According to sources from ‘The American Rescue Plan Act of 2021’, it didn’t take long for President Biden to sign the $1.9 Trillion COVID-19 relief bill. The question is, how is Biden’s stance on COVID-19 relief related to restaurant online ordering platform(s) from all over the world?
More importantly, does the U.S. market have anything to do with restaurant online ordering platform operations – so much so that it affects the business model for involved parties on different sides – i.e., the customer and the name brand restaurant owners.
It turns out that the U.S. relief bill enacted a sense of relief for restaurants, gyms, public places, and other recreational spots. A huge chunk of that bill was allocated to the Restaurant Revitalization Fund that intends to support small and medium-sized businesses in the F&B industry.
When combing through this situation from a broader perspective, Arab News recently scooped up the importance of restaurant online ordering platforms in the aftermath of the Pandemic situation, and how technology is advancing to help such businesses under such pretext.
‘The Kingdom Vs. Covid-19’ issue instigates swift actions performed by the Saudi Government to not only help restaurant online ordering platform(s) to gain traction, but also enact a safer ordering system that favors both sides without any hassles.
This post highlights the significance of a restaurant online ordering platform for customers and business owners at the same time. More importantly, if you happen to be a restaurant owner in the Middle East, such as somewhere in the posh vicinities of Dubai, Abu Dhabi, or vice versa, make sure to give this post a thorough read.
To that effect, we have also highlighted the impact of any restaurant online ordering platform on Asian markets and other geographical locations where the food industry was following a cookie-cutter formula during the pre-Covid era.
Top 4 Mistakes to Avoid When Creating an Online Ordering Platform
While it’s exciting to create an online ordering platform for your restaurant, please avoid these mistakes when you are starting for the first time.
Create an Order Button at the Top:
Online ordering platforms for restaurants are meticulously crafted by keeping customers’ interactions in mind. Although it is easier for people to order food from food ordering apps, it is an entirely different story when they place an order through online restaurant websites.
If you don’t have a mobile food order app, make sure that your restaurant website has a simple UI – UX design. The order button is supposed to be easily accessible, and visible at the top of your website. Likewise, the entire ordering process, once, the items are added to customers’ cart, should lead to an easy checkout process, followed up with a relatively quick food delivery system.
Don’t Boggle Customers With Too Many Choices:
Having one clear call to action button on your mobile food ordering website is one of the key traits to having the best online ordering platform for restaurants.
Customers like simple, precise, and to-the-point information. To make your ordering process easy, have your dishes assorted in a way that people can add them FIRST to the cart, and then customize their order through the flavor, topping, and side choices they want to go for.
Likewise, introduce flexible payment options through the integration of restaurant pos tools. Not every customer is interested in paying upfront for his order. Some people prefer contactless, or cashless delivery. Keep everything in mind while you are looking to scale.
Not Using Your Back End Dashboard As a Restaurant Business Owner:
The best online ordering platforms always come with an easily accessible custom dashboard for business owners.
It depends on your foodservice aggregator technology. Fortunately, with Blink Co. you get access to a white-labeled back end, with a dedicated dashboard and instant access to different tools.
With Blink Co.’s powerful dashboard availability:
1. You can run marketing promotions for your restaurant
2. Utilize customer data, sale purchase trends, and analytics
3. Manage fleet for timely deliveries
4. Change menu pricing
5. Create an instant online restaurant menu within a few minutes
… and about a bazillion other things. Oftentimes, it’s the food aggregator you partner with, really matters. If you are not a Blink Co. client, you can request a free demo, or visit Blink for Restaurants page for more details.
Not Using High-Quality Food Images:
High-quality food images work wonders in bringing any online ordering platform to fruition. Plus, food lovers are naturally attracted to cheesy closeup shots of special in-house restaurant dishes.
You can schedule your posts and share them through your online restaurant social media profiles for maximum impact.
Your Average Customer Is in Awe of Restaurant Ordering Platform:
For a variety of reasons, an average customer is in awe of any popular food restaurant ordering platform.
