Bon App-etite6 Ways Your Restaurant Can Make Money with Mobile

© QikServe® 2015

The 6 Ways...1. An Appetite for Mobile Transforming the Consumer Experience

2. Increased Spend per Customer Make mobile your secret ingredient

3. Consumer Insight Let mobile be your guide to consumer preference

4. Make it Efficient Get customers eating out of the palm of their hands

5. Youth Appeal Attracting mobile savvy Millenials

6. The Power of Social Sharing Amplify marketing through the connected customer

Bon App-etite 6 Ways Your Restaurant Can Make Money with MobileWith the number of global smartphone users expected to reach 3.5 billion by 20191, smartphone and self-service mobile app adoption is a fast-growing trend few hospitality operators can afford to ignore. A recent report by Hospitality Technology found that restaurant operators and suppliers alike are focusing on mobile payment strategies with 62.5% stating new payment options as an influencing driver to their POS upgrade2.

As this report suggests, many operators feel the need to catch the mobile app train before they are left too far behind. But, with a bewildering array of mobile app products and misplaced marketing agency guidance, it’s hard to know where to jump on.

That’s where we can help.

By implementing an effective self-service mobile app you can streamline your operations, dramatically improve your customer service and drive additional revenues by collecting invaluable customer information. This concise eBook explains the 6 ways your restaurant can make money with mobile and offers a guide to what features are best for your brand and operations.

Mobile-shifted marketers will transform their brands’ customer experiences and drive business outcomes by taking a sophisticated approach that focuses on how to activate mobile experiences. Forrester, 2014

1 Forrester research world mobile and smartphone adoption forecast, 2014 to 2019 (global) 2 2014 POS Software Trends, Hospitality Technology

1. An Appetite for Mobile Transforming the Consumer ExperienceOne factor affecting adoption of self-service in the hospitality industry is the concern by operators that reducing the amount of human contact will reduce the level of service and diminishes the perception of the brand in the eyes of the customer. This impression ignores the underlying consumer trend and demand for self-service as well as the opportunity to engage with guests in a more valuable way. Nielsen Company found that consumers, in fact, do have an interest in dining-related mobile activities. They found that among all mobile app downloaders, 25% used a dining or restaurant app3.

Customers want to control when and how they interact with service providers. Giving them the option of self-service for ordering, payment and other routine transaction processing increases satisfaction. It also enables staff to focus on high-value customer service that makes a difference to the customer’s experience. It’s better to give guests an opportunity to engage with your business rather than risk losing the customer through the lack of a self-service option.

The most effective way to enable self-service in hospitality environments including restaurants, hotels and lodging, theatres, and stadiums is to leverage the customer’s own personal device – their smartphone. What if you could enable customers to order and pay for food and drink items using their mobile phone? No hardware would need to be purchased or maintained by the operator.

Some customers will choose to continue to order from the staff or waiter. Others will mix the use of self or waited-service. They may order the drinks and first service from a waiter and then choose to order second service using their smartphone. The point is that the customer has a choice.

Consumers want to use their smartphones for everything. Smart operators are realizing this and giving their customers what they want. By offering the customer a differentiated and improved experience, operators can increase loyalty and, as a result, drive valuable revenue.

“Lots of operators, especially smaller ones, have no idea how rapidly the tech world has already changed. They should start investigating now so they’re not irrevocably behind the curve.”

Michael Whiteman, President of consulting firm Baum + Whiteman

3 Mobile Ordering Makes Fast Food Faster eMarketer

discovery

loyalty

ordering

payment

feedback& Sharing

offers &incentives

The Customer JourneySingle point apps for payment, ordering, loyalty, etc can achieve high initial adoption when supported by saturation marketing and consumer incentives in the form of costly, unsustainable discounts. When the marketing promotion and discounts are removed, the adoption drops to minimal levels.

For sustainable adoption, there needs to be sufficient value to the consumer. When interacting with an operator brand, rather than switching between multiple apps, the consumer wants more of the overall journey to be available from within a single experience (app). The journey is depicted in the diagram opposite: A compelling consumer journey is not however sufficient in itself. Marketing promotion is still required to create the initial customer awareness and discovery.Operators can tailor a consumer experience that suits their operation and service model. By configuring this effectively the operator can achieve the objectives of: • Customer acquisition • Customer retention • Driving visits • Driving sales and increases in ATV

In order to meet your complete requirements and to achieve a comprehensive end-to-end consumer mobile experience, it might not make sense to attempt to source them from a single supplier. Integrating best-of-breed apps into a single app may be the best option.

