Tag: Restaurant Management

Creative Marketing to Stimulate Curbside Pick-Up

Posted on March 11, 2020

Restaurants and foodservice establishments that want to increase their takeout or curbside pick up revenue have to research new strategies to stimulate non-dining room orders.  Did you know that your profitability per order increases when it is takeout, delivery, or curbside pick-up?  That is part of the reason why the foodservice sector has seen so many successful ghost kitchens emerge in urban areas.  No dining room means lower manpower and overall operational costs and a higher profit margin.

  1. Create a Dedicated Take Out Area to Expedite In-Out Customer Traffic

Intelligent foot traffic design should be your top priority.  Put yourself in the shoes of your takeout customer.  They have called ahead and placed their order, and they have found a parking spot convenient enough to run into your establishment, process payment (if they haven’t done so already) and then leave with their food.

Now imagine that the dining room seating line or reception area is crowded with people waiting for a table.  And that crowd just happens to be standing in the exact same area as pick up orders are processed (at the cash register/reception desk).  So now, your takeout order isn’t so convenient, and it involves a waiting time that is comparable to the time they would have spent being seated to dine inside the restaurant.  That doesn’t work for customers in a rush.

Many restaurants have chosen to reconfigure their layout to provide an express pick up window or line for their takeout customers.  Not only is this express line fast, but you want to make sure you have experienced staff serving customers there, to double-check orders, deal with missing items or any other service issues promptly (without holding up the takeout processing time).

For restaurants that are smaller in terms of square footage and floor space, having a portable heated food warmer and storage cart is valuable.  If orders are clearly marked, the cart with prepared takeout meals can be situated near the front door, where your staff can quickly retrieve and then process the orders for your customers.

  1. Provide Alternative Payment Options

Customers that want to call ahead for a takeout order want prompt and easy service.  If they wanted to spend a great deal of time in the restaurant, they would opt to eat in the dining room instead.   It is important to offer the kind of expedited alternative payment options that your customers want.

Some customers prefer PayPal because they don’t use a traditional bank and can make a digital transaction easily from their smartphone.  Some may use other popular mobile payment methods like Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Samsung Pay (which are becoming increasingly more popular due to low transaction fees compared to traditional debit cards).

Many consumers are becoming increasingly sensitive to the cost of digital monetary transactions.  A dollar or two every time they use their debit card definitely starts to add up on a monthly basis, if they prefer to use a card versus cash.  Give them another affordable and fast processing alternative to pay for their order conveniently, and you’ll find those takeout or curbside pick-up customers returning more often.

  1. Time Your Orders Perfectly to Keep Food Fresh and Hot

All it takes is one bad experience with takeout to ensure that the customer will never order curbside pick up or takeout from your establishment again.   The top complaint from consumers about takeout is the temperature of the food.  When the customer picks up the order, it should be as fresh as it would be if it was served tableside to the diner.

While meats and vegetables tend to retain heat well, other types of food such as bread and salads can suffer some integrity loss, if they are prepared too quickly or queued in heated storage.  A warm salad is probably not the side dish that most customers would like with their meal, nor do they want soggy appetizers or entrees.

There are a variety of food scheduling tools, computer displays, and applications that can help prep teams ensure that they are timing the production of orders correctly to optimize quality and customer satisfaction at the time of pick up.  No one wins if a customer cancels an order.

  1. Dedicate Two Parking Spaces for Curbside Pick-Up Convenience

If you have a dining room and parking lot, it may be time to designate a couple spots by the front door to facilitate quick curbside pick-up for your customers.   How much of a difference can these designated spots make for a restaurant?

Consider your customer experience if they have to drive around for several minutes before they can find a parking spot, allowing them to run in and pick up their food order.  Not particularly convenient right?  And if they are in a rush, the whole benefit of calling ahead to promptly pick up food and head home may be lost.

While legal requirements for designated spots for special needs customers near the building must be accommodated, sometimes finding 1-2 extra parking spaces for food pick up orders can be a challenge.  But protecting that valuable space for pick up orders can be one of the best investments you make to bolster your restaurant takeout revenue.

 

Other successful marketing tactics target increased takeout or curbside food pick up orders on non-peak times and days of the week.  For example, if your restaurant has slower than normal traffic on Monday and Tuesday evenings, that is the perfect time to add a loyalty incentive for your customers.  Something like a free appetizer with every order over a specified dollar value, which is valid for takeout orders only.  Some restaurants have even developed their own loyalty app, that tracks the number of takeout orders the customer receives, and then rewards them with a discount, or a coupon for a free beverage or dessert.

Restaurant owners that consider their takeout or curbside pick up to be a unique and almost separate revenue source, are able to optimize that workflow that is required to have a successful order, production, and pick up methodology.  It’s a science; but if you are able to figure it out and master it, the result is increased profitability and sales for your restaurant.   And positive word of mouth (WOM) advertising from happy takeout customers.

