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How Delivery Increases Restaurant Revenue and Boosts Loyalty

The restaurant industry is experiencing significant growth when it comes to delivery operations. In fact, according to a recent report from the National Restaurant Association, 34% of consumers utilize delivery more often than they did just one year ago. And its popularity only continues to rise. The most successful restaurant operators are leveraging this trend to their advantage, and being rewarded with increased revenue.  But in order to attain this benefit, you need to ensure your delivery operations are optimized for the best customer satisfaction.

The right delivery software can help you capitalize on this trend. Here’s why:

Encourages Repeat Customers

Customers now expect delivery, so much so that there are entire enterprises—independent of any one specific restaurant—based solely on the concept of delivering food to consumers. Restaurants that are optimizing for delivery are growing their loyal customer base and reaping the rewards that come with increased loyalty.

By offering delivery, your customers can order from you even when they don’t have time to come in, which is a valuable service in a day and age when consumers are busier than ever and have little free time for a sit-down meal. When you incorporate third-party delivery services, you also gain the benefit of a boosted online presence, making you more visible to potential customers.

Increases Revenue

Delivery doesn’t just increase your customer base—it increases revenue. By implementing a delivery operation, you add another channel through which you can do business. Customers that may have otherwise never chosen your restaurant might be compelled to order from you when you offer the convenience of delivery.

On top of that, delivery orders are usually larger on average than in-house orders. This boosts your revenue even higher than if you had experienced the same number of customers on premises. And with delivery, you can compensate for slow days due to poor weather. When customers don’t want to leave their homes in those conditions, they turn to delivery.

Streamlines Operations

Adding the right delivery software can improve accuracy and increase productivity. Robust delivery software helps you optimize delivery routes and equip your employees to work more effectively. This is especially true for delivery software that integrates with your POS to improve communication across systems and decrease errors.

The most advanced solutions offer the biggest benefits to restaurant owners, allowing them to easily manage delivery drivers and keep track of which orders are assigned to which workers. It can also provide turn-by-turn directions and GPS mapping so that orders can be delivered quickly and safely, boosting customer satisfaction as well as profit.

Helps You Stay Competitive:

The rise in popularity of delivery operations has given restaurant owners a new strategy to leverage to their advantage, but simply offering delivery is not going to help you stay ahead of the competition when all your competitors are jumping on the bandwagon as well.

In order to truly gain the full benefits of this, it’s imperative that you offer a better customer experience as well, which is only achieved when operations are streamlined and optimized. The right delivery software will make it easy to provide the experiences customers crave while effectively managing your operations.

National Business Systems offers a cost-effective, yet powerful delivery dispatch solution that integrates seamlessly with Heartland Restaurant POS. For more information, contact us today!

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Are you ready to deliver Vegan and Vegetarian food?

vegan delivery on the rise

Delivery and Vegan Food are the fastest growing restaurant trends

According to Grubhub and Yelp vegan and vegetarian options are trending like never before. The fastest growing item overall was cauliflower crust pizza. According to the “Year in Food” report cauliflower popularity grew by 650%.  After several years of growth in meat alternatives can this really be called trendy any longer? I would suggest this is far from a trend. Americans are looking for comfort food without the animal protein.

Dine in, Delivery or in home Meal replacement that is the question

Whether you are catering to the meat alternative crowd or still serving meat and potatoes how and where are the next frontier. Diners are voting with their wallets and they are choosing in home meal replacement and delivery. Several restaurant publications have recently featured restaurants that have closed their dining rooms to expand delivery and take out ops. What this tells me is people want fresh not frozen and quality made meals. If it were just wanting to eat at home we would just nuke a frozen dinner right? Well, that ain’t happening.

Do you have to respond to trends in order to make it today?

Well that answer to that is above my pay grade. I do think if you are just starting in business and catering to younger diners you probably do. There is still room for the classic steak house and hopefully there always will be but the young guest are growing up in an alternative protein reality. The next generation will have never lived in a world where fast food did not offer a plant based alternative. At what point is it no longer an alternative? These same consumers will also grow up with every restaurant having online ordering and delivery options. So regardless of the concept you operate it may be time to dip your toe into the technology pool and see what happens. No need to do a cannon ball into the deep end, start slow with an iPad POS system and go with the flow. Let your guest tell you how they want to order and respond! While we can’t help you with plant based alternatives we can assist with the modern technology for your restaurant. Call us at 800-863-2274 or online at Restaurant POS including online ordering.

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Unleash the Heartland Guest Application for your restaurant

heartland guest application

The Heartland Guest Application engages your guest

Modern POS systems should go beyond your restaurant. Use the Heartland Guest Application to empower guest. Ten years ago you would have paid a king’s ransom to have the technology found today for a few bucks a month. We have leveraged the cloud to bring your restaurant right into your guest phone. Guest will love to pay their guest check right on their own phone. Guest won’t wait to order when they skip the line with your app.

There are guest that expect you to have modern technology

Do you know there are consumers growing up right now that don’t recall a world without apps? A tipping point will soon be reached when you are not relevant without these technologies. Mobile App and Kiosk are the new normal and you risk being an outlier without them. Of course they are not for every restaurant but in the fast casual space they are a must. For the fast casual restaurant the Heartland Guest Application checks all those boxes.

Omni channel Systems  should be fully integrated

OK, omni channel and integrated seem like pretty fancy terms right? Well they sound far more fancy than they really are. First omni channel simply means you have more than one way to order. A system with cashier terminals and online ordering would be considered omni channel, simple right. Fully integrated just indicates it acts as one system not a patch work of systems connected via interface. In the case of Heartland Restaurant POS it is omni channel and fully integrated. You won’t have to use an online ordering platform that is separate from your POS. That also goes for delivery, kiosk, loyalty and more. All of these features and functions are native to Heartland Restaurant POS. This is where the Heartland Guest Application comes into play. These are not other programs they are part of the program. This makes all the difference in the world.  To arrange a no obligation in person in Seattle, Tacoma or Yakima area or online demonstration of Heartland Restaurant POS call us at 800-863-2274 or follow  visit us on the web.

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Get the right technology to compete by offering carryout menu online

increase carryout with online ordering

Restaurant Industry insiders increasingly report the real sales growth is coming from offering a digital carryout menu. What does that mean? Well it is a fancy way of saying you need to offer guest a way to order online. Therefore offer online ordering that is easy for guest to use and you to manage. Don’t get lulled into thinking delivery is the only way to go. The delivery services in the news today are doing a lot of business but at very high cost. No one is saying you need to stop using the delivery services either, just adding online carryout as well.

Are you saying to yourself, yes that a great idea but how do I do it. That is a great question of course. Let’s face it many legacy POS systems like Micros and Aloha either don’t have the feature or it is very expensive to add. You probably don’t have the time to educate yourself on websites and eCommerce since you are running a restaurant. When you select the right modern technology its already baked in the cake! You shouldn’t have to be a tech expert since you are already the hospitality pro. That is where ensuring your technology offers an  omnichannel approach really pays off.

Here at National Business Systems as the Seattle Heartland POS Dealer we specialize in offering a complete Cloud Based POS system to accommodate all the channels you may require. So let’s break that down a little and put it into plain language. You may be wondering what omnichannel or channel even means, right. Here is the technical meaning of Omnichannel  “different methods of shopping available to consumers” (e.g., online, in a physical store, or by phone). So to put it simply different ways for customers to buy your products. The “Channel” we are all used to of course is in person. Today’s competitive market does not allow most of us to rely on “in person” only any longer. Make an appointment with us today so we can offer you a no obligation demonstration of an iPad POS system with features for all your channels.