7 Reasons for Restaurants to Have Their Own Branded App

What is the world today without mobile phones and the Internet? A modern-day smartphone does almost everything for you, from telling you the weather at your location to the traffic around your area, from entertaining you with games to ordering food at your doorstep, all with the help of a few clicks. Mobile apps have become very common in today’s world. Constituting 90% of the time spent by a user on his/her phone. Talking about ordering food from eateries, over the past 5 years, online ordering has gone up thrice as much compared to dining-in, according to National Restaurant News.

It is all the better for a business if the app is first-party, as customers credit it for fast delivery, open choice of restaurant and seating, quick payment, and discount coupons. A self-owned mobile app, thus, proves to be the perfect definition of excellent marketing and customer-friendliness, ideal for a restaurateur looking to expand his scope online.

Here are 7 reasons on why you should have a branded app as a restaurant/cafe owner:

1. Be the Only One

The foremost advantage of launching an app of your eatery would be the steep increase in its visibility among a a large portion of mobile users. Apart from your delicious food, welcoming the ambiance, and top-class service, wide-spreading online visibility will help your restaurant gains popularity, giving you an edge over your competitors. Moreover, you can give yourself an attractive USP, Unique Selling Proposition. A term used to describe what you do best that is different from all the other brands out there.

2. Use the monopoly of the app to your benefit

Having full control of your app saves you the commission that you would have had to pay a mediator food delivery app otherwise; commission rates go from 15-30% of the price of the food item delivered. Make provisions on your app for online ordering, takeaway and delivery. With AIPOS, our smart POS system for restaurants, you can make pre-booking of seats an option for those who want to make reservations during peak hours and wish to skip the waiting room. What’s more, customers can pre-book their orders even when the restaurant is closed! This way, the management will already have a to-do list to work on once the restaurant opens. Customers can collect your order as soon as it is ready.

You can also include a special feedback option wherein genuine customers (those who have had a dining history with you) can leave behind their reviews.

3. Loyalty is always returned

Did you know that it costs 500% as much to acquire new customers for your business than it does to retain an existing one? Yet, only 18% of companies seem to focus on customer retention. You can work smart with your customers by engaging them in a loyalty program. Making them feel special for your business and compelling them to return. Give special discount coupons to regular diners. Reward them with points that they can redeem every time they bring along a guest. Customize your app to treat every customer based on his/her recent searches, frequent timings, and recurring outlets. But do restaurant loyalty programs work? The Infinite Cycle shows it definitely does!

“Just having satisfied customers isn’t good enough anymore. If you really want a booming business, you have to create raving fans.” ― Ken Blanchard

4. Always be on their mind

As a restaurateur, you would want only your brand to come up every time someone speaks of food. To create this impression of your restaurant, brand awareness must be taken into supreme consideration while drawing your marketing strategy. Design a unique color combination and logo for your app such that it stands out on a mobile screen. Inculcate a push-notification service with the help of AIPOS, the best POS system for Australian restaurants, to draw constant attention from users. Don’t miss an opportunity to remind customers about you.

5. Let them know where you are

According to an uberall study, around 82% of all smartphone users carry out “Near me” searches, out of which 84% were on food! AIPOS embeds GPS services in your app enabling customers to view nearby outlets and vacancy per outlet. You could also send out notifications from the app every time a customer pass by it. If your restaurant has outlets in many cities, you can feature your app to notify visiting users about your presence, also giving them directions to the nearest venue.

6. Provide ease of choice on the Menu

Complement mouth-watering dish names with appealing pictures and descriptions. Creatively categorize your menu based on the hour, weekday, and season, or declare “Chef Specials” often. You could even consider offering separate menu sections for different dietary needs. On weekends or holidays, highlight your trending dish under “Popular today” or “Best-selling”. This could boost your sales as people seldom go against popular opinion, be it dining-in, take-aways, or ordering.

7. Ensure fast and hassle-free payment

The digital platform for payment is beneficial to both parties. As a customer, one would want to get over with the payment as quickly and easily as possible. Online payment processing is only a matter of a few clicks, saving the time taken in a restaurant for the bill to come, be taken away, and the change to be returned. As the restaurant owner, what more would you want than cost-cutting without compromising on efficiency? Online payment methods mean lesser manual labor required and more secure and reliable transactions.

According to a report by Statista, 34% of consumers spent at least 50 USD per order online as compared to the 16-30 USD that they spent physically in full-service restaurants. This clear statistics about double expenditure on the digital platform leaves no excuse for restaurateurs to hold back from having their own app.

With our finest services at AIPOS, you can develop your business a branded app integrated with your POS system, and experience guaranteed boost in sales, at a relatively minimal app-building investment. Done right, it will take your business no time to climb up to the first position among your competitors. Get started today by contacting us.