Why Your Restaurant Needs a Mobile App

March 25, 2024

Your customers use their mobile devices considerably more often than they use a desktop or laptop computer. In fact, over 75% of all time spent looking at restaurants and drink options online was on mobile in 2020. So, if you want to meet your customers where they are, you need to allow them to order on their mobile devices.

A mobile app for your restaurant is a powerful marketing tool that allows you to go beyond what you can do with a website.

  • Better Customer Experience
  • Powerful Marketing Tools
  • Push Notifications
  • Loyalty Programs

 

Your Customers Get a Better Experience

The user experience on a mobile app is specifically designed for your customers’ phones and tablets. A good user experience ensures that your customers can easily navigate your menu, set up payment, and view your contact information.

An app also allows them to save their information, without needing to log in each time to order. That includes their payment information, delivery address, order history, and loyalty program membership.

 

Mobile Apps are Powerful Marketing Tools

Think about it, once a customer has downloaded your restaurant’s app, your brand is always at their fingertips. Your app logo on your customer’s phones will remind them of your restaurant every time they glance at the screen. To put that in context, the average American looks at their phone 262 times a day.

And then there are push notifications. With push notifications, you can send alerts, or notifications, to your customer’s phone whenever you have a promotion or deal. Used properly, push notifications can increase your order frequency from these customers. You can also use them to notify customers when their order is ready for pick-up, or their delivery driver is on the way. You can learn more about push notifications in the article The Magic of Push Notifications for Restaurants.

 

You Can Build Customer Loyalty

When it comes to loyalty and rewards programs, punch cards just don’t cut it anymore. Your customers are slimming down their wallets of membership cards and adding that information to their phones. And a digital loyalty program allows them, and you, to monitor their balance and check what their next rewards tier is. This keeps your customers engaged, and coming back regularly.

With all that said, building a customized mobile app for your brand costs more than building a responsive website. A native mobile app is developed for specific platforms like iOS or Android. You need both versions if you want all of your customers to be able to access your app. But there are ways you can build your app more cost-effectively.

At Craver, we have built a mobile app platform specifically designed for restaurants. You can sign up with us on a monthly subscription and we will build a high-quality customized app for your restaurant at a fraction of the cost of building your app from scratch.

The Best Online Ordering Systems for Restaurants in 2024 guide download