Mobile applications have changed the way we live today. Just in the 2018 there had been 105.3 billion mobile app downloads and this itself shows how aggressively the market is growing. Different industries are trying to expand their business territories by exploring their chances on mobile platforms.

Building an app for your business is just the beginning and that does not promise you higher sales. To bring in sales and increase conversion rates you need to turn your app into an appealing one, increase its visibility and boost its popularity.

This can be done by following a few things as mentioned below:

• Optimize your menu

The people using your app may have never visited your restaurant before and so it is important that you create the online menu in the most appealing and impressing manner. So, waste no time to optimize your menu and display your best-selling items and catchy meal deals.

See how Starbucks displays its featured items to its app users through the “Featured” tab.

So, adding in visually attractive images (as explained in the point below) to your dishes in the menu wherever possible just makes it all the better.

Keeping an eye for latest trends in the food industry can be good. You can think about adding a dish or two into your online menu to keep the customers exciting.

• Making use of attractive pictures

Images are at times more powerful than texts! Texts can lead your visitors to imagination for sure, but with powerful images, you just fill the gaps. When you are using images in your menu or anywhere else in your app, just be sure you don’t go for stock photography. We would suggest you take pictures of your dishes and this will give you a unique place.

See how Burger King here has took the opportunity to entice their customers through an attractive image of a burger!

Again, the way photos are clicked matters too. As per a study it has been found that food business gets higher conversions with the use of images with larger size. To get better pictures try out different angles and use zoom lenses of different sizes. Again, if you could, try to give a 360-degree spin for your best-sellers as it will get you more views compared to the standard pictures.

• Include positive and appealing user reviews

Before buying things, customers have the habit to read reviews. Majority of the shoppers believe in the reviews that come from people whom they trust while major part of them is fine following the opinions found online.

Now think about including testimonials for every dish on menu. Try to be specific about your reviews about each item. They can only be effective if they come from known sources and is specific. So, all you have to do is to make it easy for your customers to write and leave reviews within your app.

• Make reordering a seamless activity

Online ordering of food is all about providing convenience to the consumers. When you simplify the whole process and offer excellent user experience, you increase the chance of consumers buying through the app.

You can let the customers to buy their favourite dishes again and again through reordering process at your app. You can either let the customers directly visit their past orders and reorder their favourite items or you can let the customers add their favourite dishes into the category of “Favourites.”

If you look at the app from Dunkin you will know how they have made reordering easy for the customers.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.dunkinbrands.otgo&hl=en_US&gl=US

• Table reservation

A number of times people use restaurant apps to get in touch and reserve a table for their dine-out plans. So having a feature within the app that can let the customers easily find a table for themselves at their favourite restaurant does count!

Now this can be generally achieved in two ways. Either the restaurant will call you and book the table or send you a message regarding the same. Now something different that can be done here is to automate the process. You can have a chatbot integrated into your messaging functionality within the app. The whole idea behind having it is to always remain available to your customers.

Something that needs to be taken care of is to have a real-time connection between the query raised by the customer and the reply given back by the app backend. Here in this case, it is about letting the customer automatically book their seats at their preferred time with the names. There should not be any clashes for the tables when they arrive at the restaurant. This means the tables need to be already reserved for the schedule.

• Choose offline platform to promote online services

Don’t leave any chance to promote your online ordering platform to your customers even when they are dining at your restaurant. Your staff can talk to them and make them aware of the online options available and let them know about the click and collect option they get to choose. This can be quite useful especially in the current pandemic days where restaurants are trying to strive without the dine-in option.

You can also promote your app using posters and outdoor signage present at your premises. Keep in mind that your restaurant is one of the best places offering you immense opportunities to promote your app. Once your customers have the information, they will start exploring the app from their end.

• Let your customers have exclusive offers

Customers always look for bargains. They want the best deals. Now this is never going to change. So, coming up with exclusive offers is always the best strategy you could plan out for your food ordering app. Such offers are important to encourage the users to order directly from the app for click and collect, or delivery. This can be better than driving the people to third-party aggregators where you may end up paying high commissions for your orders. To make that happen, just keep the deals exclusive for the specific channels.

• Curbside pickup

This can be one of the thoughtful features to add in your food ordering app. Think about a situation where a customer plans to get his or her dinner picked up while coming back from work. So, if he or she has something on mind then he or she can simply place the order on the app and collect it while on their way back home. This will need to add in some additional information like vehicle type, its number, timing of your arrival, etc.

