7 Must-Have Features for Your Restaurant Mobile App

It’s no secret that the restaurant market is oversaturated. Opening a restaurant means you’ll be competing with dozens of other restaurants in the area. To avoid shutting down and ensure your continuous success, you need to find ways to differentiate yourself from the competition.

One such way is to provide customers with the convenience of browsing your menu, reserving a table, placing orders and paying for them online directly on their smartphone using a branded mobile app. Let’s take a look at the main features your restaurant mobile app should contain.

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7 Features Your Restaurant App Will Benefit from

1. Online ordering

It’s not enough to create a restaurant app just for customers to check out the menu. Enable them to place orders online for delivery or pickup to unlock a new source of income and sell more of your food every day than you could possibly sell just at the restaurant.

An online ordering menu is user-friendly, easy to update on the spot and can be customized with choices and add-ons that will increase the average order value and tempt customers to order more every time.

2. Order scheduling and fulfillment options

Order flexibility is an important thing for customers. They want to be able to place orders in advance and choose how the order will get delivered. This also works to your advantage.

Enable customers to place orders even outside your opening hours with scheduled orders. They will have peace of mind knowing their food will get delivered at the right time during a busy day and you’ll make money while you sleep. Allow foodies to choose between classic delivery and no-contact delivery, or pickup at the counter and curbside pickup.

3. Table reservations

Another app feature restaurant customers are keen on is the ability to book a table directly in the app, without having to call the restaurant. That way, you get instant confirmation and the guarantee that the date, time and number of people have been accurately registered.

You can also improve upon this feature by adding order ahead for table reservations. That way, customers can also choose what they want to eat and even pre-pay for their food when booking a table.

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4. Promotions

This is a no-brainer. In order to attract new customers and convince them to download your app, as well as to improve customer retention and motivate customers to reorder, restaurant promotions are key.

A first-order discount exclusive to the app is an excellent way to increase app downloads. But if you want customers to keep using the app and not just delete it after the first order, you need to draw their attention with regular promos and special offers. That can be a special fixed price for a meal bundle, free delivery on certain days, or a 10% discount on the entire menu.

5. Online payments

A must-have restaurant app feature, online payments allow customers to pay for their food before it gets delivered, which is convenient if they select no-contact delivery or if they simply don’t have cash. Give customers multiple options to pay for their food online, from credit cards to payment methods like Apple Pay, PayPal or Google Pay.

6. Automatically fill in delivery information 

If there’s one thing customers hate when ordering food online is filling in their contact and delivery information. This is why they should only do that once, the first time they open your restaurant app. Enable customers to check a box so that the app can remember their information for future orders. That way, the next time they crave your food, all they need to do is choose the dishes and order.

7. Contact details

Another restaurant app feature that may seem obvious but that you can’t fail to include is the ability to contact the restaurant if there are any issues with the order or if you have a question you’d like someone’s help with. This also ties in with the importance of listening to and implementing customer feedback for a successful business. Maybe the order button isn’t working or there’s a vital section missing from the ordering flow.

Enable customers to tell you about it so you can fix it quickly by providing a contact phone number and email address in the app.

The bottom line

Having a restaurant mobile app will help you stand out in the crowd of similar restaurants in your area. It will also increase customer convenience and help foster loyalty that will supercharge your restaurant’s long-term growth.

Laura is a content marketing specialist at Oracle GloriaFood. She puts together guides and resources that restaurateurs can use to grow and promote their businesses online and offline.