Restaurant Apps from A to Z: Core Features and Development Tips

Integrating customer support Chatbots into your restaurant or food delivery app will save you and your customers hours of hassle and frustration. Nowadays, handy, secure and multiple payment options aren’t a bonus, they’re expected. Integrating these features can do wonders for the functional appeal of your restaurant app, but will also help in building trust between your customers and your business. You can acquire whatever you need with a single swipe on your phone, including taxis, movie tickets, food, hotel reservations, and more. This is why every company is focusing on mobile app development these days. Reports and analytics is an extremely important feature of an admin restaurant mobile app that allows the user to get an extensive database.

Moreover, a customer review will create a good image of your restaurant in front of new users and position your restaurant app on the top of the game. Social media integration has become a permanent feature for every app out there. For the restaurant industry even more, the customer’s need to review their experience, take pictures of and upload them to their social media accounts like Instagram, SnapChat, FaceBook etc.

Additional Features in Admin Panel

You can quickly export reports and view overtime hours with a matter of clicks. We can already see that the restaurant industry has been revolutionized with the widespread use of mobile apps that add value to the entire food buying process. Remember, restaurant apps are unlike other business applications and have unique features and requirements to ensure customer satisfaction. A consumer-facing restaurant mobile app isn’t just great for taking orders online, but it is a comprehensive marketing and order management tool if used right. Our restaurant mobile apps can be used on a range of mobile devices such as the iPhone, iPad, and Android tablets – and they work with different operating systems i.e.

Mobile apps, on the other hand, seem to be invented for this purpose. When customers see images of available items, they are more ready to buy. If the pictures are also appetizing, this increases your chances of earning even more. Improving an existing app is usually based on a good understanding of your customers’ needs and preferences. The aim here is to enhance their experience with an app and introduce new features, such as curbside pick-up.

But food delivery is not the only reason customers turn to their smartphones. Customer feedback is the simplest yet most effective way of getting complete visibility into insights that can help you improve your app. A customer feedback portal in the app will allow users to share their experiences. These experiences or customer demands can be used later to improve the app’s functionality further and enhance the user experience. The portal easily provides hassle-free customer service as bad experiences or suggestions can be attended to instantly, building trust among customers.

• A few years ago, restaurants had to conduct costly surveys and interviews to determine what customers thought about their venue.
• As a result – according to Toast – ticket sizes can increase by 12% with this app, and that’s in addition to the saved labor costs.
• Accordingly, the customer’s favorite feature of the profile is the easy access to this information.
• It is therefore within every restaurant’s interest to successfully manage reservations through the right technology.
• Most of these apps that include our online ordering system were created in our app builder by restaurant owners like you.
• One designer may cover all of the tasks above or a team of designers will do the job.

Because having amazing features is not enough, you need to have the right marketing strategy to make your app a success. Is there anything Upserve’s restaurant management software doesn’t do? Point-of-sale, inventory, loyalty, online ordering, and marketing software rolled into one app – just to name a few. Upserve’s POS software makes it easy to place and send orders to the kitchen, keeping your entire staff productive and improving table turn times. With powerful reporting, Upserve users gain valuable insights to keep their restaurant well-positioned to delight guests time-after-time. For a highly technological food delivery app with many advanced features, it is essential to establish excellent communication with the development team early in the project.

Food app ideas for your restaurant

A person is working in the office, and their wife rings them up, saying she wants Chinese for dinner. Eating out is not an option because all the restaurants are packed. So, they check out a food ordering app and scroll for Chinese cuisine from the menu. After scrolling and a call with the wife, they order Kung Pao Chicken, Mongolian Beef, and Hunan Shrimp.

You can present your menu in a variety of ways, but the rule is to keep it simple. Arrange your menu items by categories so users can easily find the dish they’re looking for. A restaurant point-of-sale solution, Lightspeed enables quicker service and simplified workflows, as well as clear upsell opportunities restaurant mobile app builder for staff to bring in more revenue. Since it’s cloud-based, Lightspeed’s data and features can be accessed from anywhere – not just at the restaurant. Lightspeed is also a 7shifts integration partner, bringing sales and labor data into one place to cut back on costs and make smarter decisions.

