A restaurant most likely wants to build a custom point of sale solution so that they can properly manage operations of the restaurant, including table, menu, and staff. The restaurant has to be efficient in providing an exceptional experience to its guests. This is where a mobile app for a restaurant can help them to improve their services.
First of all, you have to define your business objective for getting a mobile app for your restaurant. To do so, you need to define business objectives by highlighting the particular problem that restaurants or guests encounter.
A specific problem can become a potential opportunity for your mobile app and your business. Let’s put some light on the sets of problems which are faced by those who run a restaurant and the visitors.
For instance, you can have an objective for your app to help your restaurant increase table income at certain times of a day or make more earning from deliveries from a particular location.
What Problems Can a Restaurant App Solve?
A restaurant cannot make the most of its app development opportunity unless you completely understand what works in the food industry. A common problem that is faced by restaurants is the irregular turnover of clients, the unpredictable arrival of clients at events, high cancelation rates, and long waits in busy times. This can add up to losing money and customers.
All of these problems can turn into an opportunity if you can serve solutions for those through your mobile restaurant app. Let’s elaborate on these problems in a little detail to understand how an app can help to bring improvements in a restaurant setup.
Problem: Irregular Profit Rotation
Every size of the restaurant, if not always, sometimes face problems with irregular customers’ turnover. Making a large setup with more tables would require a bigger place with more rent and more staff. To cover that expense, you need your restaurant to attract more visitors on a regular basis. And if you want your business to be profitable, the restaurant would likely require to fill its waiting area on a frequent basis.
While on the other hand, a restaurant with a lesser number of seats would result in making some potential visitors disappointed. To avoid this situation, the restaurant owner can take help from a software development company to get a website along with an iOS or Android mobile app to solve the problem of irregular customer turnover.
Solutions:
- Guests can Book Tables in Advance.
- Last Minute Booking Discounts and Loyalty Points can be beneficial.
1) Guests can Book Tables in Advance
The solution to unpredictable visitors is certainly in knowing how many customers are going to be in the restaurant at certain times. Getting aware of this might lead to better efficiency and fewer difficulties for restaurant managers and the team. Moreover, it will be favorable to customers as well to book a table in advance and avoid to get bothered after reaching the spot about the availability.
With the availability of fewer tables, a restaurant can face accommodation issues at any time, but table booking features in a restaurant app help management increase and ensure a profit by letting guests pay some amount in advance and book their tables in advance.
Another feature that can be added to restaurant apps is joining the waitlist feature. This feature can eliminate the disappointed visitor turning back unserved because they can make sure table availability before coming to the restaurants.
Bookings made through apps can provide a relatively even turnover and let people see how busy a restaurant is without showing up in person. A restaurant’s app that also provides table reservation solutions lets users book their tables based on date, cost, time, and the number of people visiting. Developing quick-service restaurant apps, however, requires a thorough understanding of what users want from this type of service. To turn your idea into an app, you are required to have a thorough understanding of the subject.
2) Last Minute Booking Discounts and Loyalty Points
You can increase restaurant profits by sending push notification via mobile app or website to inform users about the same day discount and last minute offers for slower hours. This is a tried and tested idea for travel and hotel apps to entice users at personalized offers. Moreover, offering discounts for booking via mobile app motivates users to engage with the offer. Plus, giving rewards or loyalty points on each visit increases the chances for the customers to visit the restaurant again.
Sending discounted offers with a limited-time option can also attract customers and encourage them to dine out. Restaurant management can have an added feature for last-minute offers in order to fill empty tables.
Some Useful Suggestions to Integrate into a Restaurant App
- Enable users to book reservations in advance and give loyalty points.
- Provide users with a Cancelation option via the app.
- You can add reservation reminders in your app to help the users set their plans.
- Add a suggestion column with every order to improve customer satisfaction with the food and eventually with the restaurant.
- Let users pay the bill with the one-tap option to avoid payment, receipt, and tips hassles and save time.
- Enable your app for a delivery option so that customers do not have to worry in case of the unavailability of tables.
- Last yet important, design a clean and user-friendly UX for your mobile app and add mouth-watering food images on the menu section.
Zubair is a digital enthusiast who loves to write on various trends, including Tech, Software Development, AI, and Personal Development. He is a passionate blogger and loves to read and write. He currently works at Unique Software Development, custom software development company in Dallas that offers top-notch software development services to clients across the globe.
