Back The restaurant business is booming and there is absolutely no doubt that we are lying in the golden age of food. But with increased opportunity comes increased competition. If you are a restaurant owner, you know how true this is. The cut-throat competition in the food industry is increasing day by day and every restaurant is trying to stand out from the rest to gain more customers. If you are looking forward to increasing the food delivery sales of your restaurant business, then bingo! You have come to the right place.
How to Increase Food Delivery Sales : 12 Tried and Tested Methods
Let us look at some of the tried and tested ways in which you can gain more sales in your food delivery:
1. Communicate Clearly and Efficiently
When it comes to all things online, communication plays a huge role. The same applies to online food delivery services as well. Maintaining a good stream of communication with the customers makes sure that the restaurant makes the delivery according to the specifications and needs of the costumes and most importantly gets the order right. This can happen the other way around as well. The restaurant can let their side of the situation known to the customer in case of any delays or changes in schedule so that the next best thing can be done. This saves a lot of time, money, and goodwill for the restaurant and can create a lasting impression among the customers.
2. Always Keep Your Menu Updated
Your menu is your superstar. Make sure to keep your menu updated always so that the customers get a proper idea of the dishes available and their present rate of them. It is efficient to invest in a menu engineering program where the entire menu of your restaurant is analyzed to understand which food items bring you the most profit and which one does not. This way, you can rearrange the menu from time to time to attract more customers. You can also add featured dishes as well as snacks and add-ons to your menu for even better performance.
3. Offer Promotions To Attract Your Customers
This might be the oldest trick in the book when it comes to increasing your food delivery sales, but it does not make this any less effective. Promotions and offers are the best methods to attract customers both old and new to your restaurant website to order food. You can offer free items along with a big food order or offer a discounted price for your bestsellers to grab the attention of your customers. Providing free delivery of food once a month is also a great option as some costumes stay away from ordering food online due to its hefty delivery charges.
4. Give A Proper Food Delivery Experience
Nothing makes a lasting impression on customers than a proper food delivery experience. You get an opportunity to showcase your customer management skills through online food delivery. Delivering the food in a proper package, at the right time can make a huge impact on how the customer perceives your restaurant. If the delivery service goes well, there is an almost sure chance that the customer will order from your restaurant the next time they decide to order food online. So make sure to provide a perfect food delivery experience to your customers the next time you get a chance.
5. Make Use Of Your Social Media Handles
You must be living under a rock if you do not have at least a website or a social media handle for your restaurant in this digital era. It is one of the major platforms where your customers can find you. Try to fill in the gap between your customers and your restaurant by providing links to your restaurant on the social media handle of your restaurant or by posting advertisements on social media. Make sure to use attractive pictures of your restaurant food to grab the attention of the customers. You will surely see a spike in the number of online food orders soon enough.
6. Try Outsourcing Delivery Service
It might be hectic for you to manage the functioning of a restaurant and look after the delivery service as well. In such situations, handling both things at the same time might affect the quality of delivery services. This is why it is suggested to partner with a third-party delivery service company that will take care of the delivery aspect for you. This will give you enough time to focus on creating a better customer experience. The outsourcing company will make sure to deliver the food to the customers on time properly as well. This is what we call a win-win-win situation!
7. Enhance Your Online Presence
Just like linking your website with your social media handles, enhancing your overall media presence is also great when it comes to increasing your food delivery sales. Give your website a complete makeover by optimizing the content to cater to the needs of your customers. Change the images of your website and add more high-quality pictures of the food as well as the menu. If possible, make provisions for the customers to make food orders from the website in a more easy way. All of these steps might seem small but has a significant impact on the sales and profit of your business.
8. Make The Most Of Digital Advertising
More and more restaurants are making use of Google Ads and other forms of digital advertising to increase online food delivery and spike sales. If you haven’t ventured into the world of digital advertising, then we suggest you give it a try. These methods are said to have the highest return on investment, so do not hesitate to dive in completely. More costumes will be sent advertisements for your restaurant and the local customers will be the ones who are targeted the most for this process. It would help more customers discover your restaurant and what you have to offer.
9. Listen To Your Customers
Customer feedbacks are an excellent place to focus on when it comes to increasing your restaurant’s food delivery sales. Always keep an eye open for negative reviews as they can damage the reputation of your restaurant online. To avoid such situations understand what your customers expect from you and try to deliver exactly that. You can even ask your customers to fill in a questionnaire or answer a quick survey to get better insights into what they expect from your restaurant and how you can make the business even more appealing. Collecting the feedback is just not enough. Make sure that you take the necessary steps to implement the changes as well.
10. Give Email Marketing A Try
Every restaurant that offers online food delivery service to customers will have access to their email ids. It can be accessed by your restaurant to create a customer persona and then send them personalized messages related to the new dishes and the latest discounts the customers can avail of. Email marketing is considered one of the most powerful tools to gain an upper hand with customers and get them to repurchase from your restaurant. It is far easier to retain your existing customers than gain new ones, so make sure to not lose your current customers. Email marketing is sure to gain you a significant number of sales.
11. Packaging is Key
In order to create an enhanced customer experience, it is imperative that you focus on the packaging of the food. The effort a restaurant puts in when it comes to properly packing its food tells a lot about the level of importance they give to the customers. Use environment-friendly products as much as possible for packing the food. Make sure that the food does not spill out or leak from the package. Also, give ample importance to the cleanliness of the food. Packaging can be an effective way to get into the heart of your customers and create a long-lasting impression. So make it a point to create a good customer experience through efficient packing of your food.
12. Make Use of an Order Management Software
There is a plethora of technology that is available in the current times that your restaurant can make use of to increase food delivery sales. Installing a good order management software like Foaps will streamline almost all crucial operations of your business to a single platform, making it much easier for you to manage them all. No orders will be missed and the delivery will be made at the right time to the right customer. These small changes might seem insignificant sometimes, but has a huge impact on how your company is perceived among the customers. It will definitely help you stand out from the rest of the competition.
Conclusion
Now that you have a basic idea of where to start your journey toward amassing a much bigger crowd of customers, make sure to be thorough in your approaches and change them according to the way customers relate to them. Each restaurant business is different, so choose the points that work best for you and stick with them.