Just see how Dunkin lets its customers to place curbside pickup order through their app and make food delivery a painless task.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.dunkinbrands.otgo&hl=en_US&gl=US

• Focus on upsells, keep ABCs in mind

ABC stands for ‘always be closing’. Work on a few things to achieve this like fine tune the details on the app, focus on easy checkout, suggest the next place to move, offer actionable links and so on. Moreover, we all would like our visitors to shop more food on the app and so keep a back button in case your foodies plan to shop more.

Again, compared to the in-person approach, online ordering can help your restaurant achieve more upsells.

Are you aware of the 60*60 rule?

As per this rule, 60% of customers will try to buy product worth 60% of the value of what they have brought already when you offer them upsell opportunity. Chances are good that they will buy more as they are already on your app and buying from you.

• Make use of location-based notifications

In order to come up with more of contextualized mobile campaigns, your restaurant app can make use of location-based technologies. Location-based services can be used by restaurants to set geolocated notifications that can be used to send alerts to the users regarding new menu, special offers, request to share their experience on social media or for online reviews. In short, there is much to do with it. Location-based applications make use of geofencing. This lets them to plan out highly targeted campaigns to the people who meet certain criteria set by the restaurant.

• Geolocation based loyalty program

Mobile apps are used by restaurants to carry out their customer loyalty programs. Such programs are aimed to increase frequency of repeating customers. For example, such programs based on geolocation will let the restaurant know the number of visits a particular person has made and based on that reward the customers who are loyal. One of the best ways to drive customer loyalty is by offering them incentives and rewards and these programs will help you achieve them.

• Think about including some gamification

Some of the restaurants even offer games to the customers as a part of their engagement program and let the users earn reward points through the app. This can be like having a “spin the wheel” where you can have discount offers, free items, BOGO offers, offer on your next order, etc. Such a thing will encourage the app users to go ahead and try their luck. You can also think about conducting some quiz and let the winners have some discounts or free treats to enjoy.

• Connect your restaurant app to social media channels

With millennials and gen Z having the habit of using social media in their spare time, you have a hidden opportunity there to bring your restaurant to limelight and promote your online food ordering app.

You can easily connect your app to the social media and bridge the gap between both by providing a link to your menu of the food ordering app on your social media profile. This makes it easy for the customers to follow the restaurant and order food seamlessly even when they are scrolling through the social media sites.

• Make use of digital advertising

Making use of enhanced marketing tools like social media advertising and Google Ads can help your restaurant business to target customers at the right place, on the right time. It helps business in achieving increased sales in the form of higher return on investment and by offering high value for money. For example, when the business makes use of Google Ads, the business, in this case the restaurant will be able to reach the potential customers in the locality quickly through search engines as it makes use of location targeting.

• Use automated notifications

Restaurants should include automated notifications into the app to reach customers for various needs. Notification should be sent to the customer a few hours after the delivery to get their feedback on the food, delivery service and packaging. Sending notifications just after a few hours of the delivery will increase the chance of getting response for sure. So, the restaurant will be able to make quick changes in case the response is negative.

Notifications can also be sent to the users to inform them about the new items you have included in the menu. You can also use notifications to let them known about the special items added in the menu during the holidays or for specific season.

Every new offer and discounts that you plan to give away to your customers at your restaurant whether for dine-in or takeaways or even for deliveries can be alerted to the them through notifications.

In short, you can send notifications to always remain on the minds of your customers. You can send notifications regularly to encourage them to visit your restaurant or to order online.

• Use customer feedback forms to gather data

For any business gathering customer information has turned out to be quite challenging nowadays with strict data protection laws kept upfront by governments. Businesses needs to follow the rules strictly. One of the ways to get such information from customers both online and in-store is through the use of customer feedback forms. This way your restaurant will be able to gather free feedback from the customers as well as collect their contact details with their permission. Such information can be used by you to target your customers in the future for marketing promotional deals.

• Real-time tracking

When you are planning to create an online ordering app for your restaurant this feature seems to be quite essential. This feature lets the customers to track the location of their ordered food through real-time tracking. This is done using GPS and it helps in tracking the order for both parties. It starts by identifying the location of the user where the food has to be delivered. Once the location is confirmed, it tracks the movement of the delivery personnel and the progress of the order on road. This feature is currently used by all the popular food delivery apps in the market.

Just look at the app from Taco Bell which lets you track order right from order confirmation.

So, in case you own a restaurant and want to take your food business to the next level then investing in food ordering app development can be wise and crucial at the same time.

If you are looking for a mobile app development partner who can understand your business well and provide you completely customized solution, then here we are!

Just give us a call or drop in an email and leave the rest to us!

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