The restaurant mobile app market is flourishing and because of it, so is the restaurant business. The restaurant startup business is very competitive and many, unfortunately, don’t get the recognition they deserve and close soon after they open. There are ways to prevent that from happening and in this article, we’ll discuss the types of apps your restaurant business needs to help your startup succeed in this difficult industry.
A suitable and well-developed restaurant app plays the role of an ace in the business industry and helps you win the battle. Now the question that arises here is what kind of app do you need for your restaurant business? And the answer to that is what this article will help you decide.
The two main ways to enter the restaurant market are: to make a standalone app for your restaurant and extend your services online and the other one is to build a platform-like app and partner up with discovery apps to provide table booking and restaurant discovery services.
It’s an online ordering system built for restaurants on the demand of restaurant owners. One should go for their own app if their target audience is huge and they’re far from the marketing stage now, the brand is well known because if not the app could be a failure. The standalone restraint apps are integrated with their updated menu and payment policies. These apps are completely customized to your restaurant brand including logo, color scheme, dish pictures, and more. Also providing the direct account to receive the payments. Developing a seldom app for the restaurant can come with several must-have features:
Another way for the restaurants is to partner up with other apps that allow the customers to discover them and provide a platform for online booking. These apps allow you to:
Above mentioned are the two ways you enter the restaurant market but that’s not where the choices end if you want your business to succeed there are more app options you can go with for managing your business for the inside. For instance,
Managing expenses correctly is one of the key components to a successful business, usually, a huge chunk of profit is lost due to ordering too much inventory. Keeping a good check and balance on what you’re buying and how much you buy is very important in the restaurant business and this can get arduous and time-consuming if done manually. And we all know, time is money and that’s exactly what we are trying to save and make here. You need an app that keeps tabs on your spending and helps you eliminate waste and keep costs down. This will help reduce the physical time-consuming efforts that were needed to check the inventory in the stock room and bring the entire stock room into your hands, just one click away.
With a business that is flourishing, losing track of time is something that can happen to the best of us but that doesn’t make up for the problems we might have to face because of it. A restaurant business can only run effectively if you’ve all the products and ingredients to follow the perfect recipe your customers love. To make this order processing easy, it’s best to have an app that connects you directly to the suppliers. Order inventory apps allow you direct access to your suppliers’ product catalogs, prices, and delivery charges.
Employees are the backbone of any business and having a well-managed, fixed yet flexible schedule never hurts anybody. Employees should be given the importance they deserve and their services should be given credit to. Employee scheduling apps allow you to create templates, schedule work shifts, send schedules to your employees, manage time off, and most importantly, you will never have to worry about over or under-scheduling your work staff.
How Much Does it Cost to Build a Restaurant App?Restaurant app development cost depends upon mobile app features typically small restaurant app development costs $1,000 to $10,000, medium restaurant app development with features such as online food delivery cost $2,000 to $20,000, and multinational big food chain app development costs around $10,000 to $100,000.
Once a restaurant owner has decided they want to develop an app for their business the first question that arises is how much will it cost? The answer is direct and straightforward, the cost totally depends on the features that are required, how many hours the development is going to take, and what the desired platform is.
Developing a restaurant app usually takes 8-36 weeks with complete functionalities and it costs you anywhere from $1,000 -$50,000.
The apps developed for restaurants can be of two types: simple and complex ones.
The development cost will include coding, design, and app testing or even marketing if required. The final cost is calculated as an hourly rate of the developer, designer, and tester on the number of work hours estimated by them.
For a simple application with few basic core features that include:
Etc.
All of this takes around 30-55 days and a small team that includes 2 developers, 1 designer, and 1 quality assurance engineer. So for the simple restaurant apps, the cost lies somewhere between $5000 and $10000.
But on the other side if we’re looking for a top-notch, high-quality, extremely innovative, and complex restaurant app the story is entirely different. Such complex apps have functionalities like:
An advanced dedicated app includes:
For developing a complex app with all these functionalities, a skilled restaurant app development company is required to make sure a final flawless application is developed. Apps like this require a total time of 10-40 weeks if the average rate per hour is $70-$250 the cost starts from min $25,000 based on the functionalities.
