Stay Connected with Your Restaurant Customers When they are Ordering Food Online

We are living in a world where it’s impossible to imagine the restaurant industry without doorstep delivery. Amid the pandemic, there is a sharp rise in the downloads of delivery apps. An increase of 51% clearly shows the demand.

On-demand delivery apps provide customers with a wide array of choices and enable them to order conveniently from their phones. When we see the worldwide scenario, the market for food delivery stands at a whopping €104billion.

By far, the most prevalent form of the delivery model followed is the traditional model. In the traditional model, the customer places an order with the local restaurant and waits for them to bring the food to the door.

With the advancements in digital technology, the market is reshaping. Through websites and mobile apps, customers are used to shopping online as it provides transparency and convenience. Consumers expect the same when ordering food online.

Customers who prefer ordering food online via on-demand food delivery apps have entirely different expectations and needs than traditional customers. The following are the important characteristics:

Platform Needs to Be Engaging: The on-demand food delivery app personalizes the ordering experience as it stores relevant customer data. Once customers sign up, a huge 80 percent never leave for another platform. It’s a great step towards winning clients in this competitive world. The on-demand app solutions provider, who can make most people sign up in the shortest time, takes the spotlight.

Time is a Crucial Factor: Customers order via food delivery apps because they want food without visiting the restaurant in the shortest time. To win more customers, it is crucial to provide them with the fastest delivery of their orders. 60 percent of consumers across markets state that food delivery speed is a critical factor for them, which decides whether or not they would order from the same app. The ideal waiting time is no more than 60 minutes.

Meals are for the Home: The majority of orders are placed from home, while only a small percentage of orders are placed from the workplace.
Source-Insights, Mckinsey.

Orders Shoot up on Weekends: 74 percent of orders are placed on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

Below, we are providing you with some tips to stay connected with your customers when they are ordering food online:

When customers order food from an online food ordering app, it becomes easy to retain them by showcasing the best features of your restaurant and online services. When a business is using a custom app, it can give creative names to dishes and upload good quality photos and videos, which means restaurants are in-charge of the content they show, and content is a great way to connect with the audience. In addition to that, the app provides the business the liberty to send emails and push notifications to customers regarding any new launch or discounts, which again is a great way to stand out.

Social media is a great way to interact with customers. With the popularity of social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, etc., it becomes inevitable to integrate social media platforms into the app. This way, you will make it tremendously easy to get in touch with customers and make them a part of your business journey. It’s the perfect place to connect with potential as well as existing customers.

Who doesn’t love personalized experience? An app is an easy and amazing way to personalize customers’ experience. Through an app, you can address your customers with their first names when they register on your mobile app. Also, one can send “thank you’ notes when a customer places an order. It helps create a unique sense of belonging among customers.

Feedback is integral for your on-demand food delivery business. You must approach your customers for their valuable feedback on new dishes. To make customers interested in the menu, you can ask them to give suggestions to improve your menu. Encourage your customers to try new dishes and give feedback; you can give discount coupons to them after they fill out the online feedback form.

Never shy away from expressing gratitude for their contribution. It will make your customers feel valued.

Offer Transparency

Online food ordering should be hassle-free for customers. They will return to you if they like the experience. Make sure that is it is easy and convenient to order food from you via the mobile app. In addition to that, customers like transparency; therefore, it makes sense to provide order breakup and how much is charged for taxes and delivery.

Planning and testing phases are crucial for food ordering apps. Ask a third party to test your app. This way, you will get to know how easy or tough it is to order via your app and what things need improvement to provide a great experience to customers. Build an online food delivery app around the feedback today.

It is important to get connected with your restaurant’s guests when they are ordering online. Also, make sure that your customers get the right order. To avoid sending wrong orders or missing parts of the order, designate a staff member in every shift to handle all aspects of the delivery.

Apart from that, to make your customers feel valued, personalize every order; you can send them a thank you note along with the order. Allow them to build their own burger, salad, etc. Don’t forget to use social media to provide information and get in touch with customers. You can even ask your social media followers to name a dish. Offer transparency to your customers, share daily positive experiences your customers have in your restaurant. And most importantly, think like a customer!