01 Feb 2019 | Blog
In recent years, the food industry has seen many businesses adapt to the emerging trend of using loyalty ordering apps to provide their customers with a faster and easier way to order. They use these apps to offer promotions and discounts so that customers will be incentivised to return again. This trend has become so popular in recent years that the number of food ordering apps in the market has swelled to the point where venues are now competing for customers to download their app over their competitors’.
The problem with this approach is that it limits your reach to only your most loyal customers. If your closest competitor also has their own loyalty app, there is a chance that some of your customers might also enjoy their food and perhaps even find their app more user-friendly. How do you know that your app will stand out from your competitors? What about those customers who have never even been to your restaurant? How do you intend to reach them?
This approach also assumes, to an extent, that patrons would be willing to download multiple apps to order food from their favourite places to eat. These days, people are more choiceful than ever when it comes to downloading apps on to their device. Generally, people will only download apps which they believe they will get the most use from, which is where a marketplace app like TableTime can add a lot of value.
Here are some of the key reasons as to why TableTime might just be the pre order app that you are looking for.
Customers Seek Variety and Convenience
For many foodies, variety is an important aspect when it comes to deciding on what to eat at any given time. Let’s be honest, even your most loyal customers are unlikely to order from your restaurant seven days a week for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. You might have some customers who return most days at a particular meal time, but in general, people will gravitate towards the type of meal, cuisine, or even restaurant location that best satisfies their needs at that point in time. Marketplace apps like TableTime cater to those customer needs by offering users the option to order from a wide variety of places.
In addition to variety, often the motivation behind ordering food comes down to convenience. With a marketplace app, users have the ability to filter their meal choice based on what is nearby or what the expected wait time is. Not only that, customers only have to download one app which they can use broadly, depending on their needs. This removes the need for customers to download and switch between multiple apps to order their food, thereby making it a much more convenient solution.
Invest Wisely
Building a mobile application from scratch is a huge investment. Done well, it can take months of research, planning, design and testing before it’s even ready to go to market. But what many businesses overlook is the on-going maintenance required to keep up with the continually evolving tech space. There is no use investing in an app that won’t serve your customers into the future, but the investment required to manage this well, is very expensive. Suddenly, you are not only managing a restaurant you are managing the technology that supports your restaurant as well.
This begs the question: wouldn’t it be smarter to build a presence on an already existing marketplace platform and instead invest in the core components of your business such as the food and service? Why spend so much time and money on the technology supporting your business when platforms like TableTime already exist to support you? Not only do they have a dedicated team continually evolving the platform, it is also completely free to join.
Get Exposed to a Community
The beauty of having a presence on a marketplace app like TableTime is that you are exposing your brand to both your regular customers as well as a broader market who may have never tried your food ever before. This, in turn, can lead to sales that you may not have received otherwise. You also have the same capabilities to offer specials to your customers through the marketplace, which can be a much simpler way to market without having to worry about the upkeep of social channels or a website.
Not only do you have exposure to a broader market, you are also reaping the benefits of the curation techniques that go in to these platforms. For instance, if a user is located near your restaurant, your restaurant will filter to the top of their search.
All in all, there are many compelling reasons why you should consider leveraging a digital marketplace app rather than invest in your own. It is very likely that it will be a much smarter investment for your business in the long run.
If you wish to partner with us, visit our website at TableTime.com.au to sign up.
