While the app revolution is a relatively new phenomenon in tech, its applications in the restaurant industry are even more recent. Over the last few years, restaurants have leveraged food apps to boost their businesses and make what they offer convenience for consumers to access.
The 2020 pandemic was a time that saw a special use case for robust restaurant app development. Several new trends in mobile app development for restaurants, hotels, and food businesses have appeared during this time. Here are a few prominent ones that could be must-haves for a custom restaurant app!
7 Rising Trends in Restaurant App Development
The best app developer will look to include some of these features in your restaurant mobile app, especially those which have proved to drive great engagement in the past few months. Some of these rising trends in restaurant app development include:
1. Loyalty Programs
Creating loyalty programs adds a lot to the value of your brand. You can keep your customers in the loop with special offers and promotions that nudge them to retain their loyalty to your brand. The concept of loyalty programs works particularly well with restaurant apps as customers are likely to order from the same restaurants repeatedly looking for purchase rewards and offers.
These food purchases are often in the gap of a few days often within the same week. Thus, attracting new customers with new promotions and special offers becomes easier to keep the customer engaged with your brand.
2. Delivery Channels Across Devices and Platforms
While this trend is not as popular yet, it is likely to be in the future with more consumers entering the ‘impulse buying’ sphere. People no longer want to order food just through their smartphones. The idea of a restaurant app is extended to a variety of devices for improving the general user experience and adding a different level of convenience for ordering food.
For instance, ordering food through the smartwatch interface of the app after a run or ordering through the interface of your car while driving can be quite handy. Ensuring that your app is compatible across multiple platforms and offering quick delivery channels can surely boost sales for your restaurant.
3. Easy Cashless Payment Processing
This is one that was felt in a big way during the pandemic! Contactless payment options are in general becoming very popular within the restaurant industry worldwide. During the pandemic, having no human contact and the lack of cash at hand were the main reasons why more restaurant apps began working on improving their cashless payment processing options.
Easy cashless payment processing is easily one trend on this list that is sure to stay. It is just faster, more convenient, and gets rid of any resistance consumers might have during their customer journey to place their order.
4. Robust Feedback and Redressal Options
With everything dealt with digitally, the aspect of easy redressal and feedback becomes really important. Especially in the case of food as a commodity, redressal needs to be immediate and is highly time-sensitive. Say, something goes wrong with a dinner order, the same has to be rectified in time for dinner for the customer.
Developing an automated feedback and redressal system with restaurant apps has been effective to some extent in making an immediate option available to customers in case of any issues with their orders. However, this also needs to be backed up with support staff that customers can directly speak to through the app interface if required.
5. Improved Menu Filtering Options
This trend in restaurant apps stems from the demand for specific food options. With consumers becoming increasingly selective about the kind of food they eat and the ingredients they want to consume, improved options for filtering the menu for their requirements are essential.
This could be due to dietary restrictions, preferred cooking techniques, or even simply preference. Being able to filter the restaurant’s menu quickly can give them access to dish options that they could have missed otherwise. Developing your app for improved menu filtering is, thus, a trend yielding great results in recent times.
6. Digital Kitchen Management for Staff
All trends in restaurant apps are not just for the ease and convenience of the consumers. Some of these features focus on improving the efficiency of the staff and making it easier for them to yield better profits for the business. Digital order boards or kitchen boards on the business’ end within a restaurant app have become popular to keep better track of orders and manage them in time.
This also helps reduce costs incurred due to errors and helps the staff stay on track of what to expect and use their resources accordingly. A digital kitchen board also allows the staff to keep track of special notes/instructions for each order and saves a lot of time in the whole process.
7. Integrated Inventory Management
Another prerequisite to running a good food business is maintaining your inventory well. Thus, integrating inventory management is a recent trend in restaurant app development. This primarily helps resolve the misinformation with the availability of certain items on the menu.
A smart inventory management system integrated with your restaurant app can also help you get a bird’s eye view of what is most in demand and what to restock. After a period of smooth operations, you can predict inventory requirements and update your inventory to sync with the demand.
Final Words
New trends in restaurant app development have, thus, transformed e-commerce app development even beyond the restaurant industry. Some of these features became useful during the pandemic times due to the lack of any other options.
While things have gone back to normal, many of these trends have offered convenient access to customers and are here to stay. When integrating any of these features into your restaurant app, it is important to consider the use case and customize the feature to fit your requirements. Which of these rising trends in restaurant app development do you find the most promising for your business?
