Applications, endearingly addressed as apps, have become an integral part of any business ecosystem. The restaurant business that can be considered evergreen is not an exception to this transformation.
There are a lot of traditional business proponents who might question the relevance of a mobile app for a restaurant. Obviously, established brands like Starbucks, McDonald's, Dominos, Chipotle, Burger King, and Subway can't be wrong – all these big brands have dedicated mobile applications. To better understand the problems that restaurant mobile apps can solve, it is important to understand the challenges that restaurants face today and the relevant advantages that mobile apps inherently present.
The advantages presented by mobile applications:
Ever wondered why a lot of large-scale organizations have resorted to creating mobile apps instead of just keeping up with their mobile website that can open on any browser? It is the level of access that the mobile app provides, which cannot be compelled to any browser experience.
Mobile apps give a high degree of customizability. Using different technologies, you can create experiences, unlike any other browser-driven experience. Take the example of Tinder – never was it perceived that you could make selections by swiping as opposed to the traditional gesture of clicking.
Smartphones have revolutionized the way we look at communication, not just in telephony but across the entire digital spectrum. It is not surprising that mobile traffic has surpassed desktop traffic. 77% of the American citizens own a smartphone, and in the age group 18 to 29, every person inevitably uses a smartphone. On average, three hours are spent on the phone daily, and this number can only be expected to go up in the times of lockdown.
The challenges that restaurants face:
The biggest challenge in the restaurant space is that they will need people to be in the restaurant if at all, they have to access the menu and place orders. There might be alternatives like Zomato that list the menu as a digital copy, but that still does not explain some fancy names for dishes that have made your restaurant famous.
Also, there are complications involved in taking orders for home deliveries and table bookings. Added to that are bits of information regarding allergies and ingredients.
Above everything, restaurants need a dedicated channel to communicate with their regular customers regarding new dishes, offers, promotions, and discounts.
So far, there has not been a solid method to execute this – although advertisements and social media platforms have helped to a considerable extent, it does not fulfill the requirement of being able to communicate to a customer at will.
How mobile apps bridge the gap?
There are multiple ways in which mobile applications help restaurants find success in their business.
Precision in locating customers:
Just like real estate, location is of vital importance when it comes to marketing local businesses as well! Until mobile devices came in, you had to rely on after marketing to ensure that you reach locals. However, with mobile devices, it is possible to precisely pinpoint the users in your target location and reach them.
This feature is extremely useful when it comes to promotions during peak hours. You can send notifications to customers who are within a kilometer of your restaurant during peak hours, so they can either visit or order from your restaurant.
Introducing this feature ensures that you move out of the clutches of social media marketing or influencer marketing. Also, a mobile app ensures that call promotions happen under your banner. This helps boost your brand image recall, even if not for business!
Provide customers with better utility:
Mobile apps do not introduce new processes. They make existing processes efficient and better. The mobile app for restaurants does not fall as an exception. More often than not, what users need with respect to a restaurant is, in addition to knowing its existence, a few basic utilities.
Some of them include browsing through the menu, ordering food, and checking work hours. There might also be a need to reserve a table for special occasions without going through cumbersome phone calls that might even result in human errors because of loss inaccuracy during the recording of information.
A meticulously built mobile app can take care of all these processes. A mobile app cannot only display the menu as a text but also vividly with images and information regarding the ingredients.
This will help customers place orders and also include information about their allergies, so personal preferences can be carefully addressed. In addition, booking a table can be made a simple process with a set flow. This ensures the possibility of human errors, and it can even help you plan some surprises if it is an anniversary or birthday party, which goes a long way in helping your customers remember your brand.
Diversify sales channels:
There was a time when the entire business world believed that unless the customer steps into a restaurant, they are not customers! Today, the entire landscape has changed. A customer might not have even seen your restaurant, leave alone stepping into yours. However, they can be one of the most loyal customers because they order online regularly from your restaurant.
With a mobile app, you can diversify your sales channels. You might have partnered with a delivery service, but having your own mobile app ordering capacity gives you better control and better command over the profit that you would make. Since you make a better profit, you can incentivize the sales that happen through your native mobile app.
Since you will also gain access to useful data, you can use that to send push notifications and promotions to your regular customers. You can even attach loyalty points for people who regularly order through your restaurant mobile app.
Increase the efficiency of your staff:
If your staff are not directly involved in processes that make money, they are not profit centers but only cost centers! This includes someone who will be attending calls and writing down orders. It also goes down to the fact that they might make a few mistakes when taking down orders. The handwriting sometimes might be incomprehensible, and there might be a few critical points that they might have forgotten to ask customers.
What was missed out will come to light only when the chef starts making the dish. By that time, it will be a bit too late to change the order and even more so to communicate with the customers.
However, with mobile applications, you can automate the entire process, and throw the ball in the customers’ court! The responsibility of precisely addressing all the elements of the order falls on the customer, and you can be assured that the chef will not miss out on making the dish according to the wants of the customer. This results in increased customer satisfaction and retention, and also ensures that your staff is used efficiently and effectively.
Data:
This little word encompasses one of the most valuable resources of today! Having a restaurant mobile app will ensure that you get access to loads of data, and it does not include usage statistics alone.
For example, you can find out which particular occasion your restaurant is considered most popular when it comes to table bookings. You can also find out the most popular dishes that are ordered for a particular meal during takeout. You will also have information regarding the results of your promotions, and with loyalty points, you might even get access to the important dates like your customer's birthday and anniversary.
All these bits of data helps in making intelligent market decisions and plan your next promotion. Data is more valuable than oil, and if your restaurant Application can provide that, why not?
Building a restaurant app:
You can either choose to hire an app development company or even completely build your own team. In all of this, it should not be forgotten that a restaurant mobile app is, in essence, almost like a food delivery application like UberEats.
Conclusion:
Hiring your home team or partnering with an app development company to build your restaurant mobile app from scratch might cost you quite a fortune. Alternatively, you can consider using white label clones of UberEats. These applications give you all the basic functionalities for your restaurant app, like listing your menu and ordering food.
There are a lot of UberEats clone app development companies that can help you effectively add features like booking tables and provision of feedback. Since the skeleton is already built, you can be assured that there will not be any glitches in terms of the basic functionalities – one of the biggest advantages brought about by UberEats white label clones. The app development companies will ensure that they customize the app for you according to the brand guidelines and preferences you have.
Using these applications saves you quite a lot of time as well since most of the development work is already done. If you would like to launch your own restaurant application, all you need to do is get in touch with these UberEats clone app development companies. They will take care to gather your requirements and will get your app developed and published in no time!
