Setting up a mobile app has become more of a necessity than a luxury for restaurant businesses today. This is mainly because mobile apps provide a wider scope and opportunities to increase sales and customer interaction.
About 60% of US consumers order from a food delivery app at least once per week. Moreover, the food delivery mobile app market is predicted to have a revenue growth rate of 9.5% every year. In case you are already aware of the uses of having a mobile app for your food business, the next important part to consider is how well you are using your app to maximize your returns. Does your app support all the cool and must-have features? Does it deliver the services and level of engagement you want it to?
Let us help you figure it out. Here is a list of top 10 features your restaurant app must have to stay competent in a competitive market.
Loyalty, Discounts, And Rewards
Loyalty programs and discount coupons provide a reason for customers to keep using your app. Look at what Starbucks did to improve their sales. With their loyalty programs geared towards repeat customers, Starbucks was able to increase sales by 80%.
It is natural for a person to choose a restaurant they’re already familiar with where additionally they can get a discount. Customers also find these types of promotions as a way to save money. So, it is a win-win feature you should think about including in your app.
Chatbot Assistance
Not every restaurant can hire a full support team that can be on call 24/7 to help with customer queries. The closest and an efficient way to accomplish the same would be to use a chatbot, similar to Zomato.
AI-based chatbots provide answers to the most commonly asked customer queries and help the customer find their way around the app and its services with ease. They help provide a personalized interaction that provides immediate answers to customers’ queries.
Push Notification
Push notifications, the ones provided by UberEats, can be of great help to keep customers informed of any new offers, deals, and subscription reminders. But remember that managing push notifications properly takes tact and overdoing it can become an annoyance to the customer. Find your sweet spot with time.
In-App Ordering
Many restaurants make use of third-party food delivery apps to provide online orders. If you have your own app, you can very well include the feature to make orders in your app itself.
This feature can be used for providing deliveries and takeaways. In-app ordering also allows the customer to make mobile payments, which would find a warm welcome from your consumers. It helps improve the speed and efficiency of billing and makes the process zero contact and hassle-free.
Reservation Feature
You may think your small restaurant doesn’t need this feature. But as you grow in popularity, many of your customers might find it difficult to find seats when they simply walk into your restaurant. Providing a reservation feature can be helpful for customers to reserve seats beforehand, and they will prefer your dinner over a place where getting seats may be uncertain. Plus, it could help you manage your customers with social distancing norms in mind.
Location-Based Services
Location-based services like iBeacon from Apple and Geofencing from the Android platform can be adequately taken advantage of using your mobile app. These features will let you engage with first-time customers who have never known of your restaurant before. Help them find you.
Staff And Kitchen Management
You can provide certain staff-only features to your app that lets you manage your kitchen efficiently. These features allow you to coordinate the kitchen and waiting staff for the entirety of an order processing.
It helps avoid miscommunication and makes sure every order is prepared in the right order with no room for errors.
Social Media Integration
Customers feel validated when they are allowed to post reviews and share their experiences. Social media integration can help you provide such features that allow customers to review the food, take pictures, and share it with their social networks. This can also help you get better visibility and increased customer engagement.
Personalization
Personalization feature allows you to recommend dishes and best dine-in options for your customers based on their past shopping experiences. It also helps with customer retention as you can serve your existing customers to find what they want with minimum effort.
Customer Feedback Portal
You want the best insights to grow your business; you need to get feedback from your customers. Having such a feature in your app is an easy way to find valuable information, such as customer behavior, expectations, likes, and dislikes.
The Wrap Up
So, these are some of the best features that your restaurant app can have. The best part is that you can realize all these features effortlessly with the help of app builders like Builder.ai who use AI to save you time and money through the build process and make building your restaurant app, hassle-free. What do you think?
