Are you in doubt about developing a mobile application for your restaurant and wondering that whether it would be a wise investment or not? Have you been planning to dive into the online food ordering delivery business for a long but still were not able to make a decision with full confidence?
Now, you don’t have to worry any longer as here we bring to you the top features of restaurant mobile app that will help in increasing revenue and service, to a great extent be it a web application or a mobile application.
Features of restaurant app development
E-Menu
The most essential part of any restaurant app will obviously be the menu. Even little things matter, like the photo quality to the ease of use of the app. There should be professional-looking photos making the food look appetizing. The menu should also be simple and easy to go through.
Having a simple menu is important. Because when the user has a lot of dishes in front. He could get confused and might go to make a sandwich rather than choosing a dish to order.
The use of smart filters is another essential feature found in the online menu of food apps. As it helps to very conveniently find the exact dish. It is also very important for the restaurant app or the restaurant website to have an option to register a profile. If the app will allow the user to register then he/she will be very easily able to save favorite dishes to the favorites list. Like creating a menu for the next order thus helping the customer to make an order in one click the next time as many people order the same food, thus greatly improving the ordering.
Food delivery
One of the most famous services found nowadays in restaurant apps is food delivery as people these days do not have much time to go to a restaurant every time.
This makes the work of cashiers and waiters, kitchens and courier deliveries automated. Also, the weak link can be easily found and the services can be improved by adding efficiency analysis.
For instance, a customer orders food with the application’s help. And then that order is sent to the manager. The manager then confirms the order. And this order is then sent to the kitchen automatically. Chefs then start to prepare the food. The order is finally returned to the courier after the preparation of food for delivery to the customer. The customer gets a notification of arrival as soon as the courier arrives at the customer’s place and the customer then pays for it through the application or in cash.
Thus, this entire process allows having a full analysis. It also helps to:
- Find out the efficiency of every restaurant employee.
- Understanding the work effectiveness.
- Customers can leave feedback about the restaurant or delivery, thus attracting them even more.
Table reservations and reminders
We all are very well aware of the fact that people seldom visit a restaurant for booking tables. Either they call in, or use the website or mobile app.
A restaurant app should allow its customers to:
- Select a table (like, in the window front, etc)
- If suddenly the guest gets late then extend the waiting time of the reservation.
- Canceling or editing the reservation at those times when a person is uncomfortable calling into a restaurant and canceling a reservation. This also allows the restaurant owner to accept one more guest rather than the booking going to waste.
Customers also get a good practice of pre-ordering from the restaurant’s menu while booking a table in a restaurant.
Pre-ordering of specific food choices
Sometimes customers probably have to wait too long thus the need for pre-ordering arises as it makes it possible to pre-arrange the service upon its arrival. Getting cooking suggestions is another useful feature of this.
Like, suppose when any of the customers are on a diet and do not want to eat carbohydrates and the restaurant does not serve any meals without carbohydrates, there are two options available in any particular meal like one with carbohydrates and the other without carbohydrates.
In that case, the customer can ask to cook the option eliminating the carbohydrates option from the meal, and can also ask to replace the sauce in the dish or add something else as per his/her liking. This is a very simple function but allows customers to get exactly what they want.
Reviews and ratings
You might have noticed that generally, customers who first come to the restaurant do not have any idea of what they should order. They don’t have any idea about which dish is tasty and worth the amount spent. In this case, they usually end up calling the waiter and knowing about the details from them.
Here is when the need for the ratings and reviews section comes into the picture as it helps in choosing meals, especially if ordering in any new restaurant for the first time.
AI and machine learning
Knowing the previous order of the customer can help to figure out the pattern and predict the list of dishes the customer is going to choose. It can also be known what they might like.
This feature also enables restaurants to better understand their guest’s food choices. It will also help to add new dishes to the menu and eliminate all those which are less in demand.
Also, this feature helps to send a notification or give a discount on particular dishes, at the correct moment as it helps in analyzing the time of visiting the restaurant.
Separate check payment
Almost everyone would have experienced this situation of coming to a restaurant and ordering dishes for the ones who have come along with them. In that case, the amount has to be divided and the payment has to be calculated.
Integrating separate payments for each guest can help to deal with this problem quite easily. The two ways to integrate this feature are discussed below.
- Firstly, you can open the cart after ordering and choose an item from the present list and then group the order for one person. The check will automatically get split into several people.
- Secondly, in the case all the visitors are having an application, they can even scan a QR code. Then choose or add their order to the general receipt and then the application will allow paying only for your order.
This is quite a handy feature thus allowing to save a lot of time.
Push-notifications
With the help of this feature, the restaurant can remind the customer about their reservation of the table. And also notify them whenever their order will arrive at the delivery address.
It also enables the restaurants to remind the customers about the upcoming holidays. As a like Friendship day, Valentine’s Day, and will also allow them to book a table in advance and also get some discount.
Thus, we can consider push notification as a mini-flyer giving the restaurant’s customers alerts about the upcoming interesting promotions, events, and new dishes available on the menu. Restaurants can thus easily send notifications to their guests and visitors in just a few minutes.
Hence, wrapping it all up we can say that the benefits of restaurant app development are quite huge and every restaurant owner should not wait any longer for enjoying all its benefits and thus take their restaurant business to completely new heights altogether.