Phone orders are going down as current generation customers love to order online and find it more efficient than being rushed to fill an order on phone or wait endlessly to get someone to speak to. Have you recently gotten or considering getting an application for your restaurant’s website that will allow customers to order food online? In order to fully reap the benefits from such an application, you need to encourage your customers to order food online. Here are some ways of achieving that:
Increase Awareness
The first thing you will need to do in order to let your customers know that they can order online is to increase awareness of your online ordering system. After all, they won’t use it if they don’t know it’s there. One way you can do this is to send an email to everyone on your email list. You should also promote it in your restaurant and on your website. You may also want to mention it in any advertisements you are putting out and in social media, like to your Twitter followers and Facebook fans.
Provide Online Coupons
Another great way that you can promote the use of your online ordering system is to give out coupons or promo codes that can only be used online. Try printing these codes out on receipts, sending them out via email or tweeting them.
Loyalty Programs
You will also find that loyalty programs can work well when encouraging customers to order online. For instance, for every $50 they spend on online orders, they can get $5 off their next meal. Experiment with the discount amount and find what your customers like and redeem.
Offer Free Delivery for Online Orders
If you offer delivery for your customers, choose a promotional period and offer free delivery to your customers…but only if they order online. This way, they will get to know your online ordering systemand will be more comfortable using it in the future.
Add Pictures of Your Food
Finally, you can encourage your customers to use your online ordering system by offering photos of your food. It has been shown in research that those dishes that have photos available on menus are more often purchased. Online ordering should be no different.
Once you get people to start using your online system, you will likely see that it becomes the preferred method of ordering for your customers.
