Does your restaurant have an app? If not, it might be time to consider one. Research shows the percentage of people ordering food from their smartphone has increased by 36% from 2019 to 2022, with 49.5 million customers placing mobile orders.

While your restaurant can team up with a third-party food delivery app like DoorDash or BiteSquad, there are benefits to creating your own app.

Advantages of a mobile app for your restaurant

Customers want restaurant-specific apps

Research shows 70% of consumers prefer to order directly from restaurants rather than from a third-party service. Why? There’s a variety of reasons, but the biggest is likely convenience. Customers want to browse your menu, place an order, and schedule a delivery or pickup with ease.

Restaurant apps are trusted

Fifty-two percent of customers say they trust a restaurant’s app more than food portal apps. When customers can open your app, they know they’re ordering directly from your restaurant. There’s comfort in knowing that orders are properly communicated, and deliveries are made by restaurant employees who are invested in making sure each order is well-prepared and delivered as such.

Restaurant owners can connect with customers

With an app, you can engage with your customers.

While facilitating mobile orders might be your app’s main purpose, it’s also a space to show off your restaurant. Create a gallery filled with mouth-watering pictures of your meals, write an About Us section to educate customers, offer links to your social channels, and give customers a way to contact you.

Simply put, your app can help customers learn about your restaurant beyond its many drinks, dishes, and desserts.

Customer loyalty programs can increase sales

Every restaurant wants repeat customers. To encourage people to come back, you can implement a mobile loyalty program through your app.

Even a simple, customized app can offer a points-based rewards system. For every dollar a customer spends, he or she gets one point. Once customers reach a certain threshold (which is set by the restaurant owner), customers can get a free item or a discount on their next order. 

Research shows 82% of customers that participate in points-based programs make purchases more often and more than half (52%) say the system keeps from exploring offers from competitors.

How to create a customized mobile app

If you don’t have a tech wizard on your staff, you might wonder how to create a customized app for your restaurant. Orderspoon can help. Let our team create an app that works seamlessly with our online ordering software.

When you combine the two, you’ll be able to streamline mobile orders. Whether they’re dine-in, pick-up, or delivery, each customer can view your menu, place an order, pay, and eat their meal wherever they choose.

Are you ready to empower your customers and fuel more online orders? Take a look at this app that we built for one of our merchants and reach out to Orderspoon today to see how we can help your restaurant launch an app.