5 Benefits of Food Delivery Apps for Restaurants

Posted on August 24, 2019

The restaurant industry is at the forefront of adopting new technology that helps manage the demand for food service.  Many restaurants are expanding rapidly into using independent food delivery apps that help tap into more market share and sales volume.

Let’s explore some of the benefits that restaurant owners should consider, if they are evaluating independent food delivery app services.  If your food delivery volume is starting to become unmanageable for your staff, this may be a viable option for your business.

  1. Increased Sales from Consumers Who Would Rather Dine at Home

No matter how great the restaurant décor and service experience, there are some customers that would prefer to eat at home.  And that’s absolutely okay for restaurant owners, who can expand sales of take-out or delivery items beyond the capacity that their dining room can hold.

But did you know that several studies have concluded that your customers will actually order more food online, with a higher sale value, than they would while dining in the restaurant?  Behaviorally during peak service hours, a customer will hasten to put their order in because they are hungry and want their food as quickly as possible.

By comparison, someone ordering from a delivery app is likely to pre-order when they have a quiet moment and schedule the delivery exactly when they want to eat.  That gives them more time to browse the menu, and order what they really want (without feeling rushed).

  1. Effective Management of Peak Delivery Periods

Your restaurant is lined up out the door!  Exciting, right?  Except that you know customers will only wait so long for a table, before they leave and find another option nearby.  And if your customers find that the popularity of your restaurant means they can almost never walk-in and get a table within a reasonable wait time, they may stop coming altogether.

Dealing with that flow of customers during peak times is a nightmare for restaurant management.  You want to fulfill the demand, but you have a limitation in terms of seating and wait staff that can serve your customers.  Many restaurants that have adopted one or more delivery apps, find that their sales volume increases, because they are not turning away customers during the busiest days and service times of the week.

  1. Subscribing to More Than One App Means More Customers

If you are a restaurant manager or owner, you have probably been approached several times by different delivery apps available in your community.  Have you tried one yet?  Did you know that many restaurants are adopting at least two different apps (where possible by contract) to leverage their delivery sales potential?

  1. Encourages Diners to Explore More Menu Options

Think about the service experience that the average customer has at their favorite (but busy) restaurant.  They wait for a table and sit down to note that other customers are order or receiving their food.  They are hungry and seeing all the delicious plates coming hot out of the kitchen doesn’t help that hunger.

Restaurant diners are prone to feeling a little bit of stress when they open the menu.  Whether they have a limited amount of time before they have to leave or have a suspicion that they may be waiting a longer time for their food, they are prompted to order quickly.  From a production flow this is a good thing; customer in, served and customer out methodology for freeing up tables for the next diner.  But this stress and fast pace can also lower the value of every sale.

In a busy restaurant environment, diners feel pressured to order quickly.  They may not have enough time to evaluate the whole menu and choose some of their favorites instead.  They may not have enough time to evaluate appetizers, or desserts either (given the fast pace expectation at the table).

Encouraging customers to order with an easy-to-use app at home, not only provides the convenience that most customers are looking for, but it gives them ample time to try new things, add things to their meal order that they may not have, if they were dining in and pressed for time.  This is another great advantage of adopting one or more delivery apps for your restaurant business.

  1. It Can Be More Affordable Than Operating Your Own In-House Delivery Service

There is a presumption by some outside of the food service industry, that home delivery is actually easier and more profitable for a restaurant business.  But when you consider the cost of employing multiple drivers, their hourly pay, and dealing with the administrative aspects of late orders, or missing deliveries, how much time are you spending managing your delivery team?

We think it’s prudent to always have at least one driver available to run orders locally, for the average small to medium sized restaurant.  But if you are currently employing several delivery drivers, do the math carefully and consider what each professionally delivered order will cost you with an app, versus the time and effort to deliver with your own staff.   Many restaurants find that using the apps saves them a great deal of expense.

Choosing the Right Delivery App for Your Business

Profitability depends on constantly calculating the cost of product and service in the restaurant industry. As a restaurant owner, you have to weigh the benefits of adding regional app delivery services with the costs and fees that come with them.

Some of the biggest players in the restaurant food delivery app market are:

Surge fees are one thing that restaurants have to watch carefully.  Naturally, you want to increase your food service orders during peak times when your establishment can’t deal with additional foot traffic.  That’s when you are truly expanding your sales potential, beyond what your staff and facility can accommodate on the premises.

Many apps charge what is called a ‘surge fee’ as a premium charge for deliveries during peak meal hours.  This generally includes from the hours of 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. for the lunch crowd, and then 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. for dinner delivery.   These fees are charged in addition to the service rates by the delivery app provider, so when you are deciding on the right app, try to choose one that does not stack fees on your peak delivery times, to prevent profit margins from being eroded.

 

Our team at Miami Beef® would like to hear from you.  Are you already using an independent food delivery app service in your restaurant?  What do you think about the services in terms of growing your sales volume?  Leave us a comment below.