Why Restaurants Need Mobile Apps: 5 HUGE Benefits
Niki Dealey
Artificial Intelligence CERTIFIED Consultant, AI Certified Data Science & Implementation Consultant, Certified Conversion Strategist for Digital Marketing.
The number of valid reasons small businesses can offer up for not having a mobile app decreases each year. And if it is fear or apathy that are holding you back, you should ask yourself what fear and apathy have done for your business so far.
By now, you should be quite familiar with many of the statistics relating to smartphones and internet usage:
In business you are told to “know your customer”, and this extends to understanding their behavior. So if they are using their smartphones as their main device, shouldn’t you be on it? Making it easier for them to engage with you? The benefits of building your own mobile app for your restaurant far outweigh any perceived disadvantages. And in this article, we will look at 12 ways a mobile app can increase business in?your restaurant.
1. Grow Your Bookings
One of the simplest KPIs for any restaurant is the number of customers served each day. It is a good indicator of popularity, and – when used to calculate total sales per head – a good measure for growth. Bookings are a sometimes contentious issue, with any restaurant that accepts bookings also having to deal with the problem of “no shows”. But besides being a staple of the restaurant industry, for out-of-the-way restaurants, they are often the only indicator of a busy mealtime. At the same time, bookings are a bit of a pain for everyone involved. For customers, there’s first waiting for someone to answer your call, then trying to see when they can actually accommodate you, followed by having to spell your name and surname a dozen times, before giving up and hoping for the best. For restaurant owners, it begins with ensuring you have someone available to answer calls – as infrequent as they may be at times. This person should not only know how to manage bookings, including getting all the relevant personal information, but also when to call to confirm a booking, and managing the waitlist.
Despite the growth in the number of smartphone users around the world,?people are making fewer phone calls. Between 2013 and 2106, the number of people not making any voice calls in a given week increased from 4% to more than 30%. Now if you’ve already switched to online booking via your website, you would know how much more convenient it is for you and your customers. And while the online booking feature of a mobile app is not that different from on your website, it does offer one unique benefit – push notifications.
You can use push notifications to confirm online bookings, instead of getting someone to call each customer. Use the push notification to not only remind them of their booking but also to ask them to cancel the booking if they can no longer make it. If your online booking system can also process cancellations, include a deep-link directly to the booking system in your push notifications. And that is just one way that a mobile app can help you increase the number of tokens making dents in your cushions each day.
The Capital Grille perfectly demonstrates?how even fine dining restaurants can create mobile apps their customers will love using. Making a booking starts with selecting a restaurant – they have multiple locations – followed by a date and time. If your preferred time is not available, the app automatically suggests 2-3 alternative times, thus eliminating the need for a frustrating guessing game. A nice addition is a piece of information at the bottom of the screen pertaining to large parties and private dining.
There are a number of ways to incorporate online booking into your app, but if you already accept online bookings via your website, the process should be similar. Using a solution like?OpenTable?can introduce extra friction by requiring users to register for an additional service, but it also brings with it extra marketing opportunities for your restaurant, while keeping the booking experience familiar across devices.
2. The Value in Loyalty
It’s rare to visit a business and not be asked for your?loyalty card, or encouraged to sign up for their loyalty program. Though businesses are not foolish enough to believe that loyalty programs inspire fierce loyalty and devotion, they know that they give customers some incentive to keep supporting them. And most customers are quite welcoming of loyalty programs, as long as:
A mobile app for your restaurant eliminates both of these annoyances. Registration can now be done in the app, with you only collecting the information you need; no more than that. And collecting points, or recording visits, is also done in the app, eliminating the need for a card that needs to be swiped, stamped, or punched each time.
With a digital loyalty program, you are able to run many loyalty campaigns at once: differentiating between a lunchtime visit and an evening meal. You could even use it to incentivize customers who only ever sit at your bar to actually have a meal too.
Loyalty programs are one of the top three motivators for customers to spend more, and your own mobile app is the easiest way to offer your customers a loyalty program that is convenient. And with a bit of planning, you can even use your loyalty program to help segment your marketing lists, especially when it comes to your push notification strategy.
The?mobile app for Moe’s Southwest Grill?is primarily about loyalty, although the app does include useful features such as the ability to place your order ahead of time – and paying for it through the app. Although you can register for the?loyalty program?on the Moe’s website, signing up through the app gives you the chance to earn bonus points. And earning rewards is only possible with the use of their mobile app. Your loyalty program could even be structured to drive a specific kind of traffic, such as with?wa! Curry who have separate loyalty programs?for sit-down and take-out customers.
