Posted by Tim on July 17, 2013
Online ordering is the best weapon for addressing change in the restaurant industry…
The Orlando Sentinel, citing several respected industry sources, reports that restaurants that have not spent a huge amount of energy trying to capture the lunch crowd are now refocusing their efforts.
Mid-day meals typically mean lower profit margins and diners that are in a hurry. Competition for the business, however, has forced restaurants to refocus their efforts. Some restaurants are at a disadvantage here, reports the article, “… when diners eat out at lunch, they often want something quick — a problem for some sit-down chains.”
A weakness for restaurants in the lunch business is the lack of a good online ordering system. Ordering online is ideal for the mid-day customer who wants to spend a limited time away from their desk or, better yet, get it delivered.
To compete, it’s important to emphasize the convenience of online ordering to customers, either for pickup or delivery. You can do this through conversations with customers, in-store signage, messages on receipts, and email campaigns through your NetWaiter Management Console.
“A recent industry survey revealed that the lunch crowd accounts for 34% of restaurant traffic,” said Jared Shimoff, Sr. Director at NetWaiter. “If that’s part of your business, you certainly want to keep it and expand it. Online ordering is a key tool for that opportunity.”
Posted by Tim on July 3, 2013
Social media offers an excellent opportunity to reach customers on an emotional level using photos. Here are three suggestions of photos you can post to Twitter and Facebook:
Photos of Dishes - Presentation is everything. Post a photo of your popular entrées and desserts to Twitter and Facebook. You can even add an offer: ‘Surprise your sweetheart with pie tonight – order an entrée online and get 50% off one of our delicious pies.’
Photos of Employees – Highlight your employees and how well they do their job. Post photos of employees so customers feel like they know them the next time they come in to eat.
Photos of Customers - Patrons are also part of your restaurant family. When a customer comes in with a new baby, capture it on your camera phone. How about the folks who order online at your restaurant three times a week for lunch? Snap a picture (with their permission) the next time they pickup an order and use the photo for promoting ordering online at your restaurant by posting it to Facebook and Twitter.
Posted by Tim on June 27, 2013
The restaurant industry continues its love-hate relationship with daily deals. There is even some research that the customers are not as bad as once thought, although they still are not the most profitable. The main drawback is that once you start using them, customers come to expect them.
Online ordering, however, proves a far better way to grow business--and is more profitable. As noted in a recent NetWaiter blogpost: "Almost 98% of operators say the ROI of online ordering met or exceeded their expectations, with 52.4% saying their expectations were surpassed.
Posted by Tim on June 26, 2013
Eve
ryone likes to feel as if they are an insider, that they know things other folks don't know. This includes secret menu items at restaurants.
What's better than a secret menu? A ‘secret’ menu only available to online customers.
"Online ordering is a natural for ‘secret’ menu items," says Jared Shimoff, Sr. Director at NetWaiter. "Obviously, it’s impossible to keep things a secret when you post information online, but keeping certain menu items exclusive to your online menu will encourage people to gravitate to your online site and help set your online menu apart from menus at other restaurants."
Often times, secret items are similar to regular items, but in different presentations. For instance, McDonald's purported Monster Mac - a Big Mac with eight patties (can you say heart attack?). The ingredients are already on hand. Alternatively, secret menu items can also allow you to experiment with new offerings before rolling them out to the mainstream.
"If you have a secret menu or customers know the secret menu, they feel like they're insiders," Bret Thorn, senior food editor of Nation's Restaurant News, told NPR News. "They feel a kind of personal connection to the restaurant; they feel they know something that maybe not everybody else does. And everyone loves that."
Posted by Tim on June 21, 2013
Takeout continues to grow as a percentage of takeout business for restaurants. No wonder when many popular meals are more expensive to make at home (according to this Yahoo article) than ordering at a restaurant. And that says nothing about your time involved in putting the meal together.
Take full advantage of that takeout market with online ordering from NetWaiter.
Posted by Tim on May 17, 2013
Jose Davila, manager of The Sub and Pizza of Amherst, located not far from the University of Massachusetts, setup a new marketing tool in 2012 - NetWaiter.
