When you want to start a delivery service for your restaurant, there is one thing you need to know first. It’s that including the delivery option in your menu involves more than just purchasing a vehicle and hiring additional employees to handle this side of your operation.
To ensure that this additional provision helps your restaurant boost its revenue and build your brand at the same time, you have to get everything right before rolling it out. And once you have established the efficiency of your delivery service, you need to sustain it.
Getting the right application delivery management software for restaurants can set the stage for the success of your additional dining provision. It will help you manage various operations and allow you to streamline several procedures so that you won’t regret starting a delivery service.
Additionally, a restaurant delivery management system will sustain your efficiency as you continue to provide this service.
Investing in the Right Food Delivery Management Software
To ensure you have the right tech partner as you start offering food delivery services, look for these key features in the program you will purchase:
1. Order Management
Keeping track of all orders is the cornerstone of an efficient food delivery service.
A program that allows your team to have access to a common interface that provides details for all incoming orders will save your business time and money. Your employees won’t need to shout out orders or jot them down on paper and rush to take them to the kitchen.
Since the software eliminates the need for writing down orders, your kitchen team will avoid making the costly mistake of preparing the wrong dishes. They will be able to follow special customer requests as well, such as substituting or removing certain ingredients.
Keep in mind that when customers receive food that they did not order, they won’t pay for it. When this happens often, you will experience more losses than gains with your delivery service.
Additionally, your software will allow you to track potential delays. You and your team can then come up with the necessary actions to avoid or minimize these issues and deliver the food to your customer on time.
2. Delivery Location Management
If your restaurant has several locations, there should be a system in place regarding which branch handles the delivery in which areas. Your delivery management software should be able to help you determine this.
When you fail to establish this early on, there will be confusion in the delivery routes. You will waste money on fuel consumption as well. A branch that is far from the customer’s address may end up handling the order when a nearer one could deliver faster and using less gas.
Moreover, the delivery location management feature of your software can help you create mileage boundaries as well. After all, you don’t want to spend too much on fuel to deliver food to addresses that are extremely far away.
Aside from the unnecessary expenditure, you will only end up disappointing your customers when they wait too long for their order and the food arrives cold.
A program with a delivery area management feature will help you avoid this issue, save you money, and build your brand reputation all at the same time.
3. Integration with the Existing System
In case you already have a POS system and website and everyone is already comfortable using it, investing in a restaurant delivery management program that syncs with the existing tech will be a cost-efficient and time-saving business move.
When your new software is compatible with your POS program, you and your team won’t have to undergo hours of training and learning the ins and outs of the system. Since they can be programmed to work together, everyone will only need to understand how to use the additional delivery service features.
Having reduced training hours means that your team can get back to their usual work faster and continue providing the same quality of service and food to both in-house diners and delivery customers.
4. Real-Time Driver Tracking
When you have access to a driver tracking function, you will know where your drivers are when they are out making a delivery. You can then assign the next order to the one that is nearest to your restaurant.
This feature will also help keep your drivers in check. Since they know you can track them, they will avoid dilly-dallying and complete the delivery as fast as possible.
The driver tracking feature will also allow you to predict the accurate estimated delivery time or ETD. You can then give this key information to your customers so that they will know when to expect their order.
5. Ease of Use
Lastly, no matter how handy and complete your software is, if you and your team are having difficulties using it, you won’t run an efficient and successful delivery service.
Whether it’s scheduling deliveries, adding new items to your menu, or tracking your drivers, your system should allow you to do them effortlessly. The interface should be easy to navigate and understand. You and your team should be able to use all the features after learning them as well.
Your software’s usability will also depend greatly on your access to tech and customer support. As such, make sure your provider ranks high in this service and can provide assistance when you need it.
When you’re ready to expand your operations by allowing your customers to enjoy your dishes wherever they are, ensure you are on the right track by investing in a top-notch restaurant delivery management system.
AUTHOR BIO:
Ahmad Alzaini is the co-founder and CEO of Foodics, a fast-growing foodtech startup. A businessman by nature, Alzaini is an app aficionado, developing businesses in Saudi Arabia within several industries. Today, Foodics has extended to new markets across the MENA region, processing over 1 billion transactions, and offering the latest technology in POS and restaurant management.