The food and restaurant industry has boomed due to the support and introduction of new technologies now and then. In a short time-span, online food delivery systems, restaurant smartphone apps, and food apps have taken a tremendous leap in business and delivery techniques. These apps have become beneficial in enhancing the services and introduced brand and item awareness to food lovers. With the growing trend of mobile applications, ordering food and delivering it to your doorstep has become easy and comfortable. Many companies are into massive application development, aiding the growth of restaurant and food delivery businesses analogously.
Starting from the last decade, we have noticed that the food-business sector has managed to build a profitable industry. It became possible due to the broad spectrum of consumers and high-demand restaurants with varied food items. Everything right from booking cabs to movie tickets, shopping online, buying travel tickets – we now depend on apps for everything, so why not for ordering food?
In every city, restaurants and food cafes become established only if they offer customers tasty dishes with convenient and highly-satisfying experiences. Admittedly, the growth of a business depends heavily on the revenue generated from the sales. Now, in this smart era, having an app can lead to a lot of ingenious benefits. Food App and restaurant apps can boost the overall performance, productivity, and customer satisfaction utilizing information technology solutions. Wondering how? Let’s take a look at all the benefits of building an app for your food business.

Benefits of Building An App for Your Food Business

Food apps have developed a fascinating image into the minds of consumers as far as technology-integration is concerned. It is because food apps have made food ordering straightforward. Customers can easily search for food items, put it into the cart, and pay on the spot through an online transaction. Also, internally, these apps go beyond their limitations and technically help in reshaping the businesses. The benefits are listed below:

1. Easy and Fast Consumer Experience

Mobile apps help restaurant owners attract more consumers, increase sales, and reduce wait time. When a customer craves food, the first thing that comes to mind is table-booking and wait-time, while other customers think about going out and packing food as a time-taking process. Food apps can save that time and help customers find a sweet solution with a few taps and clicks. Apps allow customers to choose and place orders or food-item orders in advance that significantly reduces the wait time.

2. Digital Menu Card

Food apps are not just limited to selecting food items and ordering them. You can also showcase the food menu card through your food app, much in the same way you show them when someone visits your restaurant. Also, you can allow customers to place their orders through a digital menu card. Food litter is one such example that allows its customers to place orders dynamically while going through the menu items without any hassle. Apps with a good user interface and easy-to-locate items can bring in more customers.

3. Expand the Business Based on Active Users

According to research, it has been found that individuals between the ages of 25 to 35 years mostly use smartphones to discover restaurants and food cafes to make reservations, or order food online. Individuals of this age range about 25 percent of the total respondents have a minimum of one restaurant or food ordering app installed on their mobile phones. Having an app for the business allows business and restaurant owners to target active users. Some owners also set up new restaurants to expand their business based on the active user count. Also, food apps make owners understand the ups and downs of a business. Based on the data forecasted by the app, food businesses can work on three different verticals:

  • App User Interface
  • Service, and
  • Food Quality

4. Online Promotions Through Check-in Apps

These days, the food app and restaurant apps are available with many additional features, like sharing check-in locations over social media. Using this, customers can let their friends know where they are having their meal or dinner. It not only highlights your restaurant location and advertises the food items you serve, but also attracts customers because such check-in acts as a real-time recommendation.

5. Loyalty Programs

If you want to kill two birds with a single stone, loyalty programs in your app will help a lot. It will not only engage your existing customers but also draw new ones to the table. According to a study, researchers have observed that 65 percent of customers and users love to download apps that periodically provide exclusive offers. Offering schemes, coupons, and discounts on every 5th or 10th visit could help your business retain existing customers. Incorporating the mechanism of discount and coupons and notifying these coupon codes over emails and SMS spontaneously keep your app in the limelight.

6. Food Delivery

A restaurant business must extend its service with the home delivery feature. Delivering a fresh meal at your customer’s doorstep will not only bring distant customers closer but also help you virtually spread your business with simple logistics. Though we can’t count this feature as the primary highlight of the food app, having this feature might benefit your app in the long run.

7. Better ROI with Offers

Push notifications from your food app can solve many eating-out decisions. You can notify from your app like: ‘It’s Friday evening’ or, ‘Make your Saturday awesome’; all these will help you plant the idea of eating at your restaurant. You can also send push notifications to let your users know the specific dishes you are preparing for the night. Here timing is the key. It will more likely make the customer visit with a justified decision because of the reduced costs. Again, if your customers order for home delivery, provide them points, which they can later use to get discounts. It helps customers incline towards your app.

8. Online Reviews and Ratings

These days, apps allow consumers to provide feedback and opinions about the different services they have availed. Other customers can then view these preferences and ratings from the app store or view the item ratings before ordering the food. Companies like Dine, Zomato, Gayot, and Yelp maintain a database of reviews and restaurants’ ratings on their website. It lets the customers decide whether they want to order their meal from any particular restaurant or not. In case you are rated well on any one of the mentioned sites, there is a high possibility that people will visit your restaurant at least once.

9. Click to Call

Apart from the concept of ordering meals, reserving tables, home delivery, etc., food apps can also offer a feature – click to call button. This feature allows customers to have a direct conversation with the food service provider and ask a query about the menu or customize the order at reservation time. It also brings customers closer to the service forming a feeling of satisfaction in the minds of users.

10. Answer Every Question

Answering all customer queries via chat services brings additional benefits to your business. But it is possible only if your service is associated with the app. It not only gives your customer a feeling of genuineness but also helps you understand their likes and tastes. You can also keep an FAQ section in your app where you can answer the most frequently asked questions beforehand.

App Features to Consider for the Benefit of Your Food Business

  • Allows users to login to your app using email or phone numbers. It is more convenient to have a faster login alternative via social network login.
  • Allowing customers to build a profile with personal details will, in turn,  allow you to send promotional feeds and notifications over emails and SMSs.
  • The meal category (such as Drinks, Appetizers, Main Courses, Starters, etc.) within your app will also simplify the search for meals. Also, you can segregate veg and non-veg for more clarity.
  • Allow customers to pay either via payment gateways or cash on delivery. It is the flexibility you can provide to your customers.
  • Keeping a delivery-tracking feature in your app will bring more customer satisfaction. After giving an order, through this feature, customers can see the courier’s delivery-location in real-time.  
  • Push notification features in your app also help inform customers of the commencement of delivery and updates on the order status.

Conclusion

Using the power of technology, B2C models like food businesses and restaurants can grow and expand their business territory. From bakery to food cafes and other food businesses, technology plays an inevitable role in solving different problems by streamlining the complete chain of arranging a veggie in the kitchen until it is cooked and presented to the consumers. If you are planning for app development for your food business, check out Spersourcing for multiple options of getting specialized agencies. It is a wonderful platform and can be an excellent choice for you to achieve your business requirements and goals.