Month: December 2019
Restaurant Industry Trends that Shaped the Past Decade
This decade saw an array of new trends, from theme-based restaurants and cafes to rise of restaurant tech, third party dining out and food delivery aggregators. Further, emerged many unheard concepts like buffets and cloud kitchens which uplifted the industry and spoiled the consumers for choices, especially in metro cities.
Trends that dominated the industry in the past decade:
Online Ordering & the Rise of Food Delivery Aggregators
Keeping up with the smartphone generation, emerged online ordering which offers varied menus & live-tracking. While direct delivery from restaurants is popular, the online food delivery aggregator app space has interesting deals and offers to attract new diners to their platforms.
Another set of aggregators is the dine-in food aggregators who promote restaurants, cafes and more. These aggregators allow customers to rate and post reviews for a particular restaurant, helping other customers to choose where they want to dine out. Fortunately, food aggregators also allow restaurants to launch offers and discounts online to attract more customers.
Traditionally, dining out was an occasional affair and a luxury for many. Now, it is a trend and at-your-disposal service. This has sprouted the rise of food aggregators and the services they offer.
Growth of Restaurant Technology
With customer centricity being the disruptor, restaurants aim to provide a delightful experience to diners and restaurant tech companies do the same for restaurants. 360-degree restaurant management solutions have emerged as a valuable tool for restaurant owners and managers as they help elevate the customer experience and restaurant sales. Here’s how:
- POS software can help manage billing, order queues, online orders and more
- Supply Chain Module can help manage inventory, vendors, and minimize wastage
- Reservation Applications allow customers to book a table from anywhere and arrive later to avoid waiting time
- Feedback Applications aid in collection of customer feedback and instant grievance redressal
- Automated marketing campaigns enable engaging customers online, based on their demographics and other preferences.
Digital Menu Solutions help customers place orders at restaurants directly from their phone and simplify menu alterations, cross-sell and up-sell for restaurants
Having all this and more in a single connected ecosystem gives the restaurant insights on customer preferences and behaviour to take their experience to the next level.
Casual Dining became the Preferred Dining Choice
In the last decade, dining out has become more than an occasional affair. The decade caught glimpses of friends partying and families catching up on gossip at casual dines the most.
Casual dining has emerged as an informal way of eating food and creating memories. Mostly preferred for after-work outings or by college students, these restaurants not only provide scrumptious food but are also easy on the pocket. People can go out anytime, eat all-day food, and they don’t have to follow a dress code.
Wellness Warriors Enter the Industry
The restaurant industry has seen a rise in health-conscious consumers following which a trend of wholesome and clean menu choices have emerged with dedicated health-based restaurants. Restaurants can easily take advantage of this trend by modifying recipes and offering options to their customers. And the best part is the food is still tasty!
With so many healthy eating restaurants opening up, dining out is no more equal to counting calories later, but only counting memories! Catching up with the healthy eating trend has never been this easy.
Staying on top of restaurant and food trends will give you an edge over the competition. Whether it’s focusing on healthy ingredients or implementing technology in your restaurant, the bottom line is all about giving consumers what they want. While the growth of the restaurant industry in the past decade may have been unanticipated, it has shaped the way we dine out. Now, it is easier to order in or go out for a meal.
Restaurant promotion strategies to adopt during Christmas
It’s Christmas time, and we can already smell big feasts, love, and friends getting together.
Everyone is all hyped up for the holiday season and has begun their search for the restaurant that resonates with their Christmas spirit the most. Let them know that your restaurant is their perfect choice.
Promoting your restaurant during wintertime pays off, especially around Christmas, when food is on everyone’s mind.
Here’s how you can do that:
Incorporate a New Christmas Menu
Christmas is just incomplete without plum cakes, gingerbread cookies, wine, and hot chocolate. If your menu doesn’t consist of any of these, then add a few of them. Show your chef’s skills in preparing holiday favorites. Not only will you attract a whole new crowd, but also, if these items are a hit, you can feature them more often and keep the crowd coming back for more.
