Last month, we reported that NetWaiter now offers the option for restaurants to accept Dine-In orders.  Customers can select the Dine-In option when completing their online order and then come to the restaurant to have their meal served to them.

What’s the importance of this?

Let’s look at a simple statistic that was recently released: Google reported that 50% of consumers stated they prefer self-service to full-service in retail environments.   It’s faster, more accurate, and with today’s technology, can be more tailored to their needs.

Faster, more accurate, and tailored to their needs.  In other words – convenient.

We often hear anecdotal reports of customers who order meals well in advance of their arrival because their time is limited.  Rather than wait at their table for a waitress to take their order, they call in advance to save time and have the meal waiting for them upon their arrival.  With this new feature, they can forget the phone and simply place their order online.

With a limited amount of time, employees can still get out of the office for lunch – by ordering in advance, they can get back to work on time.

Again, it all comes back to convenience, even in a Dine-In situation.

Enabling the option for customers to place Dine-In orders is easy through the NetWaiter Management Console.  The updated Reporting section and the new Sales Dashboard also include the Dine-In order statistics.

NetWaiter recently released several new features for its restaurant online ordering service, aimed at giving customers more convenience and choices, building loyalty, and making your restaurant marketing efforts more refined and targeted.  Here’s a summary of the features:

Birthday Promo System – Configure a Birthday Promo for customers and NetWaiter will automatically trigger the promotion, emailing it to each customer before their birthday.  The promo can be valid for a pre-determined amount of time after a customer’s birthday.  The Birthday Promo System allows you to recognize your best customers with a ‘Happy Birthday’ wish and continue to build their loyalty.  The best thing about the system – your restaurant can “set it and forget it.”  NetWaiter manages the promotions and redemptions automatically.

Dine-In Option – Rather than offering only Takeout and Delivery options, you can now provide customers the option to place Dine-In orders.  This is ideal for the customer that wants to order in advance, but eat at your restaurant (and it saves you money on takeout packaging).

Delivery Driver Alerts – Send incoming delivery orders straight to your delivery driver/company.  If you want to notify a third-party delivery company of a new order, you can send them the order information, in full, including when the order will be ready at your restaurant and when the order is scheduled for delivery to your customer.

Enhanced Reporting Section – The new Menu Stats page is located in the Reports section of the NetWaiter Management Console.  The Menu Stats page allows you to sort through the most popular categories and items during a particular date range, using an assortment of variables, including: Pickup vs. Delivery vs. Dine-in, day of the week, and the time of day.

End-Of-Day Reports – The new End-Of-Day reporting feature allows managers to see an order summary and a list of all orders that were sent throughout the day.  The order summary includes information such as: Pickup vs. Delivery vs. Dine-in, mobile vs. non-mobile, and paid online vs. paid-in-person.