Motivating customers to buy any product requires skill and determination.
However, when it comes to online food delivery, there are many advantages to take stock of. Everyone needs food, and that will never change. Additionally, everyone enjoys food, so customers are more likely to buy more than they truly need of any one item.
If you direct your attention to a few specific areas of online food ordering, you can significantly boost customer engagement and send profits soaring. But what are the types of things you need to keep an eye on, here? How can you give customers the push they need to order food online?
With these questions in mind, let’s delve into the topic.
How to Motivate Restaurant Customers to Order Food Online
Online Advertising & Newsletters
If you want people to shop online, then you also need to appeal to them online too.
To start things off with a bang, provide a steady flow of quality online advertising. Tailored ads can be incredibly useful here, ensuring that the most likely potential customers are presented with your menu items. Restaurant owners can pay a fee to have digital banners placed on another domain, or have their ads run before a prominent YouTube video.
You might also like: How To Promote Your Restaurant With Google Ads
You can also invest part of your time and resources into distributing newsletters. If you need some inspiration here, browse these effective newsletter samples. This strategy will help you build a community around your delivery service, giving people a sense of your brand, objectives, and way of doing things.
Additionally, using the newsletter to share news about your restaurant implies that constant improvements are being made, and that the business is open to change and even newsworthy! For example, let’s say you have a well-established cleaning and disinfection routine to prevent the spread of COVID-19. This is definitely worthy of being shared in a newsletter.
Read more: 12 Restaurant Newsletter Ideas That Will Convert & Engage
In the end, online advertising means having a direct channel of communication with your customers, and it creates trust through transparency.
It’s down to the delivery service to reach out to the customer. Luckily, online, it is quick and easy, making molehills out of mountains, as the customer doesn’t need to travel and patrol the streets before stumbling on your brick-and-mortar.
You are putting the ball in their court without them ever having to lift a finger, making them much more likely to engage with your food delivery service at their leisure and order food online.
Generous Promotions
To really draw in customers, your restaurant needs to go the extra mile.
Amazon is in the news for many things, but they have been making waves lately for offering free food delivery to take on the UK’s biggest supermarket chains in a surprising move. Ultimately, your promotions and deals should be about one-upping the competition and providing a service that few others could feasibly compete with.
The more your restaurant can compromise with its delivery prices, the better it will be received. You can offer discounts after customers surpass a certain threshold or on certain menu items according to dates or category of food. For instance, on National Pizza Days, all of your pizzas could be 50% off. Get creative and operate kindly, and customers will flock to you online.
By comparison to large companies like Amazon, restaurants have had a tougher time appealing to customers. According to NBC News, these establishments are now paying customers to dine in because food delivery has become so popular. They are offering gift certificates over apps and hefty discounts on bills.
Ultimately, these kinds of creative restaurant promotions to boost your sales are far from the norm, and arguably dangerous if done haphazardly. However, the strategy of offering discounts and special deals to boost sales is one that you can definitely apply to food delivery.
Attractive Contests & Giveaways
Every customer that dines with you should feel like a winner afterward.
To perpetuate that feeling through your food delivery service, a contest could be just the thing your business needs. They generate buzz and excitement, and if customers are convinced that they can one day ‘get lucky’ by dining with you, it can give them that extra push to order from you just one more time, every time.
Giveaways with random winners are probably the best route to go down. The prize can be a 100% free online order. You can advertise the run-up to the big event, and make sure everyone has time to fulfill the terms and conditions of the deal.
Then, announce winners publicly over social media and on your restaurant website. It will show your business has a giving and fun nature. Those are the kinds of businesses customers want to be around, so apply that charisma to your own operation.
Chatbots
Chatbots can seem quite eerie at first, but they can be immensely efficient as part of your operation.
In an article on how artificial intelligence is shaking up the workforce, NBC has noted that technology is about augmentation, not replacement. Chatbots are the proof in that pudding, answering very basic customer questions like “Where is my order?” or “How do I find the ordering page?”
Chatbots can provide pre-prepared and instantaneous answers to base queries, direct customers around your website, and recite delivery terms and conditions. This all improves the timeliness of your service.
If a chatbot is asked a question that it can’t answer, it can refer the customer onto a real restaurant staff member. This is a highly efficient way of working, as it essentially helps staff dedicate their time to the most important and complicated queries.
Every customer gets attention faster, and their problems are solved quicker, which will motivate them to order food online from you again and again for convenience.
Flawless Delivery Methods
The concerns surrounding ordering food online are mostly related to delivery.
Flexible delivery times and the ability to schedule deliveries can go a long way in motivating customers. People lead busy lives, so if they can make food ordering easier to schedule around their personal life, your business will become that much more appealing to them. Online food ordering is primarily about convenience, and timely delivery is a big part of that.
Additionally, your delivery drivers should carry themselves as customer service staff members in a shop would. That means carrying the food inside for elderly customers and representing your business in a positive and upbeat manner.
There is a triumphant charm to these kinds of arrangements, and apt delivery of any kind humanizes your business greatly. You are trusted to come to the very home of the customer, making the process of dining much more personal. Honor that, and things will go splendidly.
Final Words
Entice customers to order food online from your restaurant using the tips and tricks above. Ultimately, it all boils down to perfect customer service and the ability to show why you are better than the competition. Use discounts and irresistible offers, as well as contests and giveaways to stand out in the crowd.