3. Boost Your Brand
A key part of all marketing strategies is brand awareness, with the goal for many being the achievement of top-of-mind status. But with so many competing brands, and the very large marketing budgets of corporations, neither brand awareness or top-of-mind awareness (TOMA) are easily achieved by small businesses. And for restaurants this is even trickier. Sure you can generate some buzz and coverage through superb service, fabulous food, and dazzling decor, but without something promoting recall, you’re just a nameless restaurant that someone recommended. Having a website, a presence on social media, and using paid marketing all help, but customers need to?be exposed to a brand at least 10 times?before brand awareness and recall become almost automatic.
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Of course, having your own mobile app is one of the easiest ways of exposing customers to your brand at least once a day. They might not use your app every day, but as long as they have the app installed, they see your app icon almost every time they use their phone.
However, this underlines the importance of having an app icon that is?at once eye-catching and recognizable. Remember the following:
A?restaurant app?is not Facebook, so you shouldn’t be hoping for customers to use your app every single day. But you should be wanting them to keep your app installed for as long as possible. Not deleting your app means that customers find your app valuable and useful, which is great. It also means that they are exposed to your brand for longer, increasing the chances of your attaining top-of-mind status.
Compare your app icon to other apps in the Food & Drink category to help you determine how much it stands out, and how identifiable it is. You will notice that there is a lot of red in this category, but that isn’t too much of a concern for chains such as Applebee’s, Noodles & Company, Chipotle, and Chick-fil-A because their icons include their logos, which are already very familiar with their customers. But remember that your app icon isn’t always going to be as large as it appears in the app store, nor will it always be shown against a neutral background.
4. Have an Answer for Every Question
You and your staff have to answer dozens of questions each day, and a good number of them are probably the same questions you’ve already answered a thousand times. With a bit of planning, these questions – and their answers – can be worked into a mobile app. Not in the form of a traditional FAQ, but rather worked into relevant sections of the app:
The suggestions listed above are based on what we have already seen in some restaurant apps, and you definitely aren’t limited only to implementing these. Provide information you are most commonly asked for inside relevant sections of the app, using an FAQ section only as a last resort for any snippets of information that defy classification.
The?Chili’s mobile app?allows you to search for locations using a zip code, city, or state, and once you have selected your favorite location you are presented with a map showing the location, along with full address details, and a clickable telephone number. The same screen also displays trading hours, along with a link to that location’s menu. Tapping on the Directions button on the map will bring up your preferred map app, with turn-by-turn directions from your current location to your chosen restaurant.
Although the menu for Chili’s doesn’t specifically separate meals suitable for different dietary needs, the app does include an FAQ section, with a menu information entry. Under this entry is a link to a document with suggested items that don’t include certain allergens. It is not the most elegant solution, but the information is included for anyone taking the time to explore the app.
5. Smarter Take-Out Orders
The concept of take-outs or takeaways dates back into antiquity, with street and marketplace food vendors common in Ancient Greece and Rome. Modern restaurants continue to benefit from offering take-outs, and we aren’t talking only McDonald’s and the local fish and chip shop. While not all restaurants offer take-out, there is nothing wrong with casual and family-style restaurants that do offer take-outs. Except when the order ends up being wrong because you couldn’t understand the person calling the order in.
Restaurants that do offer a take-out menu should jump at the opportunity of having their own mobile app.?Our own study revealed the following:
Bad connections, messed up orders, and asking the callers to repeat themselves can all be relegated to the “remember when” shelf once you have launched?your own mobile app. A well thought out mobile app will not only allow customers to book a table electronically, but it will also allow them to order a take-out meal electronically. And while using third-party delivery services such as?Just Eat,?GrubHub, and UberEats fulfill the same function,?they can impact on your profit, brand, and overall customer experience.
There are a?few ways you could incorporate this feature into your app, but always consider user-experience when doing so. When accepting a take-out order, you need to collect some of the customer’s information. You could ask them to submit their name and contact details each time, but wouldn’t it be better to get them to register through your app? That way you collect all the information you need once only, and as long as the customer doesn’t log out of the app, they don’t need to enter their personal information each time they order. This would also simplify the experience of making a booking through your app, and improve your analysis of app usage. As with any registration process, collect only the information you need.
SOURCE: https://appinstitute.com/why-restaurants-need-mobile-apps/