Serving good food will get your restaurant in the good books of your customers, but you still need to maintain convenience to drive repeat customers to your restaurant. And one of the ways you can make this happen is if the option for ordering food from your restaurant isn’t just limited to call-in. Instead, there should also be an option for ordering food from your restaurant website or food-delivery apps.
Online ordering not only makes it easier for your customers to communicate with your business, but it’s also an ideal choice. There are many benefits to ordering food online, which will be explored in this article.
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5 Reasons You Should Enable Online Ordering for Your Restaurant
We are not saying that you should completely close the call-in option for your customers, rather we encourage you to widen this preference by adding online ordering as an option too.
Here are the following reasons how online ordering will benefit your restaurant:
Get Increased Accuracy
Your employees may be the best ones you have hired, but they are still prone to making mistakes when taking call-in orders.
Online ordering allows your customers to take matters into their own hands; they can decide what they want, and make the order. The rest will be carried out, and food will be delivered to their desired destination. This reduces room for any errors in the orders and transaction process.
We recommend that you allow your customers to order directly from your website rather than from a third-party app i.e. food delivery apps. Direct online ordering system will enable the online orders to sync to the cloud, which you’ll need for making menu and pricing updates, instead of relying on third-party apps to make the changes for you.
Improved Customer Experience
When calling to order for takeout or delivery, customers cannot necessarily see the menu which makes the selection process really difficult. They are put on hold, and no one likes being put on hold when they are really hungry. Or even worse, your customers could call to order a dish only to find out that it’s finished.
The online ordering system will allow customers to have access to information about your menu at their fingertips. That way, they can order whatever they like, and take as much time as they need.
Another advantage of online ordering is that it helps maintain quality control. If you let a third-party app manage the customers’ orders for your restaurant, you don’t know what kind of experience your customers are having with that app. When customers order directly from your restaurant website, you can ensure that they have an excellent customer experience.
Employees Become More Efficient
When your employees have to manage the restaurant ordering system i.e. call-in, then they don’t really have time to spend on doing other tasks such as prepping cutlery, communicating with customers, or cleaning the tables.
Meanwhile, the online ordering system will direct all orders to your POS, which frees up employees’ time to focus on other duties that require urgent attention. The modern online ordering system is meant to streamline the ordering process for your restaurant – allowing your staff to keep up with the customers’ orders as well as focus on other duties.
Take on Increased Volume of Orders
With the call-in service, your restaurant can only take in a limited amount of orders as the job is done by one of your staff. And if they keep putting your customers on hold, these customers are unlikely to call back – that is a good way of ensuring they never come to your restaurant again.
On the other hand, the online ordering system allows your customers to make as many orders as they want, and as frequently as they like as well. That way, you can access more orders for your restaurant and focus on preparing them for delivery.
Online ordering can lead to an increase in an average transaction[1] ! Hence, this can totally benefit your restaurant food business.
Experience a Boost in Revenue
Apart from receiving an increased volume of orders, upselling is another benefit of a direct online ordering system.
When customers order over the phone, they rush through placing the order and spend less time in thinking about additional stuff to add to their dishes. But with the online ordering system, they can take their sweet time choosing the perfect meal by choosing add-ons and getting swayed by food suggestions optimized for upselling.
Final Thoughts
It’s clear from the above-mentioned benefits that the online ordering system will hugely benefit your restaurant business if you add it as an option for ordering besides call-in. Providing an improved customer experience with increased accuracy and receiving an increased volume of orders are some of the reasons why you should start investing in a direct online ordering system.
