How to Use an Automated Ordering System for Restaurants to Grow Your Business

To succeed in the competitive restaurant industry, an automated ordering system for restaurants is imperative.

If you only serve clients in your location, you are losing out on many possible orders. While your location has only a limited number of seats, if you accept online orders, you open your business up to a bigger number of clients.

In this article, you will learn how to get the best online ordering system for restaurants and how to use it to make your business stand out from the competition.

Why you need an automated food ordering system

If you’re still pondering if you should expand your business online, check out these convincing benefits of an automated ordering system for restaurants:

• Leaves no room for error: taking orders by phone opens your restaurant to inevitable human errors. You risk disappointing your clients if you get the orders wrong and even get negative reviews. With an automated food ordering system, the order gets directly from the client to the kitchen, so you decrease the chances of mistakes;
• It is cost-efficient: if you work with third-party delivery services, you spend a lot of money and have no control over online ordering. There may also be hidden taxes that eat into your profit. An in-house online ordering system is the most cost-efficient solution that will streamline your online ordering process;
• Increases restaurant visibility: the best-automated ordering systems have integrated marketing engines that help you put your restaurant on the map;
• Improves sales: when you expand your business online, you get the chance to sell even more of your food and increase your profit.

Read more: 9 Compelling Benefits of Online Ordering Systems for Your Restaurant Website

How to get the best online ordering system for restaurants

Sometimes, the best option is actually the free one. The automated ordering system for restaurants from GloriaFood is easy to use, delivers amazing results with no errors, and comes with powerful marketing tools that help promote your business.

You could be confirming online orders by tonight in just a few simple steps! Here is what you must do:

• Create a free account and fill in your restaurant information;
• Create a beautiful menu that will help you sell more. Check this out.
• Publish our “See Menu & Order” button on your website and social media, then download the order-taking app for iOS or Android;

Watch this video to see how easy it is to install an online ordering system for restaurants:

How to use an automated ordering system for restaurants to increase revenue

This online ordering system can do much more than handle your online orders! It can help you add promotions to attract new customers, handle your email marketing, and allows you to monitor your growth.

Learn how to make the most of it:

1. Create a restaurant menu customers won't be able to say no to

We eat with our eyes first, so the way a menu looks can persuade a client to either leave the page or click add to cart on a few dishes.

We’ve created a structured menu design that guides the eye logically through all the categories, and we made sure the menu loads fast every time and on every type of device.

All you have to do is add your menu items following our friendly instructional videos and this advice:

• Pictures matter: Encourage people to order by using mouth-watering images of your dishes. If you don’t have any yet, you can choose some that fit your cuisine from our free gallery;
• Create long descriptions: you have an opportunity to catch the client's eye with the description and a short one just won't do it. Emphasize the unique way you prepare food, the origin of the ingredients, or any other interesting fact;
• Enable customization options: increase your profit by offering clients the opportunity to personalize their dishes at an added price. For example, if you sell pizza, you can offer different types of dough and the option to add toppings. Watch this video to learn how to easily enable choices and add-ons:

Read more: How to customize your restaurant’s menu

2. Save money on printing with a QR code menu

The cost for printing out a menu can vary greatly from 1 dollar if it is a single page, no color to $50 for fancy, hard-cover ones. The money will add up quickly even for the cheaper option when the menus inevitably get damaged and need replacing or when you need to update the menu items.

The better and cheaper option is to use a QR code restaurant menu that can be updated as many times as necessary, at no added cost to you. The only money you will spend is on the flyers you need to print the QR code on.

Get your own QR code menu with our automated ordering system for restaurants by accessing admin -> Setup -> Publishing -> Dine-in QR Code.

Check out this video to see how easy it is to get a QR-code menu that allows clients to order directly from their phones:

Read more: How to Set up Contactless Ordering at Your Restaurant via QR Code

3. Offer a table reservation system with the option to order ahead

This automated ordering system for restaurants helps you prevent many types of errors, including reservation ones. Forget about writing down the name wrong or double booking and enjoy the benefits of an included table reservation system.

Moreover, this system also allows clients to order and pay for their food while making a reservation. This allows them to enjoy their food as soon as they reach the restaurant and helps you increase table turnover.

