Top Notch Delivery Experience: Tips To Do It Right
This article will discuss how to create a top notch delivery experience. In this time period, it is difficult to imagine the food and restaurant industry without delivery. Having food delivered to customers’ doors is a whole new and, in a lot of cases, necessary way to order, experience and indulge. And not only restaurants, other businesses in the food sector are turning to delivery, whether it be coffee shops, ice cream parlours, convenience stores, butchers, confectionary stores and more.
As a result, the worst thing you can do is look at delivery as simply an add-on to your existing business. Next to food quality, delivering a high quality experience should be at the core of your restaurant’s delivery operation. If a delivery experience is not good, customers will generally blame the restaurant over the provider. For this reason, you need to ensure your restaurant has a solid strategy for delivering food and a memorable experience to the customer as well.
Create A Top Notch Delivery Experience By Creating The Right Menu
It all starts with the menu. A common mistake made by restaurants starting out with delivery is not adapting the takeaway or dine in menu to be suitable for delivery. Do not be scared to optimise your menu for delivery. This often means not offering certain menu items that you serve on-site for dine in customers. When coming up with your delivery menu, consider these things:
-Does the food travel well?
-At what point will the food become cold or soggy?
-Does the food require extra packaging needs that you cannot address?
Ensure you choose the best delivery menu and understand your delivery time window to provide customers with the best possible experience. In addition, do not forget to timely adjust your delivery menu if necessary.
When you begin with delivery, it is easy to overlook that you now must manage stock both in-house and online. There is nothing worse than having to phone an online customer to tell them that a food item or meal is no longer available because you forgot to update the delivery menu. Using an online ordering provider with an easy to use CMS is vital so that you can pause or mark items as out of stock and adjust your delivery time slots as needed.
Branded Packaging Is Crucial For Creating A Top Notch Delivery Experience
We eat with our eyes and as a result, food should always be served in branded packaging that is pleasing to the eye. The main purpose of packaging is to protect food and keep it warm of course. However, branded packaging will maintain consistency with your brand and it can really get people talking about your brands and products.
It is simple to achieve too. The way your food is packaged is a representation of your brand’s personality. The way that you decide to design it, using your logo, brand colours, catch phrases and so on is an opportunity to create more affection for your restaurant.
In addition, customers enjoy convenience and they like things that are easy on the eye. Food combination combines these. Also do not forget that we live in the age of Instagram, where a unique way of delivering food can be shared and go viral online leading to more customers – so photogenic presentation helps!
However, in saying all of this, we are also in a time of growing concern for the environment. It is important that your restaurant answers to the need of sustainable, high-quality food packaging for delivery too. This is another way to enhance customer experience.
Timing
Timing is an essential part when it comes to creating a top notch delivery experience. The food delivery business is all about speed and convenience. Most customers specifically mention speed of delivery as their number one priority.
This is why restaurants need to consider ways to optimise their delivery time. There is nothing worse than receiving cold food. Speedy deliveries mean happy and satisfied customers who will give positive reviews.
Extra Perks To Boost Brand Loyalty
Customers enjoy receiving extra perks such as discounts, vouchers and other promotions. These incentives go well with your delivery strategy.
For example, providing vouchers to customers who visit your restaurant physically will entice them to order online. Other examples include refer a friend discounts and free delivery when you order online.
As an online ordering provider, MENUU includes a built in and flexible loyalty system which encourages more frequent ordering. Another feature is our Intelligent Upsell which suggests additional items to the customer at checkout stage, generally leading to higher average order values.
Conclusion
This article discussed how to create a top notch delivery experience. The number of restaurants and other businesses providing food delivery is growing each day, as is the number of people enjoying their services. A unique, personal and positive brand experience can make a huge difference between you and your competitors.
You need to create a well thought out delivery menu, include branded packaging and personalised promotions. These tips will help you to provide the best delivery service and experience possible to encourage your customers to stay with you for the long term. Our team are available to share advice and expertise with our customers so if you’re in need of an online ordering solution, get in touch today!
