There has been a dynamic shift in the food and beverage industry over the past few years. Today, thousands of people prefer ordering food to dine out. Whether you place an order at a local pizzeria or wish to try a chef's special dish from a distant fine dining restaurant, food delivery apps have brought the luxury of ordering to your fingertips.
Earlier restaurants used to deliver the food directly. But now, usually, third-party apps take up the responsibility of delivering food safely and on time to customers. The rise of third-party delivery apps has benefited both customers and restaurants in many ways. If you own a restaurant or are planning to launch one, it is essential to understand how these delivery apps can increase your restaurant's visibility.
Why Does Your Restaurant Need A Top Rating On Delivery Apps?
Let’s look at this from the customer’s perspective. Before ordering food from a restaurant, bistro, or pizzeria, customers generally scroll through the list of eateries featured on the app, ready to deliver the food they have been scouting for. A high-rated restaurant always catches the attention of customers. Hence, if you are seeking ideas to increase your restaurant’s visibility and sales, it is imperative to stand out in the crowd on your delivery app.
A high ranking on popular delivery apps is largely determined by the quality of food, speed of delivery, and consistency of services.
We have you covered if you seek ways to elevate your restaurant’s rating on such platforms.
Things You Should Consider For Achieving A Better Rank On Delivery Apps
Here is a list of things to look for:
Reduced Delivery Time
Waiting for food can impact your customer’s satisfaction. Typically, orders are either hunger or occasion driven. And in both cases, a delay in order delivery can negatively impact your customer’s fulfillment levels. Ramping up the delivery time can effectively enable your restaurant to cater to more customers, positively impacting your ratings on the app and increasing your profitability.
Most delivery apps calculate the average time your restaurant takes to prepare an order. This is often based on previous orders. Top-notch delivery apps make this process transparent by offering customers the feasibility of tracking the estimated time the restaurant takes to prepare the food and the expected arrival time of drivers to collect the food.
The faster your food is ready for pick up by the delivery personnel, the quicker the delivery can be completed, enabling your restaurant to score brownie points. Ensure that you expedite your delivery orders as much as possible.
POS Integration
With a point-of-sales integration, your restaurant can minimize a range of human errors. If you have an online ordering system, your restaurant won’t need to enter any details manually. This can ensure that customers get exactly what they order. Moreover, with a POS, your restaurant can start a direct line of communication with the customers. For instance, an appropriate feedback mechanism can help improve your business in several ways. You can also create a custom app for your restaurant business to boost online ordering sales.
Provide Exclusive Offers
Special offers are appealing to all, and when it comes to food, why would you want to miss the opportunity? If your restaurant creates exquisite offers for customers highlighted on the app, especially when your customers scroll through the list of restaurants, your restaurant could have a better chance of being preferred over others.
You can choose from a wide range of promotions that your delivery platform supports. It is best to shortlist the ones suited for your business. Some examples of such attractive promos could include offers such as ‘buy one, get one free,’ ‘free delivery for all orders over a certain nominal amount of the bill, a ‘free dessert offer, ‘menu deals with a complementary free side dish,’ etc.
Robust delivery apps can save your restaurant a lot of time. Be it setting up, scheduling, publishing, and updating the online menu for varied channels, cutting-edge menu-building features can come to your rescue.
Offer A Diverse Menu
The tendency to look for a change breaks the monotony, especially regarding food. Although people may have specific preferences, a twist, even in the most regular recipe, is most welcome by customers. Even if you are a specialty restaurant serving a single cuisine, including new dishes now and then can appeal to your customers.
Expanding your menu with diverse dishes from different cuisines, such as Chinese, Thai, Italian, Indian, Mexican, etc., will likely increase your visibility and orders. However, diversity shouldn’t interfere with your delivery schedule, as timely delivery is more important than diversifying the menu.
Tantalize Taste Buds
Gastronomy and psychology go hand in hand. If you can make your food look tempting to your customers, consider it half-sold. Be it appetizing entrees, spicy curries, luscious desserts, or satiating beverages, adding mouthwatering images of food from your menu on the app can increase sales by a prominent margin. With higher conversion rates, your restaurant and the delivery app can enjoy a win-win situation.
Accuracy Of Order Delivery
This is an important aspect of food delivery that can directly impact your ratings on the app. No customer would appreciate having waited only for the wrong order to be delivered to them. Even if it is not a completely different order, it could happen that a part of the order is missing. Receiving an inaccurate order can prompt your customer to ask for a refund unless they go to the heights of penalizing the restaurant or ticking them off their list.
While an integrated POS system can take care of this to a large extent, try establishing the requisite checks to ensure that every order dispatched meets your customer’s requirements and special requests.
Encourage Customer Reviews
Like positive reviews can have a boomerang impact on your customers, negative feedback can keep potential customers at bay, especially if your rating on the delivery app is low. However, what matters is to take care of the ‘not so positive customer reviews’ so that your restaurant looks assuring to customers. Make sure you welcome all kinds of reviews for a reality check. While you thank those who’ve accredited 5 stars to your restaurant, don’t overlook customers who give poor ratings. Instead, respond to them and assure them of your efforts to fix their concerns at the earliest. Find creative ways of appreciating customers who support your restaurant by sending them a simple thank you note or a sticker.
Concluding Thoughts
Building loyalty with your customers is equivalent to assuring repeat customers. Only happy customers will reorder from your restaurant. The little perks that provide special offers and a personal touch can go a long way. Hence, if you wish to improve your ranking on food delivery apps, ensure that your meals' preparation and delivery time, order management, delivery accuracy, and quality are all taken care of.
A viable delivery app aggregator can boost your restaurant’s overall efficiency. Simple changes in your existing business model or service methods can help boost delivery sales and overall performance. OrderEm can help you manage your business well with unique features ranging from order management to delivery.