2. Increased Spend per Customer Make mobile your secret ingredientWhat would happen if operators could put control of order and payment in the hands of their customers? By allowing customers to browse a menu, choose and tailor their meals and place their order themselves using their mobile device, you can minimize the chance for error and make real savings.

You won’t just save money but could also facilitate an increase in spend per customer. Data shows that the average check is typically higher in mobile orders, compared to in-store orders. Customers in the US who order on their smartphones spend an average of $9 compared to the $7.50 in-store check average4.

Our own studies have found similar results. QikServe looked at 950 transactions completed using our mobile ordering solution. It was found that the average spend per head increased from £7.70 to £13.35. Ronnie Forbes, CEO of QikServe explains, “Our customers have experienced between 52%-73% increase in transaction value per guest. This is a significant uplift in sales for operators and is attributed to diners being under less time pressure and ordering larger single orders compared to multiple smaller orders.”

As well as driving value per guest, self-service technology offers other benefits. “The move to kiosk and mobile ordering is happening because it will

improve order accuracy, speed up service and has the potential of reducing labor cost, which can account for about 30% of costs,” says Darren Tristano, executive vice president of Technomic, a research group focused on the restaurant industry5.

“Time and order accuracy have become a key decision factor for consumers making a purchase decision and brands are encouraging consumers to use their mobile and online ordering apps to save time, improve order accuracy and simplify the process. Success can be seen through larger tickets, shorter wait times, increased order accuracy and overall operational improvements.”

Scott Thaler, Chief digital officer with Zimmerman Advertising

4 Mobile ordering insights 2015: review of mobile trends in quick service restaurants, Delegat 5 Automation arrives at restaurants, Computerworld

3. Consumer Insight Let mobile be your guide to consumer preferenceOffers and incentives can be used to acquire and keep customers as well as drive additional sales. The objective of a loyalty scheme is to reward customer behavior in order to engage them in a long-term relationship.

In a recent study by Forrester, 75% of customers prefer that retailers use personal data to improve shopping experiences6.

Currently, the majority of offers sent out by operators are largely untargeted. The same offer is available to everyone regardless of their personal circumstances and preferences. Most offers simply discount the price of a product, which just sacrifices margin. A slight refinement on the use of “broadcast” offers is to use segmentation – to distribute an offer to a specific customer demographic based on age, gender, etc. But not every male aged 25-35 has the same likes and dislikes. Why not treat every customer as an individual?

Personalized Offers & Real IncentivesTo provide relevant, personalized offers requires an understanding of the individual customer’s preferences. The good news is that this is actually very easy to obtain. By enabling the customer to

order using a mobile app means their purchase history can be captured and stored. From this, we can understand when and how often they visit, how much they spend, down to the item level of what products they like and the frequency they purchase it. Without providing the ordering capability in the app, we know very little about the customer.

The understanding of the customer that this provides enables you to implement smart marketing campaigns rather than dumb “shotgun” discounts. Relevant offers result in much higher levels of redemption and reduced wastage.

Through the app, you can push notifications to the customer of relevant offers to drive footfall and sales at the appropriate time.

LoyaltyA sustained strategy of providing appropriate, targeted offers helps to build loyalty. A stream of relevant, timely promotions can surprise and delight the customer, resulting in extra visits and additional sales.

Redemption of offers, coupons, vouchers etc. requires integration with the POS system in

order that the offer can be validated and tracked accurately. This information can then be used to measure the success of the campaign.

Communications ChannelMobile provides a real-time communications channel directly to the customer’s personal device. Offers and rewards can be pushed to the customer to encourage them to visit the store.

6 75% of customers prefer that retailers use personal data, Forrester

4. Make it Efficient Get customers eating out of the palm of their handsSelf-service has transformed the efficiency of many industries including travel, banking, and retail. It is used to reduce costs, increase sales, and enhance customer service. Beyond limited deployments however, the hospitality industry has yet to realize the benefits of customer self-service.

Deploying kiosks in restaurants is expensive and does not create a practical service model. Installing dedicated electronic devices or tablets on tables also has high capital investment and maintenance costs. However, a mobile application that allows customers to order and pay for goods provides hospitality operators an inexpensive means of offering the self-service capabilities that consumers have come to expect.

By putting the power of order and payment in the hands of your consumers they can enjoy the speed and convenience of self-service and you can reap the monetary benefits of more streamlined operations and reduced staff overheads.

“When customers can submit orders through your mobile app, you cut down on lines, wait times, and employee order taking. By removing the human element, you can also reduce errors in orders, and make it easier to record special requests and boost customer satisfaction.”