See how easily a client can reserve a table and order by visiting our demo website. To activate the table reservation system, go to admin -> Setup -> Services & opening hours -> Table reservation.

4. Enable scheduled orders

When you set up your online ordering system, you choose the working hours when you will receive orders. If you don’t work non-stop, you will have a huge non-profitable window of time.

Don't worry, we're not encouraging you to forego rest. We just want you to make the most of our technology by enabling the “Scheduled orders” function, which:

• Will allow clients to place an order when you are closed;
• You will see the pending orders when you open the order-taking app;
• You can choose if you want to accept them.

This feature can be incredibly useful for people who want to order a large amount of food for a party and want the food delivered at a specific time. To enable scheduled orders, go to admin -> Setup -> Services & opening hours -> Scheduled orders.

5. Allow customers to pay online

Let’s imagine this situation: a customer is hungry and is craving some delicious dishes from your restaurant. The problem is they don’t have any cash. What can they do next to enjoy the food but not have to go out of their comfort zone?

Simple, you can allow them to pay online! By going to admin -> Setup -> Payments -> Online Payment, you can accept online payments with both credit cards and PayPal.

6. Offer customers a branded mobile app

Adding an online ordering system to your website is a great way to receive online food orders. People can scroll your website and see you are a trustworthy business, and afterward, they can easily click on the menu and add any items they desire to eat to their cart.

But you can go a step forward and make it even easier for them. Instead of several clicks to reach your online menu, they could simply open your native branded mobile app. It can also act as a great advertisement for your restaurant as they see your app daily when they play with their phone.

No need to contact developers. You can get an app branded with your logo, slogan, and picture that only displays your menu from our automated ordering system for restaurants.

Go to admin -> Setup -> Publishing -> Branded mobile app to request a better experience for your customers.

Read more: Online Restaurant Ordering App: Advantages and How to Get the Best One

7. Accept orders on Facebook

To increase your sales, you must make it easy for your customers to order. The less effort they have to put in and the fewer clicks they need to make, the higher the chances they will actually place an order.

Therefore, why not allow clients to order directly from Facebook? All you have to do is customize the "Start Order" button with a link we provide you in the online ordering system's admin. Customers will be automatically sent to your online restaurant menu by clicking it.

Get your personalized link by accessing admin -> Setup -> Publishing -> Facebook.

Read more: How to Take Orders and Increase Revenue Using Your Restaurant Facebook Page

8. Try efficient email marketing

The key to a restaurant's success is getting a high number of loyal customers who choose to order regularly from your place. Implementing an email marketing campaign is a good way to get more return clients.

This automated ordering system for restaurants takes the stress away from you. Discover the Autopilot module that comes with pre-built campaigns to encourage sales and segments customers according to their purchasing history.

You only have to set up the campaign once, and then it runs, as its name suggests, on autopilot. Learn more about how efficient this method is for increasing your profit from this video:

Read more: Ultra-effective Email Marketing Ideas for Restaurants

9. Implement segmented promotions

Promotions are an efficient way to get more new and return clients. Who can say no to a good deal? With this automated ordering system for restaurants, adding a new promotion is extremely easy as we already provide you with some tried and tested promotion templates.

Just choose the one you want (free delivery, get a free item, etc.), and you can change the text, picture, and minimum order value. You can also go a step further and customize it to get better results. Here are some of the options:

• Choose the type of customer it applies to – new or returning;
• Choose the hours between which the promotion is available;
• Choose the delivery zones where you want the promotion to show up;
• Choose if the promotion is enabled only for certain payment methods.

Check out this video to learn how to set up a promotion in just a few minutes:

Read more: 10 Restaurant Website Promotion Ideas for Delivery & Takeout

10. Constantly improve your business with the Reports module

This automated ordering system for restaurants provides access to a powerful Reports module that allows you to monitor your progress. By constantly checking your statistics, you can identify what works and doesn't and take action to improve your business.

Here is some of the data you will be able to access if you go to admin -> Reports:

• Number of orders;
• Number of reservations;
• Google ranking;
• Website visitors;

Conclusion

This automated ordering system for restaurants is not just a tool to help manage your online orders. It is a powerful marketing engine that can help you attract new clients and increase sales. Discover and enable all the modules described above to ensure your restaurant's success.