Over the past few years, many restaurants have started offering delivery as a way to boost sales and to meet the demand for more convenient food options. However, there are still many restaurant operators who have held off and stayed firm to their dine-in culture. But once the pandemic hit, and social distancing has become a key part of preventing the spread of the novel coronavirus, it’s forced their hand. If your restaurant, bar, or cafe has had to start delivering, we’re here to help. Here are a few things you can do to set yourself up for success.
Reduce The Size of Your Menu
The first step toward staying competitive is to improve efficiency and reduce costs. You can do this by reducing the size of your menu. Maintaining a full menu during this challenging time will only increase your food cost at a time when you need to save. Charlie Jeffers of Ordermark suggested asking yourself: What are the items that are easy to produce and get out the door quickly?
“What they need to do is trim down their menu, look at the items that are easy to procure and produce, so they can make a menu and put it up online and make easy items they can get out that are going to travel well,” Jeffers told the Spoon.
As you work on reducing your menu offerings, try to keep in mind which items travel well. Pizza, for example, travels well. Items like steaks and seafood will be more of a challenge. That doesn’t mean you’re in trouble if you own a steak and seafood restaurant, it just means that you’ll want to put your focus on fewer items so you can deliver the best experience.
Include New Offerings Where It Makes Sense
Although we just discussed reducing the number of items on your menu, you may want to consider adding a few items that tailor specifically to people that are bound to their homes. Because home quarantine includes entire families, it makes sense to offer complete meal options and larger family-style servings for those who have several mouths to feed.
A lack of dine-in customers also means a lack of alcohol sales which can put a big dent in your profits. Consider offering beer and wine options for those who still want to enjoy a drink or two with their meal but don’t want to (or can’t) make a trip to the liquor store.
Offer Meal Kits
During a time when families are looking for ways to stay occupied in their homes, offering meal kits can be a win-win for both your restaurant and your customers. You can choose a few of your most popular dishes, making sure to include one or two that are “kid-friendly”. For each meal kit that is ordered, provide all of the ingredients needed to make that dish and a list of simple instructions to go along with it. Not only will your customers be getting a delicious meal, it will provide a fun activity that the whole family can share in. For more information on this, and other ideas like it, check out this article from QSR magazine.
Do It Faster and Better
For restaurants and many other businesses, delivery is a must right now. This means you are now competing with many others who may have more experience with delivery, but you can still come out on top by doing it better and faster. Our delivery software allows you to automatically turn orders into delivery jobs, dispatch to drivers, and optimize routes. Not only will it help you conquer delivery, but it can also help you improve customer service and actually grow your business with options like real-time delivery tracking and the ability to communicate with your customers throughout each step of the process.
The world is changing, especially for those in the restaurant business — but that doesn’t mean you can’t still come out on top. Contact a member of our team to learn how GetSwift can help.
During Covid-19, with food banks overwhelmed by high demand and seniors and those with underlying conditions told to stay home to protect themselves, there’s a huge need to deliver warm meals across the country. A pilot program in Florida called Meals of Love–of restaurants, government agencies and nonprofits–is stepping to the plate, literally.
Coordinated by the Florida Department of Elder Affairs, Department of Business and Professional Regulation, Florida Restaurant and Lodging Association (FRLA) and Feed The Need Florida, local restaurants will deliver up to 1,000 meals every day to those in need across four Central Florida counties: Orange, Seminole, Brevard and Osceola. GetSwift’s delivery technology is there to help them all organize, track, and route the meals.
Anyone over 60 and disabled adults between 18-59, can apply to get warm meals from a group of local restaurants right to their doors. Restaurants can apply to help, too, right here.
It’s no small effort to coordinate on the fly.
“This ambitious endeavor would not be possible without the technology GetSwift will provide to organize orders, schedule drivers, and provide logistics to ensure timely, accurate deliveries,” said Skip Kimpel, Chief Information Officer at 4R Restaurant Group, whose restaurants–4 Rivers Smokehouse–will be providing meals seven days a week.
As drivers come onboard, GetSwift’s delivery phone app gives them an easy way to see all their upcoming orders and saves them time with optimized routes. Restaurants can track all their orders, give ETAs and live-tracking to seniors waiting on their meals, and make sure the meals are on track to be delivered on time before any problems arise.