For instance, the hermit types who sit on their couch for long hours, like to use a restaurant ordering platform because it gives time to focus on other important things.
Err… it could be their famous Opera marathon, or genuine office work, or maybe an effort to avoid interaction with the outside world for days on end. In times like these, people just want to finger bang the mobile food ordering menu, while knowing that their ordering will arrive soon in the perfect record time window.
Then again, such statements allude to the general supposition. Aside from the convenience factor, there are many other valid reasons for customers to rely on their favorite restaurant online ordering platform. Divert your attention to the Asian marketplace, and you will notice that it makes up for the 6th largest grocery and restaurant market in the world. That leaves global food and beverage industries to make up for a total of 8% of businesses that are catering to millions of people all over.
Likewise, the nutrition business in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and other regions are quickly growing at an exponential rate. It might be a dull thing to say, given the context, but due to COVID-19, many industries were exposed to new ways of catering to their customers.
Restaurants, in this sense, hopped up on the online ordering platform at full throttle, and by all means, dished out some serious numbers in their fiscal year reports.
Here are some additional reasons that highlight the fact that restaurant online ordering platform is more important and beneficial to customers:
The Convenience Factor:
The convenience factor goes hand in hand with how easy it is to use a restaurant online ordering platform, and the way the name-brand tends to service each customer. Then there’s the added perk of breezing through intuitive UI – UX combination, where customers don’t have to gloat over submenu options and waste time.
The ease of navigability, alone, is one of the primary factors that people prefer using restaurant online ordering platforms for their day-to-day food-related orders. The top deals are featured in the upper fold, right where customers can see them. Other related meal categories are appended below – so on and so forth, hence creating an interactive experience for online customers.
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This type of convenience wasn’t previously available to walk-in customers. Food establishments had to rely on their waiters at length to upsell the most popular dishes. Also, people are naturally picky about the right-hand side of a traditional brick-and-mortar restaurant menu.
To mitigate such factors, not only restaurants benefited from transitioning to online food ordering platforms, but also the customers don’t worry about spending too much time on spotting savory deals through an entire 10-page menu!
Tons of Payment Options:
For any restaurant online ordering platform, flexible payment options do a real solid to customers.
While online Credit/Debit card payments are a great way of securing your food orders instantly, people tend to go for the ‘Cash on Delivery’ mode. The latter seems to be a win-win situation for not only customers but the restaurant businesses as well.
In a wiser sense, flexible payment options are more of a game-changer for restaurants and customers altogether. As a matter of fact, ‘Digital Water’, in its recent survey, highlighted overall spending patterns of people using restaurant online ordering platform, as opposed to the conventional dine-in route:
- Customers reportedly spend $50 or up when they are ordering food through a mobile app.
- 57% of respondents from the millennial generation are of the view that using a restaurant online ordering platform is great because it gives time to surf through Netflix and do other important stuff.
- 59% of orders for food come through mobile apps and POS systems. Restaurant owners further reported that these orders are separated into ‘Cash on Delivery’ and other payment option modes.
- For the long stretch between the year 2020 – 2024, restaurant businesses are expecting a phenomenal growth factor of 9.5% in terms of revenue.
Moving on, the integration of payment options is a flexible way of pushing in cashless transactions that mature as soon as the customer receives his order. This phenomenon encourages businesses to divert their customers towards using a restaurant online ordering platform.
Location Tracking Like Never Before:
GPS location tracking is a two-faced coin that works in favor of restaurants and customers at the same time.
For customers, it is important to know where their rider has reached as soon as the order is picked up for delivery. These customers can easily track down rider activity/ movement from the convenience of the food ordering app due to the integrated GPS location tracking system. It’s non-intrusive, light, and works like a charm to pinpoint everything.
Meanwhile, real-time tracking is important to restaurants because it helps them to coordinate with the rider in case he faces delays or such predicaments. Also, if you think of it from another perspective, restaurants have an integrated fleet management system that sheds insight on all rider-related activities concerning food deliveries, unexpected stops, and vice versa. This technology helps these name-brand business owners to further personalize their food delivery services to outshine online restaurant competition.