"I looked at online ordering systems for a year," said Jose. "I have a big file of all the companies I reviewed. NetWaiter made me feel very comfortable. Their system is very easy to use, very easy to make changes, and they walked me through all the steps.”
Jose reports that his average takeout ticket size prior to NetWaiter was about $11. Now his average takeout ticket ranges between $17 and $19. "The cashier, who takes orders over the phone, does two or three jobs at once," says Jose. "They don't always think to suggest an appetizer, another dish, or another topping. But NetWaiter allows me to do this."
NetWaiter has also opened up an entirely new client base for The Sub and Pizza of Amherst. Whereas they rarely received orders from delivery services catering to the college crowd, NetWaiter allowed them to expand access to that customer base. “NetWaiter has opened that market for us,” he said. “Younger people really like online ordering."
Posted by Tim on May 1, 2013
This may be a big shock, but studies reveal that only 4% of Facebook fans return to your page after visiting and liking it.
This means if your messages don’t end up in a user’s newsfeed, they probably won’t be seen. So, how do you get your Facebook posts to as many followers as possible?
Posts on a newsfeed are based on an algorithm called EdgeRank. If you do things the algorithm likes, then your posts will get in front of more people. Here's what the algorithm looks for:
Affinity: The more posts a fan likes, comments on, and shares, the more likely they will see your future updates.
Weight: Closely linked to affinity, this measures the action of each individual update. The more action an update gets, the more likely it will be shown on more newsfeeds.
Decay: If you are posting the same thing all the time, or you wait too long between posts, the algorithm starts to forget about you.
TIPS: Try to post at least once a day, and pay attention to when you post and what kind of responses you receive. Your followers may be more prone to responding at specific times. Look for patterns of high response, make posts or ask questions that elicit answers, and try to be interactive.
Posted by Tim on March 28, 2013
A popular marketing vehicle used by restaurants is the limited time offer, or LTO.
Typically, LTOs are special menu items or offerings made available for a short period, often offered in unison with a holiday or celebration of some sort. These opportunities work especially well with online ordering.
NetWaiter has assembled a list of non-holiday events that are great for online ordering LTOs:
• Do you have a local minor league baseball team, or a major league team for that matter? Offer a combination of foods for a pre-game tailgate party. You can set the offer to be available after a certain time on game day.
• The Saturday wedding special - a bag of sandwiches for the groom and groomsmen, or finger foods for the bride and her bridesmaids as they get ready.
• Do local parks offer summer evening movies or concerts? Customers can order dinner online and pick it up on the way.
NetWaiter and limited time offers - a combination that can help your bottom line. Develop your offering and use the NetWaiter Management Console to email it to your database of online customers.
Posted by Tim on March 19, 2013
Delivery Areas
Coming soon, your restaurant will have the ability to customize more specific delivery zones.
Within the NetWaiter Management Console, restaurants will be able to 'draw' and configure custom delivery areas on a map. Each delivery zone can be configured with a simple click-and-drag function to encompass the exact area in which delivery is available. As allowed now, restaurants can configure more than one delivery zone, each with its own associated settings, such as a delivery fee and an estimated delivery time. The new delivery area configurations provide restaurants in densely populated locations the ability to configure their zones more precisely.
The current delivery zone options, based on a radius, will remain available to restaurants offering delivery based strictly on distance.
Holiday Hours
You can now configure your holiday hours for the entire year.
Just in time for Easter - a new feature is now available in the Location Information section of the NetWaiter Management Console that allows restaurateurs to customize hours for annual holidays. The Holiday Hours feature allows restaurants to indicate special holiday hours or if they are closed for a particular holiday. It also allows for the creation of custom holidays throughout the year that a typical calendar might not recognize.
This new feature alleviates the need for restaurants to re-adjust their normal open/close hours each holiday. If the Holiday Hours are configured, it will automatically account for them. It’s an ideal tool to accommodate Thanksgiving or Easter, both of which have different dates each year. Do you close early on New Year’s Eve? No problem, you can configure that as well.
