March 5, 2018 Mobile Online Ordering: Growing Demand, Growing Revenue. Lets face it, smartphones have taken over. We live in a time when the smartphone is the centerpiece of the majority of the population's daily routine. We use it to wake us up in the morning, text friends, keep up with work email, listen to music, check the weather, log our 10,000 daily steps, play games, check the plethora of ultra-important social media apps, summon a ride, search for almost anything, get turn by turn directions, and most importantly for our conversation: Order Food. You may think online ordering might not be a fit for your restaurant, but I am going to give you a few reasons why it is right for every restaurant. Currently, 77% of the population owns a smartphone. With this statistic, why wouldn't you want to put your restaurant and your menu in the palm of their hands? Here are some key reasons to adopt an online ordering system, especially one that's integrated with your Point of Sale system to boost efficiency and revenue. IMPROVED CUSTOMER INTERACTIONS A major misconception is that online ordering will take away from the interaction between restaurant staff and guests. While customers won't be speaking with employees over the phone, they will still converse with someone when picking up their food or their delivery driver. These interactions will be less rushed, as your phones will be less tied up. Customer satisfaction will go up because your employees will have more time to focus on preparing orders for delivery or pick-up. In addition, restaurant staff will also have more time to focus on and interact with customers dining at the restaurant, improving face-to-face customer interaction. ONLINE ORDERING WILL DRIVE REVENUE Customers using online ordering are able to place an order more conveniently and take their time without any pressure to quickly wrap up their order. This provides the customer the opportunity to really look over all of your menu options and that inevitability leads them to order and spend more than they would on the phone or at the counter. Online orders are 20 percent larger on average than non-online orders, which means more money in your pocket. Simply putting your menu in the palm of your customers hands, has proven that they will up-sell themselves. Convenience is essential to bringing in customers and can be the deciding factor of a customer ordering food or eating left overs. Branded, easy to use, mobile and online ordering is a low cost efficient way to encourage the growth of your restaurant. IMPROVED ORDER ACCURACY A huge advantage to online ordering is that fewer mistakes will be made by eliminating as many opportunities for miscommunication as possible. A great in-house online ordering system will provide the customer with the ability to select and make changes to their order easily and seamlessly through the ordering process. The key component on the restaurant side, is to ensure the online order is directly integrated to the POS. Having the online orders go directly through the POS system to the kitchen, eliminates any chance of miscommunication from the customer to the restaurant. COLLECTING CRUCIAL CUSTOMER DATA Knowing who your customers are, what they order, when they order, and how to reach them is vital in today's restaurant industry. With an in-house online ordering system, you are able to capture important information. Email addresses, phone numbers, addresses, and order history. You are able to store this information in a customer database and utilize it for strategic marketing and communication to your customers. This detail allows you to build sales, promotions and specials for very specific segments of your customer base. Market to customers based on when they come to your restaurant (the happy hour crowd), what items the frequently purchase, or customers who have not been in a while. Online ordering not only brings your customers to you, but gives you essential tools to market to and stay in front of your customers, right in their hands. THE DEMAND FOR ONLINE ORDERING IS REAL The demand for online ordering exists and is only going to grow exponentially! Customers crave convenience and mobile online ordering allows them to order on their own terms. Millennials have grown up in the smartphone world and they are an obvious target market for online ordering. There are 50 million millennials in the U.S. and by the end of this year their purchasing power as a whole will exceed $3 trillion. Pleasing this demographic will only lead to higher profits. Offering online ordering conveys to your customer base that you are a modern restaurant and want to be convenient and accessible for all your guests. Since 2014, 30% of diners aged 18 to 54 have ordered food from a restaurant's website from either a smartphone or a tablet. QSR Web found that digital restaurant ordering is growing 300 percent faster than dine-in traffic. In addition, last year, the percentage of restaurant orders online exceeded the number of orders placed over the phone. You don't need to be a tech expert to implement an Online Ordering System, so don't be intimidated! A properly Integrated Online Ordering Systems is a low-cost tool that quietly works to bring in greater revenue for your restaurant 24/7. With the continued growth of smartphones and tablets, all these pocket-sized devices have changed the way customers order food and interact with your restaurant. Mobile and Online Ordering is still fairly new, but many experts predict it will be driving nearly $38 billion in sales by the year 2020. Launching an Online Ordering System can be one of the best things you can do for your restaurant this year. PCS NEWS BLOG FAQ WEBINARS PENN CENTER SYSTEMS, INC, 6 STATE ROAD, SUITE 116, MECHANICSBURG, PA, 17050717-790-9955INFO@PENNCENTERSYSTEMS.COM Penn Center Systems, All Rights Reserved, 2020