You can also cross-sell by creating fun combos of these items with the dishes that customers are most likely to order. If your restaurant has a digital menu, it becomes easier to add new items and create combos last minute. It lets you save the cost, time, and effort involved in printing and planning a whole new paper menu.
Add Christmas decor
Add a little Christmas feel to your decor by setting up a Christmas tree, a string of fairy lights, and tinsel inside your restaurant.
You can also introduce Christmas takeaway cutlery or napkins which, could prove to be a huge customer magnet.
Starbucks introduces new Christmas cups every year, and I would be lying if I said I was not there just for the cups!
Run Christmas campaigns on Social Media
Instagram feeds are always hungry for pretty looking Christmas feasts and decor photos, and that’s your perfect chance to attract more customers as a lot of diners first look up their social media to decide where to dine out! So, do some fancy photography of your flattering Christmas decor and the special feasts, and post them out.
You can do targeted marketing by sending out a round of SMS and emails to your customers, informing them of your latest Christmas offers. Campaign apps that enable you to do all that effortlessly with just one tap are going to be your best tool for this.
Play the Secret Santa
It’s that time of the year when the kid in you is waiting for Santa Claus to visit you with gifts. No matter how old you are, everyone deserves a gift from Santa! Engage customers by playing the secret Santa for them:
- You can give away gift cards to selected diners as a part of your restaurant’s loyalty program, which will keep them coming back for more.
- Send fortune cookies at your diner’s tables with Christmassy notes and blessing to keep the festive spirit alive!
Organize Christmas Events
Diners often go out for regular dinners, but it’s not just any other Saturday – it’s Christmas, so give them a little something where they can engage, and have fun.
To make the night interesting, your restaurant can:
- Host Christmas carol karaoke: A festive soundtrack of all the best Christmas songs is essential to set the mood.
- If your restaurant regularly hosts live music events, you can call artists to sing jazzy Christmas music.
- You can host breakfast with Santa or even midnight buffets for celebration nights we wish never ended.
Donate leftover food
“Christmas is doing a little something extra for someone.”
-Charles M Schulz
As we said, everyone deserves a visit from Santa on Christmas, do your something extra for the poor by making a feast happen for them by donating food.
It’s not a promotional strategy but something that Christmas calls for!
Your restaurant is going to be filled with memories of families getting together, friends reuniting, and kids discussing their Santa stories. And just like Santa Claus does, you would bring a smile to your customer’s faces by providing them a mesmerising customer experience.
Merry Christmas to everyone!
Instant Grievance Redressal: Ways to convert that bad feedback into a good one!
In the fast-paced restaurant world, there are times when you receive bad feedback or just an average one. Of course, you can reflect upon them and never repeat the same mistakes next time. But, do your customers have the patience for the next time when they have a hundred more options?
Did you know that 54% of customers share bad experiences with more than five people, while only 33% share good customer experiences, according to Zendesk.
What if we tell you that you can instantly gratify your customers while they are still at your restaurant and have them leave at a happy note? With feedback apps that notify the top management or the owner while the diners are still at your restaurant, you can take action instantly and save yourself from bad word of mouth later on social media or otherwise.
It’s the perfect marketing opportunity to engage with your customers and convert them into long-term ones, and you can do that in the most heartfelt ways so that your diners are all praise for you and nothing else!
A free beer works like a charm
A Beer is the perfect solution to any problem, and if it’s free, nothing like it.
You can send a free beer at your customer’s table with a personalised note which goes something like-
“We heard you didn’t like your cocktail, so here’s a beer on the house because everyone deserves their favourite drink on a Friday!”
Customers are always on the lookout for discounts
The only two things that a person loves to hear at a restaurant-
- More Food
- That’s on a discount
It bothers a customer when he has to pay the full amount despite not liking the experience. Psychologically, he is relieved when he is offered a discount, and you can neutralise his not-so-good experience.
You can either offer them a discount on the entire bill, say 20% off, or not charge them for a particular dish they didn’t like.