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From 2018 to 2020, the on-demand food delivery industry experienced extraordinary growth, with a CAGR of over 14%. In addition to reading and writing about new technologies, he enjoys exploring the possibilities of HTML, CSS, and Python. In his free time, you’ll find him immersed in photography and exploring new cities.

In any case, the feature of easy search and find is going to be super useful. This is probably going to be the first step into your app and the first feature the user is going to interact with when they open your app. The bar initially accepted orders by phone or aggregator apps, but soon found the manual payments and commission fees overwhelming. With this feature, you are only going to make it easier for the user to find what they want to eat. All they have to do is to look through these lists to find recommendations of all the restaurants that cater to their needs. Gamification simply uses the game mechanics in the Online Food Ordering Application to reward its users for task completion.

Over 217.1 million users will be using online food-ordering apps by 2027. If you suddenly need to fix something, we will do it for free and it will be treated as a top priority. Depending on the app’s complexity you want to create and the number of features that should be implemented, the development process may take from 4 to 9 months and go beyond. A simple app for a single platform usually takes around 3-5 months to create.

Steps to Implementing a Delivery Service

If you haven’t implemented these restaurant app features already, you should consider doing so. Expanding your services to include takeout, delivery, and pickup will only boost your revenue. Gamification features in your restaurant app will introduce a system of achievements, challenges, and tournaments that will promote loyalty programs among users. You can also offer in-app currency after a user reaches certain stages of achievement. Gamification features in your app allow users to use the app over again. Quality food, making it impossible without a valid reservation of table.

If the customer is ordering food from more than one location, this will be a handy feature for them. Many times they may not find all they want from only one place so they will order from different places. The customer app helps the customer to access the online food ordering platforms, search for the right restaurant or the dish they want to order, place their orders and pay easily.

Step 10: Collect & Analyze User Feedback

However, restaurants must ensure that their delivery services are superior to what others offer. The delivery staff should be polite, approachable, well dressed and professional in all their dealings. Though cash is a common commodity, many people prefer using electronic cards for payment. For such customers, your food ordering app can accept online payments in several ways.

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It would be best if you routinely offered great deals to engage customers. According to the reports, around 40% of users use a food ordering app to look for discounts and cashback, while 25% use these apps to earn loyalty points. This way, you can eliminate the need to use paper menus and provide more payment options for customers, allowing them to choose the one they prefer. A few years ago, restaurants had to conduct costly surveys and interviews to determine what customers thought about their venue. Businesses can get customer feedback instantly and tailor the processes to provide better service and customer experience with restaurant apps. Gamification is another feature emerging rapidly among the food delivery apps for restaurants.

Statistics modules will help you understand your customer base’s activities and enhance your app for better results. This doesn’t mean simply rewarding customers but doing so consistently so that customers will want to engage with you, thus increasing your profits. You can hook up the option to a chatbot or give them the option to call the restaurant directly to discuss the menu.

Delivery Person’s Contact Info

In this article, we’ll take a quick look at the current market for restaurant mobile applications and identify the main features restaurant apps should have to be successful. We’ll also discuss the benefits of apps for restaurant business owners and give a rough estimate of how much time and how many resources it would take to create a mobile app for a restaurant. Most people rely on smart speakers like Alexa or Siri to listen to music, call friends, or even order food. Hence, it’s essential to have this feature integrated into online food delivery apps. It would make ordering food online hassle-free and involve your customers while delivering orders.

Other Restaurant Technology Resources

If you want to stay ahead of the trends, you’ll need to get an app that’s built specifically for your business. Only a professionally-developed restaurant app can make ordering easy and efficient. Big names in the restaurant industry have already seen phenomenal results with app development and the same opportunities are available for your business as well. Apps make your restaurant loyalty program easy to use as customers get to rack-up points and take advantage of discounts and bonuses for restaurant regulars. Yes, with a restaurant app you can allow customers to reserve a table in advance with ease – reducing the risks related to unavailability at the last moment.

These features distinguish our app from others and increase its recognizability in the market – making it one of the best food delivery apps. As a full-service design agency located in Houston, we help our clients define, design, and develop powerful user experiences. Our proven human-centered design process consistently delivers user-friendly and engaging digital products for our customers.