From placing orders by phone to directly ordering via apps, ordering from restaurants has undergone a revolutionary shift, especially post COVID-19. In the pre-COVID times, online ordering was used to compliment the dine-in services of restaurants. However, since 2020, the scenario has been the opposite. Online ordering system has pivoted to new ways as restaurants adapt to the new normal. Now they are more reliant on online ordering services and less on dine-in services for boosting revenues and helping restaurants survive.
According to a report by Business Wire, the Indian online delivery market is expected to grow at a formidable rate of 28.94% in the forecast period of 2020-2026. This is because restaurateurs have been adopting online ordering services vigorously and coming up with innovative marketing campaigns to boost their sales.
This article will highlight the ways in which an online ordering system helps to boost restaurant sales.
5 Ways Online Ordering System Enhance Restaurant Sales
There are many aspects in which a restaurant may need improvements in the new normal. Introducing online ordering to your outlet is certainly one among them. Let us look at how online ordering helps increase restaurant sales.
1. Streamlines Order Preparation and Delivery Processes
Switching to an online ordering system expands your restaurant’s customers base. You do not just cater to dine-in customers, but also customers sitting at home. This accounts for large volumes of orders from various channels like food aggregators, restaurant mobile apps, restaurant websites, or online ordering platforms, thereby increasing restaurant sales. However, managing large volumes of orders invariably causes errors and omissions.
This is where online ordering systems play their biggest role. They make the entire ordering process easier and more efficient. From providing customers with a user-friendly interface to streamlining the in-house operations, online ordering systems contribute significantly to boosting sales. As soon as an order is received, it is directly sent to the kitchen without any discrepancies. The ability to track each order makes the whole order processing and delivery process easier for the restaurant staff.
2. Integrate With Third-Party Apps
Integrating with third-party food ordering apps is a significant advantage of online ordering systems. Food aggregators provide you with an additional platform to boost your sales. Platforms like Zomato, Swiggy, or Uber Eats, make it easier for the restaurant operators to take their restaurants online and expand their pool of customers.
Furthermore, the ability to integrate with third-party apps also allows the restaurants to integrate with multiple payment wallets, like PayTM, and other important apps, like RoadCast, an application that tracks the delivery staff’s location. All these apps work together to enhance customer experience and therefore increase sales.
3. Manage Finances
Handling finances is a crucial aspect of operating a restaurant business. Most restaurants fail within a few years due to overspending or mismanagement of working capital. Looking at the order volumes in an online ordering system, it is quite easy to figure out if your restaurant is meeting the revenue goals outlined in the business plan.
The daily, weekly, and monthly sales reports give an idea about which dish is performing well, which dish isn’t generating any revenue. Accordingly, you can re-engineer your menu and save up on inventory costs while boosting margins.
4. Run Marketing Campaigns
Aggressive marketing is one of the ways to boost restaurant sales. With the assistance of an online ordering system, you can easily launch targeted promotional campaigns based on customer preferences and demographics. Restaurants integrated with food delivery apps can sponsor advertisements on those platforms on a per-click basis and reach out to more customers.
Independently too, online ordering systems can run excellent marketing campaigns. Since they store the customer data centrally, they can use it to come up with targeted offers and discounts on occasions like birthdays, marriage anniversaries, etc. This is called personalized marketing that makes the customers feel valued.
Furthermore, there is an expansive social landscape consisting of review websites, social media platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, etc., which you can leverage to market your business and come up with compelling marketing campaigns.
5. Enhance Customer Loyalty
Online ordering systems build the seamless experience necessary to retain customers. Firstly, a user-friendly online ordering system, for instance, a mobile app or a website with an integrated order management system ensures that you never lose a customer. Secondly, with the right integrations, you can reward your customers with loyalty points based on their frequency of orders or visits which can be used in the future. This is one of the important tactics of building customer trust in the outlet.
Since an online ordering system stores the customer data in a central database, you can analyze customer preferences and operate your restaurant around those. Furthermore, by seeking customer feedback, you can build a two-way trust with your customers which is important to make them come back to your restaurant frequently.
Online ordering can be easily implemented with a sound restaurant POS system. Moreover, there are many added advantages that a POS system brings along. Leveraging these advantages will help bolster your restaurant sales and widen your customer base in no time. Thus, it’s recommended that you switch to online ordering systems if you haven’t already!
