What Your Customers Really Think of Online Ordering

According to a Cowen and Company Research Report, online ordering now accounts for 30% of the daily takeaway ordering and that number continues to grow as time goes on. The reason for this? Customers love it.

It’s convenient. Customers can order whenever they want and it ensures that their food order will be taken accurately. For businesses, online ordering allows your business the opportunity to do so much more. As you’ll see below, the following are some of the top reasons why both customers and business love online ordering.

Customers

Convenience

Now more than ever, everybody is constantly hooked up to their phone at all time throughout the day. Whether it’s for personal use or for business use, your phone is the perfect companion to use throughout your day. When it comes to ordering food, using your phone to do so makes the most sense.

A study by the Interactive Advertising Bureau reports that 69% of customers order their food through a mobile device. If you’re stuck in traffic, on a bus or at work, it’s much easier to order on a website rather than making a phone call.

24/7 Ordering

While the place you want to order from isn’t going to be open 24/7, you have the opportunity to place your order whenever you want. This means that you have the flexibility to place an order whenever it is convenient for you.

Want to order lunch for the office the night before? No problem. Online ordering provides you with the opportunity to order food whenever you want to.

Accuracy

There’s nothing more frustrating than ordering your food and finding out you got the wrong food when it was delivered. Despite how great technology is, ordering over the phone can result in easy misunderstandings due to noise on either end of the phone call or because of a poor connection.

When you order online, all of your orders are going to be written down and come directly from you, so you won’t have to worry about any misunderstandings.

Businesses

24/7 Ordering

This was also listed as an advantage for customers, but it’s also a huge advantage for businesses as well. This gives you the chance to make sales at all hours of the day, even when you’re closed. Without online ordering, you could potentially lose out on a sale if they want to place the order when you’re closed.

Additionally, when you open your restaurant in the morning, you’re already going to have a list of orders that can begin to be made for the day, so you can always stay on top of your business.

Saves Money

When you have an online ordering platform, you can direct your customers to your website to place all of their orders. When they order on the website, it doesn’t matter how much time they take, you simply receive the order once they’ve finished the order.

If you’re taking an order on the phone, you have to have an employee speaking to the customer as they place their order.

With online ordering, you won’t have to pay an employee to talk to customers who can’t make up their mind and take a long time to place their order. Not only do customers prefer to order their food online because it’s easier and more convenient, it will save you money in the long run due to not needing an employee there to answer the phone.

Easy To Maintain

Keeping up an online menu is going to prove to be so much easier than maintaining a regular menu, and it’s also going to be a lot cheaper as well. Not only will you not have to worry about the expense of printing out the menus, but you’ll also have the opportunity to change the menu as often as you need to, without needing to reprint the menu.

An online menu will provide you with the opportunity to switch up your menu whenever you want, add in daily specials each and every day and offer seasonal items on your menu that may not be around at all times. When customers go to order their food, they’re more likely to purchase more food if the menu design is easy to read and understand.

As you can tell, there are a lot of benefits for both customers and businesses when places offer online ordering. Speaking from experience, I can tell you that online ordering is one of the nicest and most convenient features that can be offered by a business.

In the world today with all the technology available, it’s no wonder why online ordering has become one of the most popular ways to order food.