Technology

How restaurants can build a better digital presence

These three factors are key to making your restaurant's digital services produce many happy returns.

Photo: iStock.

July 28, 2021 by Mark Tina

The major trend that has emerged over the course of the last year is the digitization of services. Since the start of the pandemic, small businesses in particular have reimagined their operations and pivoted to offering more online services in an effort to ensure the safety of their clientele, while diversifying their revenue mix. According to our Verizon Small Business Recovery Survey, 50% of restaurants and bars have already started offering new products and services to adapt to changing customer needs.

This move towards digital not only enhances a business's chances of survival, but also opens the door to future business opportunities. By increasing the use of technology in daily operations, businesses can become more efficient with customer transactions, provide a better customer experience and streamline communication channels. To accomplish this shift to digital and maintain a competitive edge, businesses need to address some of the modern-day technology imperatives that we are seeing across all industries.

Keep the following three imperatives in your vision to enable your restaurant business to truly realize its growth and potential:

Digital communication

With physical interactions at a premium for businesses, maximizing a digital presence becomes of greater importance for all businesses. Restaurants are no exception.

This means digitizing the on-site environment, communicating with customers via social media channels, ramping up omnichannel e-shops, using third-party markets such as Seamless and Uber Eats, and most importantly, finding new ways to engage with customers.

These shifts to digitization not only provide growth opportunities for the business and a more seamless customer experience, but they can also support on-site safety measures. For example, with the help of QR codes, restaurants can now digitize their menus, eliminating the need to pass out physical copies that would need to be sanitized between each use. This makes customers feel more at ease on-premise.

Businesses' digital presence also allows you to use your customer communications to drive demand. This means that key messaging, such as safety precautions and business hours, need to be constantly updated on all communication channels.

This process can be simplified through platforms like Yahoo Localworks that enables business owners to manage their search engine listing, promote timely offers, and track performance in one easy-to-access place. Whether through email marketing or social media, businesses should proactively reinforce what they're doing on-site to encourage customers to visit stores.

Delivery, virtual servicing

Limited-service brands are moving toward a business model that combines physical and digital components by adding new digital services to complement their traditional offerings. Diversifying the revenue mix was already in motion before the pandemic due to food delivery applications. However, during the pandemic, this has become an imperative for organizations that are increasingly reliant on delivery as a distribution channel. Delivery applications are not the only developments giving businesses the advantage of virtual servicing.

One of the disadvantages of these third-party services is that they lessen the connectivity between restaurants and their customers. This is where giving the customer multiple options to engage directly is critical to brand loyalty.

Offering curbside delivery is a simple, yet effective technique. Using real-time data and sensors that let customers know exactly where their order is, reduces the friction in the process.

Contactless payments

A recent study commissioned by Verizon examined how Americans have adapted to life one year into the COVID-19 pandemic and what they think it will look like a year in the future. One key area revolved around the adoption of contactless payments.

The study found that about one in 3 adults said they either used or heard about contactless credit cards (36%), contactless mobile payments (33%) and grocery delivery services (38%) for the first time during the coronavirus pandemic. This behavior is predicted to continue in the next year, so it is important to use resources as they become available.

We've seen demand for these services from our customers. In fact, we recently partnered with Fiserv to provide our customers access to Clover Flex, a mobile POS device that allows contactless transactions.

For QSRs, technologies like these can streamline pickup and curbside services. With more than one in five adults anticipating they will be using contactless credit cards (24%) and contactless mobile payments (22%) even more in the next year, investing in technology and bringing digitization to the forefront of business models will only serve to strengthen businesses to better face any obstacles that lie ahead.

The opportunities for innovation are infinite, as businesses continue to become more tech-enabled. While the pandemic provided a shock to the system, businesses that navigated their way through this challenging time by pivoting business operations and adopting new technologies are well set up for long-term success.

About Mark Tina

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Delivering best-in-class employee development and learning programs for all levels of the organization, Mark has created and implemented a wide range of mentorship, coaching, and leadership development programs to build strong culture and positive employee engagement in all locations.

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