McDonald’s Corp began testing U.S. mobile ordering app after almost a year of development. The testing will go for a few more months before the app hits public beta. Why so much testing?
Well Starbucks Corp ran into various service hiccups when they launched their app a few years ago. App orders poured in faster than they could be processed, forming backlogs that drove away annoyed walk-in patrons.
Owing to growing competition, and the fear of losing its ‘Hip’ tag, Starbucks Inc pushed the mobile app development and rushed the half-baked app through the testing phase.
The rest is an important chapter in the history of restaurant mobility solutions that no restaurant coming with a mobile app will ever dare to ignore.
Many restaurants see mobile as a way to win back customers. Some sees it as a way to build an edge over their competitors but the project carries risks, far more than most restauranteur can fathom.
What are those risks? How to mitigate them? I have listed five tricks.
Scale gradually
Don’t make your app available to everyone at once. Rather, make it available to a closed group of people you believe the number app server can handle.
If everything goes as per the plan, bring more closed group into the testing circle. If build an app in all over the country you must create such groups in every state.
When you want to expand the testing circle, open the circle to new invitees. This will test your app for inconsistencies and give you enough idea of how far you must scale up your app server to cater to new app users.
Once you start receiving enough good news and are confident enough, launch your app to the public on the respective app stores.
Staff training
The customer management system your restaurant staff are familiar with may need updation to absorb the changes brought in by the new mobile apps.
This may include a major overhaul to the entire CMS or addition of minor elements. the CMS may be integrated with newer tools to make way for the app compatibility.
The POS systems may need an upgrade too. whatever is the case, you must train your staff to those changes.
this may incur additional cost but believe me ‘ROI’ is almost certain.
Additional IT infrastructure
If you’re expecting a huge spike in the number of app orders owing to an irresistible app only offer, keep additional IT infrastructure in place in case a temporary hike in traffic overburdens your current IT capacity and you must add additional capacity to keep up with the traffic.
Collapse of the app server at the peak of an exciting offer is the last thing your customers expect.
Map integration
Map integration is fundamental to restaurant mobility solutions if you expect your delivery boys to deliver orders on time. finding the way to Cecilia Chapman’s place at 711-2880 Nulla St.
Mankato takes far more time than reading the street address takes. Delivery boys you hire are perhaps well acquainted with the city, but you, certainly, can’t expect them to know where Mrs. Chapman lives or every other place in Mankato.
Asking for direction from a passerby leaves too much to imagination. Taking a left turn after 15 yards is hard for an average human to decipher.
Track order status
Epic Delivery, for example, lets a person to track his food order on a map.
When Sam orders his favorite burger from the fast food joint app installed on his mobile, he expects to know more than what delivery time is but “is his food cooked?”, “how far on a map is his food from his home?” and “when will it reach him?”.
The more Sam knows about the status of his order more unlikely will be him to cancel the order or call the restaurant for the order status. This saves the time of both the customer and restaurant staff.
Overlooking customer loyalty
Today’s digital world provides customers with a plethora of options to go for. This makes customer retention one of the biggest challenges.
Customer loyalty is the most effective tool to overcome this challenge. Any restaurant app neglecting their customers is bound to face adverse results.
However, if you provide your customers with loyalty rewards then the customers won’t take long to come in your favor.
You can provide them with discounts, exclusive deals, freebies, and redeemable points and ensure that you retain your existing customers.
You can also offer referral bonuses to all your customers who share your apps with their friends and family. By this, you can attract new customers.
Avoiding a predictable pricing model
When it comes to the restaurant mobility solution, there’s a cut-throat competition. With such competition in hand, it becomes necessary to adopt a price model which varies continuously with the time.
Having a price model which doesn’t fluctuate would turn out be challenging as it won’t push the sales. So, business starts running on low margins; however, this doesn’t guarantee a push in the sales.
Read More: How Much Does It Cost to Make an App?
Confusion over logistics
One confusion or dilemma which everyone in the online food ordering section deals with is of the logistics.
Should we deliver food to only a few areas or the whole city? Can we make more profits by delivering more number of orders in a specific area? How many vehicles would we require to deliver al the orders and how to allocate all of them?
These are few of the questions that all the entrepreneurs are concerned with all the time. So, it becomes imperative for them to keep all this in mind while they decide for their last-mile logistics plan.
This is an essential element as it ensures the timely delivery of the orders. If you fail to deliver their requests on time then they will lose the trust in you which would be tough to gain back.
Inconsistent in food quality
Food quality is undoubtedly the most important aspect of your restaurant which shouldn’t be compromised with the inclusion of On-Demand Food Delivery Apps.
It becomes necessary for them to maintain the consistency in the food that is being served at their tables and the ones that is being delivered to their various customers.
However, it’s difficult to maintain the consistency and the quality as pizzas are likely to turn cold, sandwich will get moist, and curry will spill eventually.
Inefficiency to cope with increased volume of requests
It’s important that your food delivery business is scalable to handle a large volume of requests. Let suppose that your restaurant business gains some popularity.
Due to which you’re receiving a lot of requests. The volume of requests is such that you can’t deal with all of them with your existing logistics and operations.
Restaurants often become victims of such situation when they don’t start developing an alternative line of operations to deal with the increased volume of requests.
Conclusion
If you’re a restaurant owner, you must invest in one of the restaurant mobility solutions in the market to stay relevant to changing time.
And doing that it not tough, all you need to do is find a good Food delivery app development company and they will take care of the rest.
