10 Compelling Reasons Why A Mobile App Is Inevitable For Restaurants

A mobile application, also commonly known as an app, is a type of application software that is meant to run on mobile devices like a smartphone or a tablet computer. A mobile application is designed to provide users with similar or the same functionalities that are offered for people accessing through PCs.

Restaurant mobile apps can provide a great fillip to the pandemic affected restaurant industry. With an enhanced customer engagement and better user experience, restaurant owners can increase the number of customers and also generate an additional stream of revenue. With a mobile app, customers can easily place food orders while restaurants enjoy the benefits of a greater volume of food delivery.

At present, the world is witnessing the stupendous growth of the restaurant app market. By 2023, statistics foresee that the digital food ordering and delivery segment will reach a value of $365 billion.

The good thing is – there are not just restaurant apps for food delivery or web-based ordering sites. There are diverse choices of restaurant apps that can be used by restaurant owners to provide a digital dining experience for every customer.

With a restaurant mobile app, tracking received food orders, their current status and procuring payments – everything takes the digital form. Thus, the burden of the most difficult task of receiving payments in cash and managing the restaurant cash flow is lifted off the restaurant. Every payment is digitally recorded and is available for viewing from any device at any time.

Through mobile apps, restaurants secure more food orders – especially for pickup and delivery. Thus, order fulfillment is realized. Manual involvement in taking orders and chances of human error are minimized, in fact brought to a zero. Cooks and other people responsible for filling orders receive clear cut communication about what has to be cooked, along with special dietary instructions from the customer. With digital payment made possible through the app, the front desk staff or delivery guys have one less thing to worry about. Without any need for a particular staff member to attend phone calls, note down orders and credit card numbers, you get to save around $2000 every month.

While a restaurant mobile app is created to serve people on the digital platform itself, the truth is that it also helps the restaurant to improve its on-site service. Receiving food orders via mobile devices before people show up at the restaurant for a curb-side pick up helps clear the congestion. Since order fulfillment is faster and queues are shorter, the turnaround becomes quick and the pick up experience is greater. While fulfilling an order through a telephone takes two minutes, it can be executed within 45 seconds using a mobile phone. The staff at the restaurant can concentrate better on the people walking in without wasting time on long telephonic conversations.

Restaurant mobile apps enable even new customers to place food orders quickly. It also allows them to track their food orders on a real time basis. With a fast and updated mobile app, retaining existing customers and attracting new ones is a child’s play. All kinds of negative feedback can be turned into a positive user-experience through a mobile app by simply reworking on the strategies. By using instant/push up messaging (mobile push notifications) with eye-catchy phrases, you can convert all potential customers into sales.

A restaurant mobile app leads to greater efficiency. Every process is streamlined with reduced human intervention, thus increasing the efficiency and productivity.

Developing and maintaining a mobile app is not an expensive affair. While it needs to be constantly updated with gadget compatibility, it still remains to be a rewarding venture.

Customers are relieved of the stress of making phone calls to place food orders or searching for a restaurant website to place an online order. With a mobile always within their reach, their hunger is taken care of immediately with a restaurant mobile app’s online food ordering system.

A mobile app allows customers to easily make secure payments using their debit or credit card and also other payment interfaces of their choice and convenience.

Unlike PCs that are bound to one particular location, a mobile offers greater flexibility and mobility. A customer can order food from any place at any time. They can also use the ‘Pre-Order’ facility if it is made available by the restaurant. With this option made available, customers will never hesitate to place food orders.

When customers use a restaurant mobile app to make food orders, the price of every item is clearly mentioned. As they keep adding items to the cart, the amount increases. There are no hidden costs. They also get to see a break-up of their entire bill before they proceed to make the payment. This kind of transparency in pricing increases user-experience making the customer return to a restaurant’s mobile app every time they choose to eat out.

With regular use of a restaurant’s mobile app, a customer gets rewarded for his loyalty with loyalty points and other relevant discounts. This enables him to save consistently every time he orders food from a restaurant. One of the main reasons for the success of loyalty and referral programs being executed through mobile apps is personalization. The data and its interaction happens over a mobile phone, a hand-held device that is very close to their heart. Through regular use of push notifications, customers can be regularly reminded of loyalty programs and motivated to make more purchases. If you are thinking that loyalty programs are purely about the free stuff, you are probably wrong. Research shows that 65% of diners are ready to download a restaurant’s app if they are offered exclusive discounts, deals and offers on a frequent basis. Of these nearly 80% return to the restaurant to reap their exquisite benefits. This means that with a mobile app in place, a restaurant is able to make more than half of the US population download the mobile app and make them visit the restaurant to redeem deals and for other loyalty programs.

A restaurant mobile application lends great brand value addition by allowing customers to access and locate restaurants near them. Customers can order their favorite food from any place without any restrictions of being confined to a device. This definitely increases brand awareness as convenience in transactions always creates long lasting impressions on the minds of consumers.

Through a mobile app, a restaurant can offer coupons, promo codes and other discounts. This can be done either while customers are checking out their online food orders or simply on leans days as promotions during lean days. With such activities, not only are customers happy, but also recall your brand first when they wish to order food outside.

With a mobile app, diners can book tables via online reservation methods in just a few seconds. This allows restaurants to create more foot traffic to the restaurant and keep its tables always booked. It is also helpful for a restaurant to forecast demand systematically and stay prepared accordingly.

A mobile app gives a customer instant access to the restaurant’s digital menu card. Placing food orders with specifications, adding and removing items while placing food orders is extremely easy and convenient with a mobile app.

A restaurant mobile app makes it convenient not just for ordering food online but also for keeping track of the status and progress of the food order on a real-time basis. With informed and empowered customers, achieving brand loyalty becomes extremely easy.

Just like a restaurant’s website, having a fully functional restaurant mobile app also fulfills the mandatory requirement of having an online presence. A mobile app has all the features available on a restaurant’s website and is more convenient to use for placing food orders and making payments.

Since the app is accessed using a hand-held device, people naturally tend to get emotionally attached to the brand. With greater convenience, they order more items than intended and also engage in frequent transactions with the particular restaurant.

A mobile app allows the restaurant owner to analyze how users engage with the restaurant and the food offered. This allows the person to devise strategies for re-engaging customers with highly personalized and targeted information in the future.

A mobile app generates more feedback that is available for other non-users also to read. Positive feedback encourages new customers to try the mobile app, thereby, procuring greater brand awareness.

When a restaurant uses a mobile app, it is able to gather extremely valuable customer credentials that can be used for all kinds of promotional activities and communication with customers. 

This is useful for both the customer and the restaurant alike. Restaurants can make use of a customer’s GPS settings or Apple’s iBeacon to specifically target people who are in physical proximity of the restaurant and lure them with push notifications (ideally during meal times). If a restaurant operates at more than one location, a customer’s GPS settings will reveal details of where they are after which relevant information about discounts or offers can be sent to them. Such location-specific targeted promotional messages will be able to drive foot traffic to the restaurant.

One of the main reasons for the success of loyalty and referral programs being executed through mobile apps is personalization. The data and its interaction happens over a mobile phone, a hand-held device that is very close to their heart. Through regular app push notifications, customers can be regularly reminded of loyalty programs and motivated to make more purchases. If you are thinking that loyalty programs are purely about the free stuff, you are probably wrong. Research shows that 65% of diners are ready to download a restaurant’s app if they are offered exclusive discounts, deals and offers on a frequent basis. Of these nearly 80% return to the restaurant to reap their exquisite benefits. This means that with a mobile app in place, a restaurant is able to make more than half of the US population download the mobile app and make them visit the restaurant to redeem deals and for other loyalty programs.