clients with technology—order an app for your restaurant, attract more visitors, and earn money.
If you consider going mobile with your restaurant business, contact Metaimins team with any questions and concerns you may have.
