Reasons Why Every Restaurant Needs A Restaurant Mobile App
The restaurant business is one of the oldest industries in the world. Thus why will your website like new technology like a mobile app? The restaurant business may be old however the market conditions that govern it are even older. Once these market conditions change, your business needs to catch up or become a thing of the past.
Many QSR and fast-casual restaurant generate a big portion of their revenue from takeout and delivery service. With the adoption of apps like Grubhub and Ubereats that trend is increasing because it is becoming easier to start taking delivery orders with fewer new staff. The downside of it’s the increased fees paid out to these delivery apps. It can be anywhere from 15% to 25% depending on service and location. Such a high commission can put a strain on the prepared food margin.
If your restaurant doesn’t have a mobile app yet, here are the top 7 reasons why it needs one.
1. Location and Localization
One of the biggest reasons to have a mobile app for your website is to increase its visibility. Your website could also be in additional … analogue mediums just like the phonebook or local maps and brochures but, these days, most people find their ways around using their phones. Having a mobile app helps you to stand out more on these platforms.
2. Increased Repeat Customers
In the restaurant business, you make some money when people come in once. You make more money after they keep returning. One way to increase your repeat customers is with a mobile app.
Just like having a mobile app is the new version of having your business in the phonebook, having a mobile app is that the new version of having a takeout menu that your patrons keep on their fridge at home. It keeps your business in their mind.
3. Better User Experience
A recurring theme in this article is changed to the restaurant market. That includes your customers. You have to meet them where they’re and they’re on their phones. Having a mobile app for your restaurant makes your business more accommodating to your customers and that’s how you keep customers.
You can also look at mobile apps as a way of improving user experience more directly. Mobile apps make it easy for you to collect information on your customers by doing things like asking them to fill out surveys. This method of customer interaction can be especially impactful if your restaurant offers delivery or takeout services because your customers can submit completed surveys before returning to your restaurant in person.
4. Loyalty and Referral Programs
Having a mobile app also makes it easier for your business to require advantage of loyalty and referral programs. Once again, loyalty and referral programs predate mobile apps. However, mobile apps bring these systems into the twenty-first century. It’s so much easier to keep track of customer purchases and referrals when you have a mobile app doing it for you.
This works for the customers as well. One classic loyalty system involved giving your customers slips or tokens to keep track of their purchases which they required to indicate to redeem rewards. If the customer lost these slips or tokens, they lost out on their reward. Neither you nor your customers need to keep track of anything once you’ve worked your loyalty and referral programs into a mobile app.
5. Customer Engagement
There are many ways you’ll use your restaurant mobile app to engage with your customers. for example, if you have an online gallery, people will submit, share and rate photos of their meals much like they already do on social media sites like Instagram.
6. Social Media Integration
Apps are an easy first step into the world of digital marketing. Viral content is that the new currency of businesses, and having a powerful social media presence will help you achieve it. Let your app serve as a launching point for your virtual branding.
7. Online Orders
Online ordering systems are great tools for customer convenience. Having a mobile app with online ordering permits your customers to place orders for takeaway and home deliveries via the app, making ordering only one simple click away. You also eliminate your competition from the user expertise. Your customers do not have to use a third-party online ordering app that lists your business next to all your competition.