Since the popularization of smartphones, people spend a ton of time scrolling through their phones.
Businesses have been forced to adapt to the changing climate of how people communicate.
Rather than reaching out through TV ads, magazine articles, or actual phone calls, you need to make your products and marketing available on social media, via mobile apps, and have texting avenues through which your customers can contact you.
This is especially relevant in the restaurant market. To reach your bottom line, you need to get orders and sell your food. Take-out or delivery ordering is a huge part of this revenue, and your phone is one of the best tools to engage customers with your restaurant and get them to order pickup. Not only are you bringing more people in with marketing tactics that go straight to their phone, but you can establish loyalty programs, add avenues for ordering, and make actual connections with your customers at the same time.
Phones have revolutionized so many elements of the world—from how we communicate to how companies market their products and services. Now, it's time for you to start using your phone as a delivery platform to revolutionize how you do business as a restaurant. Here are just a few ways you can do so.
Take advantage of third-party ordering apps.
There are literally thousands of apps out there that people can download onto their phones. Developing your own app for your restaurant can be a smart idea to get the word out and make ordering easy. That being said, for small restaurants this may not be as practical. It can be expensive and time-consuming to work on app development and configure your own mobile ordering in this way. Thankfully, there are a ton of third-party apps that may be able to help.
Apps like GrubHub, DoorDash, Uber Eats, PostMates, and ChowNow work as a go-between for local and chain restaurants and the customers they serve. If you want to promote your food, you can partner with any or all of these sites to help get more delivery orders. Their online order system shows tons of restaurants in your area and lets customers choose where they want to order from in one centralized location. That order then goes directly to you and a delivery driver comes and picks up the food.
Now, the trickiest part of this for restaurant owners is the sheer volume of orders coming in from different places. Luckily, this is where Cuboh can help. Cuboh combines all these online orders into one POS system so you know what orders you are processing when. This online order system helps you keep on track with takeout orders and gets the right food out the door at the right time, hot and ready to be enjoyed.
Promote your restaurant on social media.
One way phones are revolutionizing all business ventures is the possibility for so many new marketing techniques. With social media, you can promote to a new customer base without spending too much on additional costs. You can post a video on Tik Tok about ordering takeout or post an Instagram story with the takeout menu items attached to that page. In this way, you are eliminating the steps for customers to find your online order platform and helping them buy food in real-time. By making delivery options visible and available, you help promote your restaurant and engage with more takeout orders.
Make actual connections with your customers.
The nice thing about your smartphone is how centralized everything is. You can place a food delivery order on one screen then get the email confirmation directly to your phone as well. This allows restaurants to foster more personalized connections with potential customers or repeat customers. You can set up your ordering system to remind people of their past orders or suggest food items based on their preferences. By getting to know your customers through the mobile device or app, you are keeping their best interests at heart and helping create a streamlined, mutually beneficial ordering process.
Guarantee your own website is available on mobile devices.
When building a restaurant website, there are a lot of things to consider. You definitely need an online ordering platform for restaurants and a spot to take credit card payments, as well as contact forms. However, not everyone considers the extra step of guaranteeing these systems work for a mobile device. When building your restaurant's website, be sure it is available in a mobile format. This can be your own app or just a smartphone-friendly browser. How else can you hope to handle online sales and incoming orders if your customers can't even access an ordering experience on their phones? Making your customer service for delivery or curbside pickup as easy and centralized as possible will make your ordering easy for you and the customer.
Offer promotions through phone orders.
As online ordering through mobile becomes more and more common, you want to encourage people to utilize your dining options. Promote your site and your food in whatever ways you can. This can be as simple as offering a coupon for people who order through your app or partnering with DoorDash or Uber Eats to be the "restaurant of the week," or something along those lines. You can also set up a loyalty program with your own website or app to offer rewards points after a certain number of online orders. Restaurants of all sizes need help rising to the top when there is so much competition, so see how promotions can draw people in to your online order rather than send them to someone else's restaurant.
Use your phone in unexpected ways.
Your phone can be great for ordering takeout and planning delivery, but this platform can engage your customer base in so many other ways. Think outside the box when you're forming your digital community. Maybe you can create a forum on your website where people can share their favorite dishes. Maybe you can post YouTube videos of different cooking classes or techniques. Maybe you can promote a takeout dish of the week and challenge your loyal customers to order it. These are the ways to build customer relationships that are truly special.
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