Do you want to improve profits for your restaurant? Then you should consider a website with an easy way for customers to use online ordering. Your customers want the convenience of choosing their meals through a digital method so they can pick up their food or have it delivered without waiting around. Restaurant online ordering …
Benefits of Websites For Restaurants With Online Ordering Read More »
It is more important now than ever for restaurants to stay informed on current trends and digitize their business. Online food ordering has seen exponential growth over the last few years and continues to expand. If you want to increase your sales, an online ordering system for restaurants is crucial. Bring in new customers who …
How Online Ordering Platforms Are Changing The Food Industry Read More »
Things are changing in the restaurant industry. Many restaurants are now putting their efforts into an online ordering food system. Ever since the pandemic, new and exciting virtual restaurants have been using brick-and-mortar spaces for delivery-only meals. People love to order online and eat in the comfort of their homes, so why not gain their …
The Rise of Ghost Kitchens: Exploring the Virtual Side of Food Delivery Read More »
With many foodies ordering meals online or taking them to-go instead of dining in, it is more important now than ever to cash in on this type of customer. A software program that makes online food ordering easy adds to your restaurant marketing strategy and helps boost your sales. Here are some ways to attract …
Convenience is key when it comes to enjoying a good meal at home. Everyone likes to spend a night in with some delicious restaurant food, but no one wants to spend time on hold when calling in to place an order. You can make it easy for your customers to have the appetizers and entrees …
Why Your Restaurant Needs An Automated Ordering System Read More »
Turn your customers’ Netflix and chill into a foodie delight! A convenient restaurant order-taking system fulfills many of your customers’ wishes. You can make it easy by offering all your menu items online. They can get your food delivered to them or pick it up on those occasions when they don’t feel like cooking a …
When your customers order over the phone, have you ever noticed that they often feel rushed – and that your employees hurry them through their orders so they can get back to preparing food? Not only will online ordering greatly add to the convenience of your delivery and carry-out ordering process for both your customers and your employees – but it will also increase the amount of food that your customers order as well. Online ordering allows your customers to take their time when they order, and it gives them an online interface so you can push them towards specials, combos, and upsells.
When your customers order over the phone, they have to speak to one of your employees in order to place your order. Even if your employees are perfectly trained, the stresses and speed of restaurant work means that your customers are going to feel slightly rushed when they order over the phone – so most people that order over the phone have their order together and you don’t have a good opportunity to tell them specials or to convince them to add additional items onto their order. Even companies that have “scripts” for their employees to follow when they answer calls (things like asking if the customer would like to add a desert at a promotional price), the scripts aren’t always followed to the letter – and the over-the-phone transaction can come off as a bit harried and impersonal.
When the option is provided, more than 70% of customers prefer to order online rather than over the phone – a testament to the reduced complexity of ordering online, and the ability for customers to manage their order without feeling rushed. This is even more important when your customers are ordering large orders, such as for catering and parties, and ordering over the phone would take a long time… and still wouldn’t end up being as accurate as if the customer was able to just select from your mobile website or application.
According to Matt Maloney, CEO of Grubhub, a majority of food orders in the United States are still placed with paper menus and phone calls. This method of ordering makes it difficult for restaurants to make changes to their menus, since any change would require a re-printing of the entire menu and would confuse patrons that order from the store with the older paper menus. Paper menus are also difficult to navigate quickly, and they can’t be “programmed” like online menus to show specials and to automatically calculate the value of promotions and combos.
Your online ordering process will put your up to date menu right on the mobile devices of your customers – so they can order with confidence, knowing that the prices and the menu items are all correct. You can also create combos, promotions, specials, and discounts – and you can rotate them as you need to, so your menu is never stale and you can respond quickly to what your customers want.
Most restaurant websites fail to deliver the most basic information required by customers. Basic info such as phone number, hours, address, menu, specials are often neglected. Unfortunately many restaurant owners focus on design only, instead of the contents. In many cases, customers can’t even find the menu; even worse, some menus are heavy PDF files that take too long to load or the site is filled with so many graphics which makes the whole site slow. Instead of finding what they need on the website, customers end up seeing a ton of graphics and hear annoying background music. With any website, especially a restaurant website, the following points are important to keep in mind.