A mechanism to keep them coming back: Loyalty Program
Give them a reason to visit you again by offering them your loyalty program that gives them a series of discounts on a trail of visits or on the amount spent.
Despite having an average experience, they will definitely think about you the next time they want to dine out and on a positive note, too.
A manager’s visit to the customer’s table
When the manager himself inquires about the problem, the customers feel that their preferences are important and the restaurant is willing to work on it.
In the process, you can build a relationship with the customer, have an engaging conversation, be witty, and make him a loyal customer.
He is going home with some good memories now, instead of a bad experience.
Giving out discounts on every bad or average feedback could mean losses but remember-
- You don’t have to follow this with every customer:
Filter out the important ones- like the high spenders and set the tone accordingly.
- Bad reviews are being converted into marketing opportunities:
You are saving potential customers who might not have come to your restaurant looking at a bad social media review or word of mouth.
With this you are going to win some hearts this season, so wear your happy socks and slide on to those 5 stars in no time.
See you at the top of the charts!
How is technology helping restaurants increase reservations and revenue?
Your restaurant has finger-licking good food, great ambience, and you have also managed to get an excellent location for your restaurant, but so have the other 10 in the industry.
In such a highly competitive market, it’s imperative to lock-in as many customers as possible.
How can you do that, you ask?
That’s what we have technology for – to make your life simple and operations more efficient.
Whether you like it or not, technology is impacting your business, both inside and outside your restaurant’s walls. With Restaurant Technology evolving at a rapid pace, new trends are coming your way every week. It is essential to keep up with these to cater to your smart customers and remain at the top of the game.
In today’s fast-paced world, 45% of regular customers in restaurants are becoming more and more used to technology that is expected to simplify and speed up the entire transaction procedure.
While there are hundreds of products in the market, it is vital to identify the products that are making an impact on the industry while being a good fit for your restaurant. Here’s how you can leverage Tech-based Restaurant Management products to bag more revenue: –
Leveraging Customer Data to Boost Sales
With applications like reserve and feedback, one can tap into customer data and map customer trends.
With this data, you, as the restaurant manager, can analyse customer behavior, preferences, patterns, and profitably utilize them by curating precisely the type of customer experience your diners are seeking.
Reduce Table Turnaround Time to Maximise Footfall
Reserve apps allow restaurants to manage their reservations and walk-ins most effectively from a single screen. Furthermore,
- There is no need to run around across the floors to find out the status of tables &
- These apps create an efficient restaurant staff, thus saving a lot of time.
The restaurant can now seat more number of diners per day by improving the table turn around time, thereby increasing revenue.
Switch to Digital Menu to Save Costs & Cross / Up-sell Items
By switching to a digital menu from a paper menu, the restaurateurs can save a lot of cost.
Here’s how:
- Each time you have a small change or a seasonal menu change, it saves on reprinting cost.
- You can increase sales by cross-selling and up-selling through combos and offers.
- Table turn-around time is improved, so you can now seat more diners per day.
The smart menu recommends diners the dishes that the restaurant wants to sell specifically, and by strategizing it right, the restaurant can influence the customers’ decisions and sell them their most profit-generating items.
Instant Grievance Redressal to Avoid Bad Word of Mouth
With the digital feedback forms, the top management can instantly be notified of the feedback and the table number from where it has come. If it’s a bad review, the manager can instantly gratify the diner by giving him a discount or sending a free beer at his table.
How can a happy tummy spread bad word of mouth on social media or otherwise?
You just bagged yourself some happy customers!
Running the Right Loyalty Program to Keep them Coming Back
If your restaurant is on your diners’ favourite list, you must make them feel that they are important to you too. When you reward them, you give them a reason to visit you again!
And that’s how you can make your new customers your regulars too!
With the Campaigns Module, spread the word about your special offers and deals so they won’t be able to resist coming back. Who doesn’t like discounts, right?
Upgrading your technology may feel daunting, but it’s more than necessary for the success of your business.
You need to identify the correct management solution or a combination of them for your restaurant, and nothing can stop you from being on top of the charts.
You will thank us later!