CEO at Bizness Apps

5. Youth Appeal Attracting mobile savvy MillenialsSmartphone adoption amongst teens and young adults has increased substantially with 78% of teens owning a mobile phone, and almost half (47%) of those own smartphones. That translates into 37% of all teens that have smartphones7.

In both the US and the UK, Millennials are about twice as likely as older consumers to express interest in mobile wallet; in Canada, Millennials are about three times more likely to express such interest .

Hospitality operators can capitalize on this increasingly mobile-savvy demographic by appealing to their preference for mobile interaction. By providing young customers with a mobile platform to not only order and pay for goods, but to interact and share their experiences with others, you can attract and retain a demographic that might previously have been harder to connect with.

Millennial consumers are more likely to respond to offers and make purchases through apps than older consumers.

The Canadian Millennial Loyalty survey

7 Teens and Technology 2013. Pew Research Center 8 The Canadian Millenial Loyalty Survey, Aimia

6. The Power of Social Sharing Amplify marketing through the connected customerEven within the offline world of restaurants and bars, the majority of today’s consumers are constantly connected to the internet through their smartphones. Customers are regularly communicating with friends and colleagues through social media, messaging, and email.

The mobile channel provides an excellent opportunity to interact with the customer and for the customer to share their experience with friends. The app can incorporate a ‘Feedback’ feature to provide comments on the service to the operator via social media including Facebook and Twitter as well as non-traditional channels such as Snapchat and WhatsApp. Functionality can be included to enable customers to invite friends to join them, thus increasing footfall and sales.

The most common mobile interaction with the restaurant today is through the smartphone camera - sharing pictures of food with friends. How can the operator interact with the customer’s personal device and connections with friends to create a more meaningful engagement with the connected consumer?

By giving customers a mobile channel to not only fulfill order and payment transactions but also to also connect with their friends, operators can leverage social sharing to amplify their restaurant’s exposure amongst target customers.

Nearly half of all Millennials (44%) are willing to promote products or brands through social media in exchange for rewards.

The Canadian Millennial Loyalty survey

ConclusionGetting started with mobile need not be as daunting as first thought and, if implemented properly, can yield significant revenues for the hospitality industry. Operators first need to consider the objectives of their mobile strategy and how this fits with the overall consumer journey. It’s also important to ensure this customer journey is available through a seamless mobile consumer experience i.e. the app.

There is real money to be made with mobile, most notably around the valuable customer data a mobile app can gather for operators. Customer buying habits, preferences and much more can be uncovered and used to provide meaningful, targeted promotions and in-app offers leading to uplift in sales and consumer loyalty.

By offering a mobile channel that many of today’s consumers have come to expect, operators can, in one step; improve the efficiency of their service operations; transform the customer experience for the better; reach demographics previously

closed to them; learn more about their customers’ buying habits; exponentially increase brand exposure through social sharing; and dramatically improve order accuracy and value by putting the power in the hands of the consumer.

QikServe can provide you with the technology to enable customers to order, pay and interact using their mobile phone. Our flexible solution offers a quick and easy means to implement mobile self-service, one that is also tailored to your specific service model. The QikServe app has transformed the guest experience for our customers within the casual dining, hospitality and leisure industries, whilst not removing the personalized element that members of staff can provide.

If you want to jump aboard the mobile app train and enjoy all the benefits mobile has to offer then contact us to get started with your journey today.

About QikServeQikServe’s ‘The Waiter in Your Pocket’ app allows diners to simply scan a QR code at their table in participating restaurants and begin ordering food and drinks straight away.

Using the web-based QikServe “Control” CMS (Content Management System), the restaurant operator can define the customer journey and available features. This can include check-in, service model, ordering, payment, social media, marketing & loyalty and more.

QikServe supports virtually any service model from takeaway and quick service to high end. The system is flexible enough to combine wait-staff ordering and payment with customer ordering and payment through the app – all updating a single check in the POS.

Configurable features include:

• POS integration. Connection to the relevant location and POS.

• Payment options. Options include PayPal and credit/debit card. The operator’s existing payment processor and merchant account can be configured to receive payments.

• Branding. The operator’s branding and color schemes can be uploaded for display within the app.

• Menu including product images and descriptions. Modifiers and upsell options can be set-up.

• Social media integration. Facebook and Twitter can be used to capture customer feedback.

Customer data is captured automatically and used within the QikServe “Engage” marketing and loyalty product providing operators with a better view of their customer resulting in greater accuracy in targeted marketing initiatives.

www.qikserve.com