7 Tips to Create the Utmost Restaurant Food Delivery Experience

Creating an amazing experience in the restaurant is important for your success, but don't forget about the people that want to enjoy your delicious food from the comfort of their own homes or office.

Offering a great food delivery experience will help you constantly increase your revenue. A happy customer is more prone to ordering again and recommending your restaurant to friends, so you will have a continuous stream of clients.

In this article, you will find easy-to-follow tips that will help you provide unforgettable restaurant food delivery services:

1. Have a menu full of dishes that travel well

Not all menus are created equal. When the food only has to travel 10 steps to get from the kitchen to the client, you can serve any type of dish as it will be perfectly preserved when it reaches the table.

But what do you do when your menu items have to travel for 30 minutes, on a bike or scooter in difficult weather conditions? Simple. You adapt your menu so the client can enjoy quality and tasty food that is just as good when they pick it up from the courier as it was when it left the kitchen.

Start by answering these two questions:

• What are your delivery zones? Try to find out what is the maximum amount of time a dish will be traveling from you to a client, taking into account traffic jams during rush hour. This way you will be able to come up with dishes that don’t get cold or soggy during transport.
• How much do you pay for delivery services? Do you have your own drivers or are you working with a delivery service? Be aware that the menu item’s price may have to be bigger to cover the delivery fees if you want to make a profit.

Keeping all of the above in mind, choose an online ordering menu editor that makes your life easier and allows you to focus on creating new dishes that travel well.

GloriaFood’s restaurant menu creator is intuitive and allows you to make an attractive menu in just a few minutes. By using drag & drop, you can add categories and items and customize every menu item with mouth-watering pictures (there is also a free image gallery you can choose from) and enticing menu descriptions.

Watch this video to learn how easy it is to make a restaurant menu for your website:

What’s more, you can make as many changes as you want and they will be instantly visible in your online menu.

2. Make the online ordering process as easy as possible

A food delivery experience always starts with the ordering process. How can people order from your restaurant? Do they have to call you and risk not getting their call answered? Do they have to send you a direct message on social media and risk it being lost among countless other inquiries?

Without an online ordering system, you expose yourself to human errors that can negatively affect your customer's experience. If customers can't place an order easily and fast, they will surely start looking for another food place.

Prevent any problems by implementing the efficient online ordering system from GloriaFood. Clients will be able to place orders directly on your website, in just a few clicks. Click here to see a demo of how smoothly our system works.

Follow these steps to create the utmost ordering experience:

• Sign up on GloriaFood and fill in your restaurant’s information;
• Create an enticing menu that will attract clients;
• Publish the menu on your website (or get a sales-optimized website from us);
• Download the order-taking app on iOS or Android;
• Start accepting online orders!

For more detailed instructions, check out this video on how to set up an online ordering system for restaurants in 10 minutes:

3. Consider a branded restaurant app for an enhanced food delivery experience

There are many ways to allow clients to efficiently order online. For example, directly on your website, through social media with a link to your online menu, on a collective app, and by using your native app.

A branded restaurant app is an app clients can download on their phones and access to order only your restaurant's food whenever they want. It is branded with your name, logo, and pictures. When customers open the app, they will see your delicious menu and be able to open it and order in just a few clicks.

You can get your restaurant food delivery app by accessing our online ordering system’s admin. Just go to admin -> Setup -> Publishing -> Branded mobile app.

Furthermore, because clients can see your brand logo every time they open their phones, you will entice them daily with your appetizing food. Why should they look for another restaurant when they can take advantage of your app’s convenience?

With that said, if you want to get the most out of your app, you’ll need to invest in your integrated logistics strategy. What is integrated logistics? It's a comprehensive system that allows for total management of all the aspects involved in delivery. A restaurant app can put you back in control of these aspects, but you’re going to have to do the work to stay organized.

4. Choose eco-friendly, yet resistant food packaging

One of the easiest ways to ruin a restaurant's food delivery experience is to choose inappropriate food packaging. Imagine how a customer will react when their pizza is no longer a circle but a puddle of mush with various toppings. Or when their drink spills all over their food.

Furthermore, by choosing efficient food packaging, you make your delivery drivers' lives easier. Depending on their mode of transportation, the food won't always be in an ideal position for preservation. Help them avoid preventable mistakes with foolproof packaging.

Research different types of restaurant food delivery boxes until you find ones that fit your business's needs. Some examples are vented containers to prevent sogginess and spill-proof holders to contain liquid items.

If you want your clients to remember your restaurant and order again, pay attention to every item. For example, recyclable, branded food packaging will impress your customers more than a classic one.

If you don’t want to invest a lot in printing your logo and slogan on containers, go for stickers. You can get a roll for a small price and easily stick them on any type of packaging.

5. Add a coupon code to every order

One of the reasons you should strive to offer the utmost restaurant food delivery experience is to encourage repeat customers. If clients enjoy ordering from your business, they will be inclined to order again and again.

But why not give them one more reason to place a new order? Adding flyers with coupon codes printed on them can be a great incentive for people to order once more. Otherwise, they will be missing out on a great offer.

Here are a few ways to use coupon codes to get loyal customers:

• Add a free delivery coupon for every order from a first-time customer;
• Add 10% off a specific menu item when you want to promote the launch of a new menu item;
• Add a 5% off the total order for orders placed between 2 and 4 a.m. or any other period when you notice your sales are lower.

Now, to the fun part. How do you create a coupon code? Easy! With GloriaFood’s online ordering system. Go to admin -> Marketing -> Promotions -> Self-made promos and choose one of the tried-and-tested templates that you want to offer your clients.

Let's say you chose 5% off the total. Customize the text and image, select the minimum order amount the promotion is available for and click Next. Select "Use custom coupon code" and come up with a short text such as "5%OFF" that clients will use to redeem the offer. Click Save.

That's it! All there is left to do is to print out the flyers. Check out this video to learn more about how to create and use coupon codes:

6. Offer a variety of payment options

Put yourself in your client’s shoes. You are home, you are very hungry, yet have no time to cook. You decide to order from a restaurant, but realize you have no cash. Or, you are at work, you forgot your card at home, and you would like to order some lunch. Will the restaurant allow you to pay with cash?

A client’s decision to order from a restaurant can be influenced by the type of payment available. Therefore, if you want to appeal to a larger audience and get more clients, you must offer different types of payment options.

This can easily be done with our online ordering system. To accept online payments, on top of cash ones, go to admin -> Setup -> Payments and enable credit card payments.

Learn more about how to accept credit cards and other restaurant payment methods from this video:

7. Be transparent about the waiting times and keep clients in the loop

When clients place an order, they like to know how much time they have to wait for their food to arrive. Maybe they are really hungry, or maybe they have plans, no matter what the reason is, they need to have an estimated time of arrival.

When you sign up for our online ordering system, you get free access to our free order taking app. It allows you to easily receive and confirm orders, while also informing clients of the estimated delivery or pickup time.

They will appreciate your transparency and effort to keep them in the loop.

Conclusion

Creating a great restaurant food delivery experience will help your business grow by attracting more new and return customers. Start with a delivery-proof menu and our efficient online ordering system, and don't forget to choose appropriate food packaging and use coupon codes to incentivize clients to return.