Restaurant App Development: Features and Opportunities

The online food delivery space is gaining momentum these days. Several online food-delivery and restaurant platforms allow customers to order from a wide array of restaurants from mobile apps. Across different continents such as America, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East, the business of delivering restaurant meals is undergoing rapid transformation.

Considering the humongous sales projection, restaurant application development is becoming a key element for restaurant owners as it can result in improved sales and a high level of customer engagement.

There are many aggregators which take orders from customers and direct the leads to restaurants. On the other hand, there are also delivery players with their own logistics, providing delivery for restaurants that don’t have their own drivers.

Restaurant owners have adopted restaurant application development advancements to attract more customers on the go with features such as comparing menus, reservations in restaurants, POS for restaurants, scan and post reviews, and discounts available with a single click. Here are some key features of restaurant mobile app development to improve customer experience and streamline operations.

Features for Admin

• Reports and Analytics: Comprehensive database to view total orders right from accepting orders to delivering, as well as commission, turnover, and sales.
• Site Settings: Design the general look and include detailed data for the site, such as Logo, Site name, and more.
• Payment Settings: Set options such as cash, credit, or debit card to receive payment for orders placed in an online ordering system.
• Delivery Zone Settings: Assign different delivery zones to ensure robust and quick food delivery.
• Delivery Tracking: Intuitive and easy to track food delivery status that will enhance user convenience. Customers can easily track food arrival time and know their status.
• Customer Management: Oversee all aspects of customer experience such as easy signup, member history/profile, and account details.
• Category Management: Manage categories or product characteristics to sell multiple food items of any range or quantity.
• Manage & Add New Restaurant: Incorporate details such as contact information, restaurant information, open and close timings, minimum order, delivery charge, commission, and invoice period and set offers to their customers.

Features for Restaurant Owners

• Restaurant Reviews: Enhance your restaurant reputation by engaging with customers and promoting sales through the option to leave SEO-friendly product reviews on your website.
• Cuisine Management: Restaurant owners can effortlessly add new cuisines seamlessly to sell multiple food items of any range or quantity.
• Order Management: Online ordering management features to manage all aspects of order size, rejection/accept orders, status update, food preparation status, and delivery completion.
• Food Items management: Flexibility to add new food descriptions, multiple food sizes, and images as needed.
• Restaurant open and close timings: Manage multiple restaurants with different operating times – choose your time as you want it or customize the time that suits each restaurant’s specific close/open needs.
• Menu Management: Easily classify menus into submenus to make information easily accessible for customer benefit.

Features for Food Delivery/Driver Management

• Delivery management and status update: Get status updates and real-time tracking of the delivery to get information about the order status, pickup, and delivery status.
• Auto-assign delivery job: Select the nearest delivery driver and assign the job automatically.
• Pick up Order: Option to automatically assign a driver to pick up food based on location and proximity from the restaurant.

Features for Users

• Register Profile: Easy and quick creation & registration of profile to edit profile and customize the settings and preferences.
• Search Restaurants: Based on location, search nearby restaurants based on preferences and cuisines.
• Add to Cart: Option add to cart orders from multiple restaurants and place orders at one go.
• Real-time Tracking: Effectively track orders status with live updates of the location and status.
• Instant Chat and Messenger: Call driver/delivery person to find about the status of the order or confirm location in case of delay.
• Review & Ratings: Provide reviews and ratings to other restaurants based on different parameters such as quality, presentation, hygiene, and more.
• Schedule the Orders: Order schedule feature to help the user place the food ahead of time or whenever required based on requirements.
• Payment: Secure feature to make payment using different modes of payments such as debit, credit or COD.

Here are Some Additional Features

• Link to Google Maps, providing customers with easy navigation and directions.
• Configuration of contact number to ensure that customers can call with just a single tap, even without the need to leave the app.
• Booking form to include details of a maximum number of people you can accommodate.
• List special items under separate sections of the menu, instead of highlighting within the normal menu.
• Social media integration with Facebook and Twitter.
• Live Order that allows monitoring order to ensure that customers will get a meal on time.
• Push notifications and Event Calendar to know the latest offers and local events.
• Multiple Payment Methods.
• Testimonials, Reviews, and Ratings to leave testimonials after the order is complete.

Advantages of Restaurant Mobile App

Improving Customer Experience

Restaurant application development help to develop an improved customer experience by increasing sales and reducing wait time. When we talk about restaurant apps, the first feature that stands out is the option to book tables in advance. There are several mobile apps that connect users with the closest restaurants and provide all required details to reserve the table. This feature can help reduce wait times at restaurants significantly.

Taking Branding to Next Level

With several brands competing to gain attention, raising brand awareness is the key to success. You can generate buzz about superb service, delicious food, and dazzling decor, but without something promoting recall, you’re just a nameless restaurant that someone recommended. Restaurant owners can display the décor and ambiance of their restaurant by providing 3D tours and appealing interior photos. Intuitive and interactive restaurant mobile app design contributes to establishing visual communication between customers and restaurant owners. It makes both the restaurant and an app stand above the rest and creates brand awareness.

Easy Discovery of Restaurants

Discovery means identifying all existing and possible approaches by which the mobile apps increase the visibility of new users and maintain existing customers. Moreover, an appealing user interface and memorable mobile app design can connect more customers to the restaurants. The latest mobile technologies help restaurant owners to deliver the required information about the restaurant’s location, menu, contact details, and so on.

Social Sharing

By integrating the social media sharing option in the app, restaurant owners can expand the reach of their brand among users’ followers and friends on various social platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Restaurant application development can also offer loyalty points to encourage users to share more information about restaurants.

Secure Payment

Making secure and hassle-free payments is an integral part of the ordering process. Streamlining how customers engage with your restaurant reduces the number of resources you have to allocate to non-core administrative functions. Meaning these resources can be utilized and redirected to core areas of the business, directly benefiting both you and your customers.

Improved Customer Service

The customer service benefits of having a mobile app are not limited only to what the customer can do via the app. It eliminates the risk of customers ordering and then never collecting. With an effective restaurant mobile app, you can ensure that when customers visit to collect, they are in and out within seconds – reducing wastage of time and resources, and keeping your front desk free of clutter. App also reduces the need to check whether an order being collected has already been paid for.

­Conclusion

Restaurant mobile app development is fast becoming one of the most effective ways for restaurants and food delivery companies with limited budgets to reach out to their target audience. Apps can improve employee labor costs through mobile ordering while increasing sales when customers orders with an app. The revolution has already started and reached the next level with emerging technologies that provide better customer insights and enhance delivery methods.