Must Have Features for Restaurant Mobile AppThe great impact of having mobile apps for restaurants is undeniable and obviously seen but only if implemented right. The two main purposes of a mobile application for the restaurant are to provide ease and convenience and if not developed right with the right features it can become frustrating, boring, and very useless instead of useful, practical, intuitive, and fun to use. Now that restaurant owners have recognized the need for a mobile app for their business, it’s our job to make sure they know what features their app should have.
This is the first feature that users are going to come across with so the importance of it being effortless is huge and could lead to success or failure right away. Sign-up or login should be convenient, not everyone now loves to fill the forms with information but they’d rather login using Facebook, email, etc. other than this, the application should be able to save the user profile for later use. Sign-up and login should be very secure but also simple and convenient processes.
The world runs on two platforms: Android and iOS, this is less of an implicit feature but a need that should be explicitly taken care of. Both of the platforms come with different functionalities and features, so for better coverage and to focus on more users the app should be available for both platforms. You cannot skip an entire group of users and expect an app to be a success.
The food menu available on the apps should be customer friendly, app-friendly (knowing the size of the screen is relatively very small), and updated. The categories and subcategories with Food menu pics, price, and modifiers like quantity or combos’ meal should be mentioned loud and clear. The menus available should be easily accessible, easy to navigate, and place an order. The menu should always be updated and other than that the unavailability of certain food items of the menu should also be mentioned.
Another must-have feature a restaurant app could have is to help customers make reservations. Since the whole purpose is to bring convenience and ease to the customer’s life, what’s better than to help them pre-book the time and date on which they’d like to have dinner or lunch at your restaurant? This saves time for a customer and if the services are exactly like what the customers demand, this could only lead to the success of the business.
It’s very important for a restaurant to have location-based operations, this just not saves the customers from the hassle but also the restaurant, modernized location-based techniques like geo-fencing or beacons allow restaurant apps to interact with customers even if they are outside their homes somewhere. One can promote food items, spread news of an offer, or share news with customers with this feature.
The world revolves around social media these days and so do the customers, they love to share, tweet, post, etc. about what is happening. An option for the customers to integrate the app with social media should always be available, to use it or not to use it should be their choice then.
The feature to allow customers to pay for the orders in-app also helps with the efficiency of the app. The payment method should be simple and smooth, just like sign-up and login, this also could lead directly to the success and failure of the app. Since the payment is being made in advance, it’s a huge responsibility for an app to make the entire process hassle-free and secure.
This feature is not just beneficial for the customers but also for the business. We all know customers love to get rewards and discounts and there are several reasons for this: value addition from the restaurant they’re dealing with, saving money, feeling special and benefiting from using the apps, etc. this ‘rewards and discount’ system helps in winning customer’s loyalty which lasts long-term. On the other hand, this system works in favor of the restaurant too, this also reduces or balances the restaurant’s overall customer acquisition cost.
Since the direct target of restaurant apps are food lovers, their feedback holds great significance, it’s essential to know about your offerings and how to improve them further to greet your customers. Direct feedback helps to get advice and constructive criticism which can help remove deficiencies and further provide more optimum food services to your customers.
This feature is not just beneficial for the customers but also for the business. We all know customers love to get rewards and discounts and there are several reasons for this: value addition from the restaurant they’re dealing with, saving money, feeling special and benefiting from the apps, etc. this ‘rewards and discount’ system helps in winning customer’s loyalty which lasts long-term. On the other hand, this system works in favor of the restaurant too, this also reduces or balances the restaurant’s overall customer acquisition cost.
This section is the window for the outsiders and a result card for the insiders. Rating and reviews can be either of the food items or the services being provided, both of them are important for a business to keep up with its services. For instance, a customer can write a review about a dish they tried so next time this review might help others to decide where ratings on the food items can work in a similar manner.
You always have to keep the importance of customers in view and know what the customers: like, dislike, favorite food item on the menu, what food item they’d want to add on the menu, etc. small interactions like these can be very helpful for the restaurant-customer relation and an app should always have a feature where the customers can directly interact with the restaurant and vice versa.