QSR webinar Q&A: How to succeed with digital ordering

We thought it would be useful to pull out some of the great questions that were asked during the webinar and feature them on their own. If any of these questions are going through your mind at the moment, hopefully these responses will prove useful. If you have other questions, our team would love to hear from you – get in touch here.

How do I move away from aggregators like Just Eat or find an alternative?

This is the question that we are asked most often, and the main thing that many of our QSR clients want us to help with. First, it’s useful to understand why you started working with them in the first place.

• Was it you that wanted more reach and exposure?
• Or was it driven by your customers because they wanted to have a click and collect or delivery option?
• Did they approach you?
• Did you approach them?

Then, it’s important to understand what your customers are now getting from the aggregators, and then from that, what can you do better.

As a start, we should recognise the benefits aggregators bring to customer:

• A market place – aggregators give access to many food options all in one place.
• It makes life easier for customers and saves them time, because they can place digital orders, for collection or delivery.
• Aggregators may offer some loyalty options

The rest is thinking about what you can do better than the aggregators. So, while you may not be able to offer the market place, you can provide them with a far better experience of your specific brand. You can keep your customers up to date with offers and menu changes far better and easier than a third party can. And you can offer them better pricing.

After that, it’s down to whether you want to do everything in-house, build your own digital ordering platform, or work with a company like Preoday.

Whichever way you decide to go, once you have your own channel in place, you can start to shift customers over to your own channels, establishing that direct relationship and stop paying commission on their every order.

By all means, use the aggregators to keep driving the traffic to your business, and then make sure you do what you can to convert that customer to a direct customer. It could be a simple as a flyer with the food that says something like, “10% off, if you order direct next time, and by the way did you know that we have a loyalty option?”

The good news is that the majority of consumers would rather deal directly with your brand. You just need to give them that option.

Do you integrate with delivery providers?

Yes we do. If you require more capability or functionality than our platform can offer, such as driver management or order tracking, we have six partners in the delivery logistics space. If you go to our partner page you can see a full list of all partners and integrations. Delivery is a hugely exciting opportunity for anyone in the QSR space. Everyone should be considering how and if it should be part of their future business.

What loyalty functionality does the Preoday platform have?

We have a number of loyalty partners and integrations for those that want additional capability. For Chilango (featured in the webinar), for example, we have an integration with Swipii, a loyalty provider.

Within the Preoday platform, we are developing a digital loyalty functionality that is called “Digital Stamp Card”. With this new functionality (currently being beta tested), you can choose the number of stamps needed for a reward. The stamps could be earned based on items added or revenue threshold. The rewards can be free items or money off a purchase.

The great thing is it works on and offline, so someone making an in-store purchase can still earn a stamp. That is key when it comes to making sure that customer journeys are not broken.

How can I use the data you provide?

There are many ways the data can be used, but here are some key ones you shouldn’t neglect:

• Improve marketing: Alongside order details, you are also able to capture emails, telephone numbers and names. This data becomes a massively powerful marketing tool and one that allows you to put the right content in front of the right customer. You can easily run targeted promotions and offers, as well as just keep your customers up to date with where your business is headed.
• Business strategy decisions: There is a load of data capture that can and will help you operationally. For example, if you are using us to run a delivery business, you can run a report to see people that are requesting delivery to a new location, ie an area you don’t cover. You could run that report once a quarter to see if you should make a business case for extending your delivery.
• Menu development: You can see at a glance, what’s working and what’s not and let that drive your menu design.
• Revenue oversight: Through the data you can obtain a granular view of revenue. You can easily see revenue by site, by customer, or by channel, ie web or mobile.

The data is really is what makes digital ordering so powerful. Especially in this day and age when data is so key in the value of any business.

Importantly all of the data is yours, nothing is anonymised. You can see and access it when you want, and you can, of course, export the data.

What are the key operational considerations when launching digital ordering?

The more you can think through potential operational challenges before launching digital ordering, the smoother things will run on launch. Areas to consider include:

• What technology do you currently have in place? The aim is for as complete a system as possible. Ideally no broken, operational or customer journeys.
• On-site operational adjustments. Here are some starter questions to consider: Should you create a separate area for click and collect collection? Do you need an area that keeps food warm or cool? What signage do you need to make sure existing customers aren’t confused by people coming straight in and to the front of a queue?
• Marketing and promotional activities. If you are working with Preoday, you will have a dedicated account manager, and our marketing team will be as involved as you want them to be. To get started and keep it simple and costs down we would recommend in-store signage on walls, tills, receipts messages, flyers in take-away bags, social media posts and an initial discount for your customers first digital order.

Don’t forget your Preoday Customer Success manager will be there every step of the way to help you get started and give you as much support as you need.

What hardware do I need to get started?

If you don’t have an EPoS or any technology in place, all you will need is a tablet and an internet connection. That will allow you to see and manage orders on site. The Preoday platform can stand alone, or if you have technology in place, we can integrate.

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If you would like to talk to one of the sales team about how your business could succeed with digital ordering, get in touch.

Watch the full webinar here.