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Rated Review System:
Ah yes, reviews are a savory delight for first-time restaurant online ordering platform users. You see, conventional walk-in establishments don’t have reviews hanging over their walls. Unsuspecting, or first-time customers, if you like to put it that way, have to rely on their instincts and the overall ambiance of the restaurant.
However, when first-timers are using restaurant online ordering platforms, they can easily sift through raving reviews that are left behind by previous online customers. 4 to 5 star rated reviews really help these individuals in making up their mind before they place an order.
Robust Customer Support:
Customer support facilities that represent name-brand online restaurants are reportedly hyperactive when it comes to reputation management and overall customer experience. As a result, customers are able to connect immediately to a support executive, in case an order goes awry or vice versa.
What’s In It for Restaurants?
How does a conventional restaurant online ordering platform favor food, business owners? Obviously, if it weren’t for the benefits, such businesses wouldn’t be in it in the first place, to begin with.
Let’s see how restaurants can (and are currently) take the online food ordering technology to their benefit.
Increased Revenue:
Local brick-and-mortar restaurants have to worry about a lot of variables when it comes to increasing revenue and doubling profits.
The usual dilemma is associated with keeping up with maintenance expense, employee payroll; regardless of how the overall business fared for any given month, rentals, food supplies, and vice versa. Then there’s license renewal cost and unannounced inspections from food inspectors; there’s a lot of things to attend to in such instances.
By transitioning to online food ordering apps, restaurant owners mitigate their extra expenses by diverting surplus cash flow towards business expansion. The money that would otherwise go to maintaining a steady employee payroll is well spent on running online marketing campaigns, social media marketing strategies, and other perks that work wonders to attract more customers.
Furthermore, higher revenue leads to generating more profit in the long run.
The Meet You Outside Hospitality Protocol:
Hospitality extends to customers’ homes for online restaurants these days. While it’s true that a restaurant online food ordering platform eliminates the possibility of one-on-one interaction for businesses, there are other ways to extend the hospitality factor.
Customers enjoy the privilege of speaking with restaurant managers and reps over direct phone calls. They no longer have to ask for managers’ email addresses in case of lodging complaints or suggestions. Likewise, you can customize your online food order menu to directly engage with your customers.
Think about the message of the day, or general thank you notes to make customers happy; these interactions are directly pushed to the front of the line where customers are made to feel like royalty.
Lastly, the idea of adding a personalized note to your regular online customers’ food orders is a game-changer. These customers will not only feel happy, but they’ll bring in referrals who’d expect the same level of services from restaurant businesses.
Customized Ordering System:
Going digital offers restaurant online ordering platforms to customize the look and feel of their services to a great extent.
Looking to change your food menu at the last hour?
No biggie. Just log on to your virtual backend and make real-time changes without interrupting your services for front-end online food ordering customers. Likewise, restaurants are reportedly content with the ability to push popular discount deals, special offers, and other strategies that enable scalability on a whim.
Top it all off with drool-worthy food photography to add in those lingering taste notes that can only be savored once a customer places an order through a restaurant online ordering platform.
According to Zuuk Meditteranean Kitchen Chef, “A customized ordering system helps my restaurant to customize background images, upload photos and make changes to our menu without compromising on the taste factor.”
At the end of the day…
In the end, the restaurant online ordering platform is a delightful experience for customers and businesses where they have to do minimum handholding to breeze through a stellar experience. The best part is that it could go on and on in a loop, just like the literal representation of a ‘Rinse and Repeat’ tag on the back of someone’s favorite T-shirt.
We’d like to part ways by asking you for your feedback. How was your most recent experience as a customer who ordered his favorite food via an online food ordering mobile app?
If you are a name-brand restaurant owner, did the new modus operandi help you to scale your business to the next level?
Go ahead, and share your experience through the comments section below. We’d love to hear what you have to say!
