Over the past few years, hospitality industry has recognised the benefits of internet and social media. SinglePlatform found 92% of customers have searched for a restaurant on a web browser in the last 6 months and 75% of them often choose a restaurant to dine at based on search results.
70% of customers think it is important to be able to read the menu of a restaurant on a mobile device.
So restaurants publish their menus online and use Facebook and Instagram to post photos of their food. But we can’t expect customers to jump between websites and different social media accounts to compare menus and restaurant offerings.
Now customers can explore restaurant menus on review sites such as Yelp and Zomato. With the help of other customer’s food pictures, they generally have an idea what to expect from a restaurant. But customers are not photographer, sometime their photos are more of a hindrance than being helpful.
It’s relatively easy to print a paper menu and upload the PDF version online. We would say this is easy because it is now common practice amongst many restaurants. It’s also easy to publish food photos online. So why not bring together these online menus and attractive photos so that they are easier to find? Better yet, why not recommend the perfect beverage or entree pairing with each menu item?
A truly digital menu works on both mobile and desktop and should empower a business to work more efficiently. Thus leading to more sales and happier customers. In this article, we will share 5 new opportunities that a true digital menu can provide your business.
5 new opportunities with a digital menu
1. Attract more customers
Social media is one of the most powerful marketing tools for restaurant owners. You know that already and so do your competitors.
Your food is one of the key drivers for bringing people into your restaurant right? So let the customers find your food easily and quickly before they find your competitors. Digital menu can increase your SEO (search engine optimization), which means you can appear closer to the top of search results when customers search “burger”, “dinner”, “casual dining” and anything on your digital menu (not the PDF version). Pictures on the menu will get them engaged with your restaurant’s offerings and a glimpse of the experience they could have if they were to dine there. Simply post your digital menu address (eg. bistro.atumio.com) on your social media account and encourage your customers to share it with more people.
2. Increase the efficiency, not complexity
Do you often hear “I haven’t decided yet, wait a moment please”, “What food do you recommend?” or “Could I see the wine list again?”? All these intermittent requests are time consuming since they interrupt a good rhythm of service. This can be reduced significantly with a better menu.
90% of purchasing decisions are influenced by visual factors.
From our research, we found over 90% of purchasing decisions are influenced by visual factors. A menu with pictures can reduce time spent taking orders by up to 35%. One obvious way to increase profits is to turn tables faster. But you can’t hurry people out of the restaurant. So why not focusing on streamlining the order process? Display a different menu for different dining hours and perhaps different day of the week with a single click. Let a real digital menu help you grow your profits!
3. Keep your customers coming back
Using digital correctly will empower you to learn more and more quickly about your walk-in customers, most importantly, the customers in your venue. The power of digital enables us to:
- Find out when and where customers first come into contact with your restaurant. Then you can share special offers and/or photos on the relevant online avenue (e.g. Facebook, Instagram or your Online menu) at the right time.
- Test what kind of pictures can encourage your customers to order more. Is the top or horizon view for photos better or varies based on the type of dish? Then change them to sell what you want to sell.
- At a glance, see what dishes your customers loved and hated in the last month so you can offer them the perfect wine pairing or special dishes.
- Identify food trends such as Wednesdays is a popular day for meat. How about introduce a twist on the meat dish to align with food trends.
4. Enable all staff to provide the best service
Experienced staffs can provide better service. But a known fact is that experienced staffs cost a lot and are always hard to find. With the recent legislation changes with the 457 visas, casual dining businesses will need to find effective ways to maintain profits.
One of the ways is to empower part-time staff to provide a better service with meaningful customer data. In this way, we think every staff can be an “experienced staff” with access to the knowledge about your customers.
5. Take your business to a new level without extreme effort
We have reduced some manual work with the help of POS systems (e.g. Kounta). We have tried to increase profits with online reservations (eg. Dimmi) and takeaway products (e.g. ubereats, Deliveroo). We know how technology makes our life easier. But implementing more systems doesn’t necessarily mean your business is more efficient.
Imagine an online platform that allows your customers to browse your menu and when you’re really busy or short a staff member, flick a switch to let customers order from their mobile? Atumio is an online platform for both customers and businesses. There’s no expensive tablets required for purchase or an app or software to install. We want to empower restaurants to focus on the food and experience, Atumio will take care of the tech.
Digital menus make your job easier
A truly digital menu to makes your restaurant easier to find online. The value of digital menu is to reflect the real beautiful visual of your food and allows for frequent updates with fresh content to suit the needs of your restaurant or a quick change of events (eg. a tour group randomly dropped by or you just received a fresh delivery of truffles). It’ll free your wait staffs to provide a better service and help you to maximise the revenue. They will have more time to sell and personalise the experience for your customers.
Want to talk more how to unlock new opportunities for your business with digital? Reach out to us here. Follow us on Medium ATUMIO to learn more about how technology can improve your business and on Instagram for interesting stuff!
