Due to the pandemic, fewer people are opting to dine in than ever before. Ordering food online was once a luxury that was done every so often, but has become the norm now. With food costs jumping 5% year after year, restaurants must constantly adapt to stay afloat. 

Offering online ordering is just the first step to this problem; the second step is converting on-premise diners to regular off-premise customers.

Benefits of Off-Premise Sales

You may be wondering why you should even emphasize off-premise sales in the first place. For starters, the traditional brick & mortar way of ordering is time-consuming and inefficient. Servers have to take orders, input orders into a POS system, bring bills and collect payments. Not to mention the costs of running dine-in operations like constantly updating physical menus. Having a digital menu on your website allows you to effortlessly manage your entire inventory with a few clicks. 

Additionally, 20% of consumers also said they spend more on off-premise orders. So not only are off-premise orders more efficient and cost-effective, but they also lead to increased profits from more consumers spending.

Leverage Self-Serve Ordering

So what can you do to convert from on-premise customers to off-premise ones? The number one way we have seen to be most effective is leveraging self-serve ordering when diners come into the restaurant. Encouraging your customers to self-order with their mobile devices allows our system to collect customer data that you can use later automatically. Additionally, getting customers familiar with mobile orders makes them more likely to order from you online later on. The figure below compares self-serve ordering to traditional staff-served orders.

The Importance of Data Collection

Based on data we’ve seen from restaurants using Goopter, we have seen firsthand the dramatic impact that self-serve ordering has on data collection. From the figure below, you can see that a large and busy restaurant without on-premise self-serve ordering collected less customer information than a smaller restaurant that does. They’ll be able to tailor their advertisements to each unique customer to retain repeat customers. This customer data will play a significant part in the restaurant’s growth and scalability in the long run. 

It is also important to note that returning customers generally spend more than 2x more than new customers, which means retaining customers is just as important as acquiring new ones.

Accessibility is Key

Finally, remember that accessibility is key to increasing your customer base. Online customers are no longer discovering new restaurants in person but on web searches and social media. 77% of consumers browse restaurant websites before ordering takeout or delivery, so having your own online ordering website ensures you’re in front of as many eyes as possible. From there, making sure your ordering process is frictionless and using customer data to send advertisements and promotions will help build customer loyalty. 

Creating an online presence is a must in today’s restaurant industry, and data collection and online ordering are required if restaurants want to increase repeat business for themselves. These issues plaguing restaurants are what Goopter has set out to solve over the past 5 years, and we’ve helped restaurants take advantage of the digital ordering boom to increase profits and grow their business. 

To learn more, visit our website or schedule a time to speak with us today about our comprehensive and affordable solution!