For the best example of restaurant websites, including a mobile website and online ordering system, you can click our demo page here and see the sample of restaurant websites we offer. Restaurant website, mobile website, online ordering system all in one. Low cost monthly fee, no contracts!
Dear Restaurant Owner,
Here’s what your customers has to say…
Like most people I work hard to provide for my family. Some nights I don’t want to cook and in today’s technologically advanced age, the convenience of online ordering is a wonderful thing. Yes while I do have a cell phone, I don’t want to call a restaurant, ask what they have on the menu, ask what’s in specific dishes, all the while trying to remember the names and prices of those that sound interesting. This is the main appeal to a restaurant having its own website. I can see it for myself, get the input of my family and all in less than half the time it would take for me to call them and ask. To make it even easier on me, the customer, to be able to place an order at the same time, now that is a wonderful thing!
Let’s say the restaurant has a website with the menu listed but no way to order. Well now its extra work on my part! I’ve gone out of my way to pull up the company, review the dishes, and now I have to call them just to place my order. What if they get my order wrong? What if my daughter changes her mind at the last minute? As the consumer I want the guarantee that it is right the first time without hoping that whoever took the call didn’t mess it up.
As a restaurant owner you want to get the word out there about the quality of your food, your selections, and your customer service. What better way to do this than letting 247Waiter handles your site and online ordering system? Read the testimonials for yourself and see what others have to say about the service we can provide and how it has improved business for them.
Hungry customers are now provided the option from many innovative and sales-conscious restaurants of placing their meal orders online through their computers or cell phones. Marketing studies have determined that this usually results in larger sales. Restaurant owners and managers have long known that making it easy for customers to order is one of the keys to optimizing food sales, and it doesn’t get much easier than pointing and clicking on an item on a restaurant’s website.
Those who take advantage of convenient online ordering are often busy, time-pressed professionals. Others might be active families with several mouths to feed, couples looking for takeout for a picnic in the park or single people wanting a meal on their way home from work. Whether they’re ordering for dine-in or food to be consumed in-house, those with time constraints especially value the convenience of being able to order easily in advance. This eliminates frustrated wait times at tables in crowded restaurants or standing in long lines at takeout counters.
All of these types of consumers have one thing in common — they’re hungry. Just like how hungry people fill grocery carts fuller, they also purchase more restaurant items. Providing them with an online venue where they can click on pictures of desired entrees and ala-carte offerings creates a situation where they’re ordering more than they actually need. Human beings are visually hard-wired when it comes to primary needs such as food, so looking at tempting photographs will create more desire to eat than reading the descriptive text of even well-written menus.
Restaurant owners can even cut costs on staff by providing customers with an online ordering option. Because the customer is essentially putting in his or her order directly to the kitchen, serving staff can be reduced in establishments where online ordering is a substantial part of how they do business. It also significantly reduces chances of server error in ordering, therefore decreasing costs accrued by food waste and ordering mistakes.
There are three major factors that make online ordering systems beneficial for restaurants, delis and takeout facilities. Convenience is the first; most people like being able to click on a desired item and have it ready for them by the time they arrive at the establishment. Because most people are closely connected to their online electronic devices throughout the course of the day, offering online ordering options simply makes sense for restaurants that want to successfully compete in today’s tough marketplace.
The second factor is hunger. When people are hungry, they want the quickest available option. Hungry people are often also tired or winding down after a busy day. Hungry and tired people love the convenience of clicking on a tempting culinary photograph and having it quickly available for consumption.
The visual element is the third factor involved concerning why this strategy increases food sales. As mentioned before, the senses of most human beings are stimulated by pleasing images, and people are likely to order more food when they’ve got a visual reference.
Many busy restaurants have already increased sales by giving their customers an online ordering option. If you own or manage an eating establishment, you’ll find that implementing such a system will be well worth your time.
