Why Is an Online-ordering System a Must for Restaurants Post-COVID?

The disastrous impact of the COVID-19 pandemic is still not over for many sectors including the food delivery industry. After the pandemic gripped the world instantly there was outcry regarding sinking restaurant businesses and job losses. Down the line, in a year the restaurant industry somehow coped up with the situation largely thanks to the online order delivery system and on-demand food apps.

Now, in remote parts of the world, online food ordering apps have become popular. In many Irish towns during the heyday of the pandemic, emergency services were the only rescuer for people. But now, many restaurant chains look up to app development companies having expertise in developing apps for food delivery industries. Online food ordering apps seem to have rescued the restaurants and food chains of the country in recent years.

Why in post-Covid times, will online ordering systems continue to play a crucial role in the food and restaurant industry? Here are some of the key reasons to consider.

Safety from the contagion is still a priority

The health risks posed by COVID-19 are still not over. For restaurants, the most common challenge was to address safety concerns. People still hesitate to consume foods cooked outside of their homes just because of safety concerns. This is where food aggregator apps and online delivery apps are playing a great role.

With the use of POS tools, restaurants and aggregator apps can now check the rider’s current body temperature and whether he is following safety measures such as wearing masks. Thus whenever the rider goes out of the restaurant, the app informs the customer whether the rider has the right body temperature and is following Covid protocols. Customers being notified of this information can have peace of mind regarding the safety from the contagion.

Safety from physical contact

The digital manoeuvres even before the pandemic were paving the way for contactless world buyers, sellers, delivery personnel and payment processing that do not involve physical contact of any kind. Now restaurants and food chains are also trying to ensure a contactless production and delivery system to keep the risk of contagions at bay.

The delivery apps powered by real-time location tracking, interactive menu and real-time stock updates brought automation in the whole process of food delivery. Apart from ensuring optimum convenience for the customers, this also helped thwart the virus chain from proliferating.

Contactless ordering and delivery of items was always a reality facilitated by the latest online payment technologies, real-time GPS tracking and chatbot support. But the virus outbreak only accelerated the growth of this trend helping to reduce hassles and frictions for the customers.

Reducing process frictions to a minimum

Many of us are well versed with the way online food ordering applications work and the most crucial aspect is the frictionless processing of orders allowing extreme ease of use and fast ordering for the customers. Thanks to online food ordering customers can place food orders from anywhere and at any time.

Another crucial benefit is the way customers can save their previous orders, preferred restaurants for reordering with just a single tap. The multitude of filters across diverse menu options, delivery timing, cuisine, etc further help customers to make a quick choice and place orders almost instantly.

The convenience of placing orders, keeping track of the delivery personnel, and getting notified about the order status make the whole process extremely seamless, smooth and easy. By utilising gamification apps can further make their offerings lucrative to ensure more reorders.

Overwhelming choices for taste buds and perks

Everyone wants more value for the buck they spend and when customers order their meal online they expect some perks and benefits that can motivate them to order more frequently. This is one area where online food ordering apps are doing great.

For anyone just starting to place online food orders, most of the leading online ordering apps deliver instantly captivating promotions to make customers happy and get on board a lot of new customers. Promotions rolled out during festival seasons or freebies during events or on special dates for individual customers, can easily boost engagement and create more orders.

Online food ordering also creates unlimited options for dining out, browsing different restaurants and choosing a multitude of cuisine options ranging from home-cooked meals to exotic food. Customers often hit these apps for ordering healthy food or exotic food that they cannot get from nearby restaurants. So, this overwhelming range of food options is a big perk for customers.

Playing the role of food saviour

The coinage such as “food saviour” used by certain food ordering apps is not fancy at all. Food ordering apps representing restaurants or just the food delivery aggregator services played the role of saviours for the people during the pandemic when getting cooked food for many people was no less than a godsend service saving them from hunger.

Thus many restaurant apps and food ordering services really could establish a connection with their customers. Seeing the impact of online food ordering apps from restaurants during the pandemic you can say out loud “a restaurant in need is a saviour indeed.

It is still a fresh industry

Most restaurants still believe in the traditional business model and all they can think of is having a website for their distinct eating house. Most restaurants, despite seeing the potential of online delivery, are still not on the right footing to transform their business model through an online delivery app.

So, the online food ordering business is still fresh and less competitive. To cut the long story short, your restaurant can still make a success story by ordering food online. You need to build a great app and start delivering sumptuous food along with some perks.

Access to the latest technologies

Thanks to smartphones we are already versed with augmented reality-based interactions that allow us to experience the look and feel of furniture within the setting of our own home. Similarly, intelligent mobile chatbots offer us support and recommend us products. In food delivery apps now most of the queries are resolved by chatbot support.

These new technologies are offering restaurants a whole array of unique ways to cater to their online customers. Digitisation of restaurant and food businesses is primarily happening through food ordering apps now.

Conclusion

An online food ordering system has now become a ubiquitous aspect of success stories for restaurants and food chains. While the technological revolution was already taking place, the Covid pandemic gave restaurant businesses the ultimate push by turning online food ordering into essential services.

Author Bio:

John Waters is the CEO of KleverApps, an app development Ireland-based company helping SMBs & Enterprises mobile & web app development solutions with a competitive edge. He loves to share key insights of mobile & web development along with discussing how to enhance per business needs.