Why Restaurants Should Embrace Mobile Food Ordering

It doesn’t matter what kind of food you serve or where you’re located, your restaurant needs to have a mobile presence.

That’s right. Fast food joints in remote suburbs as well as high-class restaurants in major cities, need to go mobile. Mobile apps are a great way to increase exposure for your restaurant and reach new customers.

But going mobile helps improve the experience for your existing customers as well.

In addition to helping new and prospective customers find and frequent your restaurant, a mobile application will have tons of other benefits for your business as well.

If you’re on the fence about building an app for your restaurant or you’re trying to optimize your existing app to incorporate mobile food ordering, this guide is perfect for you.

I’ll explain everything you need to know about why restaurants are offering the option for their customers to order food from mobile devices and how you can incorporate this same strategy to your business as well.

Here’s what you need to know about the food industry and mobile apps.

Mobile ordering makes things easy for your customers

If you don’t have mobile ordering set up, think about how you take orders right now. What’s the process like? Do customers have to call your location? Do they visit your website?

This is an inconvenience for your customers. First, they’ve got to find your menu online. Even if they have a physical menu at their house, it’s not always readily available and it may be outdated.

Traditional Ordering	Mobile Ordering
Customers call or visit the website	Order directly from the app
Find menu online or use outdated physical menu	Access updated menu on the app
Potential for errors in communication	Clear order details on POS screen
Busy signals and hold times	Seamless ordering process

Not everyone wants to rush to their computer, but their smartphones are usually glued to their hands. So that’s what they’ll use a mobile device to find your menu.

70% of consumers prefer to see a restaurant’s menu on their smartphone.

Then they’ll have to make a call using the same device that the menu is on, which is confusing since the customer will have to look and talk at the same time. Or they’ll have to get a pen and paper to write the order down, which is a pain as well.

If you’ve got a mobile application, customers will have access to your menu and other important pieces of information too.

Now there’s no reason for the customer to call. They can order directly from within the app.

Ordering over the phone can lead to too many mistakes. Sometimes things can get lost in translation if the customer has an accent or speaks too fast or too quiet. If you’ve ever answered the phone at your restaurant, you know exactly what I’m talking about.

You’ve got to constantly keep asking the customer to repeat themselves, which is annoying for the both of you.

Plus, if multiple customers are calling at once, they’ll get busy signals or you’ll have to put people on hold. 34% of customers who hang up after being put on hold won’t call back.

That’s probably why 25% of smartphone users have one or more restaurant apps on their devices. It’s just an easier process for them to browse your menu and place an order.

People will seek alternative options

If your restaurant doesn’t have mobile ordering available, people are going to use your competition instead.

We already looked at research showing how consumers have restaurant apps downloaded to their phones and want to use mobile devices to find menus.

In addition to regular restaurant apps, consumers are also using apps like GrubHub, Postmates, and Uber Eats. The problem with these apps is that they charge extra fees since they are a third party.

Option	Pros	Cons
Third Party Apps (GrubHub, Postmates, Uber Eats)	Convenient for consumers, wide reach	Extra fees, potential delivery delays
In-house Mobile Ordering	Full control over process, no extra fees	Requires development and maintenance

Here’s something else to consider. Let’s say a customer uses a third party delivery app to order food from your restaurant.

The order takes forever to get delivered and ends up being cold by the time the customer gets to eat it. Even though it’s not your fault, the customer may have a bad association with your restaurant and be hesitant to buy something from you in the future.

Rather than trusting your food with a third party, it’s better for you to be in total control of the process until it reaches the customers’ hands.

This will also keep the customer happy because they won’t have to pay those extra fees associated with third party apps.