The initiative is also important for the restaurants industry, which has taken a big hit as most restaurants have had to close on-premise dining and figure out how to survive with only delivery and pick-up.
“The local restaurants are preparing meals and, by that way, there are dollars that are being infused into that restaurant industry, one that has been hit so hard,” Karla Radka of the Senior Resource Alliance, one of the nonprofits involved, told the local ABC station.
The initiatives don’t stop there. Radka is also calling seniors to see if they have enough medication and food for 30 days, according to the Orlando Sentinel.
All these groups, including us here at GetSwift, coming together–both the public and private sector–is the only way to start to meet the tremendous needs of Floridians and people across the country in the coming weeks and months.
“Now is the time to stand united as we meet one of the greatest challenges we face as a nation,” said GetSwift’s CEO Bane Hunter.
Hammel of 4 Rivers Smokehouse shared a similar sentiment. “Now, more than ever, we need to take care of each other,” he said.
If you’re a senior or disabled adult in Central Florida in need of nutritious meals, you can apply for Meals of Love here, and the Meals of Love team will be in touch via phone/email with more details. Restaurant operators can sign up to help right here.
It was on February 11 that the World Health Organization announced the official name for the disease responsible for the current worldwide pandemic and they called it Covid-19. A little over a month later, just about every business is feeling the effects of the Coronavirus outbreak as more and more places are being closed to prevent its spread. So, what are business owners to do if they are subject to mandatory shutdowns or are experiencing a decline in foot traffic because the majority of the population is staying home to weather the storm? In today’s post, we’d like to explore some ways that you can help your business despite the current state of affairs. Here are a few things that you can do to make it through this challenging time in history.
Offer Home Delivery If You Don’t Already
One of the fundamentals of business is to be where your customers are, and since so many people are currently staying home, it only makes sense that you find a way to come to them if they can’t (or won’t) come to you. Many restaurants already take advantage of home delivery services like GrubHub or UberEats— but what if you’re not in the restaurant business?
Over the past decade, we’ve seen a major change in e-commerce with Amazon leading the way. Over time, home delivery has expanded to other sectors such as grocery stores, meal delivery, and even liquor stores. Although this sector has been growing, not everyone has been able to make the leap — but now is the time. If your business doesn’t currently offer home delivery, there’s no better time to start than the present.
Offer Curbside Delivery If Possible
Most people have heard about restaurants offering curbside delivery, but why can’t other stores offer this service as well? Even if your shop is closed to walk-ins, you could still offer curbside pickup for orders that are called in or placed online. The point is that you’re still able to get your goods to the consumers who want them, while still taking good safety measures.
Do More With What You Have
Even businesses that already offer home delivery or curbside pickup are feeling the effects of a slower economy. Although you may be doing the best that you can, there’s always room for improvement. Now is the time to optimize your business and find creative ways to do more with less. Chances are, your deliveries will increase. How will you manage if you can’t hire more drivers or people to manage dispatching? The best way to handle a boost in your deliveries is to find a way to become more efficient. Complete each delivery in less time by organizing multiple orders and optimizing routes. You can also automate dispatching to keep up with demand, allowing members of your team to focus on other important tasks. Finding ways to get better and more efficient at what you do is something that will not only help you now, but it will make your business that much stronger in the future.
Increase Communication With Your Customers
As millions of consumers are spending the majority of their time in their homes or away from others, it’s more important than ever to make sure that you’re still communicating with them. People will be spending more time on social media to pass the time, get news updates, and stay connected with the outside world. This is your chance to stay connected and let people know that you still exist and can provide the goods or services they need.
Make Positive Changes
Keep in mind that you won’t be the only business reaching out to potential customers, so it will still be as important as ever to focus on providing the best experience possible. This means communicating order details, delivering faster than your competition, and following up to ensure you exceeded expectations.
In this difficult time, it’s easy to lose hope — especially when you see your sales plummet. However, you can take active steps that will make a difference for your business now, and in the future. At GetSwift, we can help you do more with less. Contact us today to speak with a member of our team about our delivery management software.
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