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Many restaurant businesses have been hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic, as government-mandated closures and operating guidelines have closed dine-in operations at many restaurants. Compounding the challenges, many consumers are doing their part by staying “safer at home” — even when the dinner bell rings.
However, one segment of the restaurant industry that has found a silver lining in the overall bleakness is QSRs (quick service or “fast food” restaurants), which are naturally well-positioned for takeout, drive-thru, or delivery-centric operations.
What are QSRs like McDonald’s, Domino’s Pizza, Starbucks, and Burger King doing to, (1) mitigate the damage/fallout now, and (2), position themselves for a strong recovery once the economy reopens?
A look at QSR Magazine’s August 2020 report on how the top 50 QSR companies have coped with the pandemic thus far shows some of the most common practices:
Even before the pandemic, mobile ordering was a major priority for QSRs, which recognized that letting customers place their own orders before leaving home could substantially increase operational throughput. With the pandemic and public safety concerns in play, mobile ordering has taken on new importance.
Why Mobile Ordering?
Mobile ordering apps are especially beneficial for QSRs, who stand to benefit in the following ways:
When it comes to mobile ordering, there are several ways QSRs can approach this critical capability. I’ll discuss each approach and then explain how they can actually synergize with each other.
Food Aggregators: A Transactional Approach to Mobile Ordering
Aggregators like Uber Eats, DoorDash, Postmates, and GrubHub are an obvious mobile ordering option that many QSRs will at least explore.
Aggregators can expose first-time customers to your restaurant, which can be critical to your overall growth plans.
Aggregators offer convenient meal delivery (and sometimes pickup options) for a wide variety of restaurants within a single app. DoorDash, the market leader (representing 46% of meal delivery sales in July 2020), provides mobile ordering for “more than 300,000 local and national favorites across the U.S. and Canada.
Most aggregators have already integrated pandemic-friendly contactless delivery or “leave at door” options, which are greatly valued during this time.
Yet, because these platforms are aggregators, any play a QSR gets on them is largely transactional. In other words, many customers who use aggregators are not looking to “build a relationship” with one or even just a handful of restaurants. They may order from your restaurant only once and continue sampling the smorgasbord of other restaurants also listed.
Want to stand out from your competitors, who are similarly hawking their own fine alternatives above and below you on each screen of the app? Good luck doing that in an aggregator; instead, count it as a blessing if users even notice your tiny restaurant listing.
Want to make your menu sing with stunning visuals, videos, and custom content? With meal aggregators, you’ll need to settle instead for the same menu template everyone else has.
The same goes for loyalty/rewards features; it’s simply not possible (or even practical) to deploy these on meal aggregators for your restaurant, specifically. Understandably, these apps use points and rewards to reward loyalty toward the aggregator (DoorDash, for example), not to your restaurant.
Finally, selling meals on aggregators is expensive. Many of the meal aggregators charge commission fees that can be as high as 30% of the order total, and that’s before any tips or hefty service fees your customers might be on the hook for. Even pickup orders on aggregators like Uber Eats require restaurants to pay a commission fee for the transaction, eating into already thin profit margins.
In the relatively low-margin business of restaurant mobile app development and developing food ordering apps, many QSRs find themselves in, every fractional percentage point of margin given to a middleman in the form of a third-party platform absolutely matters — which brings us to the next solution.
Proprietary Mobile Ordering App: Ideal for Repeat Customers & Profitability
Creating a proprietary mobile ordering app (like the McDonalds and Starbucks apps) is a popular solution for established or fast-growing QSRs and can elevate a brand out of the transactional (and profit-killing) meal aggregator game.
Building a dedicated app offers many advantages:
It can clearly be advantageous for QSRs to offer their regular customers a dedicated mobile ordering app. But for many restaurant businesses, the notion of designing and developing a mobile app (on iOS and Android, no less) can seem daunting. After all, QSRs are experts at creating fast and delicious meals — not building mobile apps.
To fill this common technology gap among QSRs, software development companies like CitrusBits partner with restaurant businesses to design and develop complete mobile ordering apps for restaurant businesses, along with the requisite POS (point-of-sale), delivery/logistics, and other backend integration work. Working with an experienced agency like CitrusBits can reduce development costs, turnaround times, and project risk — making it possible for even smaller QSRs to bring their apps to market quickly and affordably.
Best of Both Worlds: Using Aggregators to Attract New Customers and Operating a Dedicated App for Returning Customers
It’s important to understand that listing your restaurants on meal aggregators and creating your own proprietary mobile ordering app are not mutually exclusive propositions.
While you may certainly find value in adding order volumes or new customers by making your restaurants available on meal aggregators, the ultimate QSR mobile ordering ecosystem inevitably entails a dedicated mobile ordering app for your regular customers.
Not only will a dedicated app provide a more focused and comprehensive restaurant experience for your returning customers, but it will also allow your company to drastically improve profitability from digital ordering, through and beyond the current pandemic.
CitrusBits is an award-winning mobile app development agency with deep expertise in the restaurant industry. Having previously built mobile apps for Burger King, Zen Classics, and FullyRaw, CitrusBits is also building a mobile ordering app for a respected national QSR with dozens of locations across the US. CitrusBits is well-versed in the end-to-end process of creating a mobile ordering app, including the following aspects: menu systems, location-based services, mobile ordering, POS integration/creation, delivery/logistics integration, and loyalty/rewards. If you represent a QSR or restaurant chain and are interested in learning more, please get in touch for a free consultation
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