online ordering app

[qfanatic01]

I am adding second lines to both my locations to expedite both walk in customers and call in (evolving to online) pick up ordering. Call ahead take out is a major part of our first locations sales and we have a Fast walk through line at our new place. We are adding walk through at our first location and a back line at our new place hopefully by April and I want to only take online orders through apps and email to eliminate the phone answering labor and liabilities through miscommunication. We would also then pick a delivery partner to expand that direction as well. We are looking for a software developer and possibly host to create and maintain this service. Any input appreciated. Thanks in advance.
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The lessons are in the customer's criticism. They aren't always right. The rewards are their satisfaction.

[RodinBangkok]

Well too bad your not in my part of the world, I could offer our development services. As we don't work with customers that far away, just too much hassle with the time differences, I can offer to you the online company we use in conjunction with our apps.

Its called gloriafood, and its free for most of their apps services. You can even setup a lot of it for your own operation without using an outside developer.

You can check them out here:

https://www.gloriafood.com

We've set up a few business using this company and it works well for them, especially since it costs nothing.

Be wary of any services that charge by the month, they are definitely not worth it, and there are so many out there.

If you need to ask some specific questions just let me know.

Rgds
Rod
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Rod

[Mr Tony's BBQ]

A KCBS competitor friend recently opened "A Fine Swine" in New Baden Il. David Stidham - was the head of marketing for a major Mid-West burger joint before going out on his own with BBQ...He gave me the $0.05 tour of his entire operation last week...He was quite happy with his online order system, maybe its an available app?? Real nice guy...Maybe he's share if you gave him a holler????
People ordered and paid online, order went directly to ticket printer on the cook line...No human interaction until it was time to pick it up. Seemed pretty seamless...
Being a busy food truck, I wont even consider such an option as I have seen first hand, it hurt my particular way of operating - but in a brick n mortar, I can see it working awesome!
Good luck Q !
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[Capt Jack]

I too use Gloriafood and recommend it. Customer response in my area has been good overall, but some customers still use it to see the menu and all its options, yet call us to give us their order. I don't understand that part of it. I am guessing it is fear factor of some sort. I am reluctant to entice them to use it with freebies since I am not one to discount my products to get you to do something, unless I see a real benefit, like GP on the bottom line. I am not busy enough yet to use the payment feature, but it's coming.
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Making folks happy by the food we serve! "Where Southern Meets Swiss"

[RodinBangkok]

CapJack, your experience is similar to my customers here and us here. We've found, and so do the large nationwide fast food companies, that an incentive to use on line is used to swing people over. In my case we use a percentage discount for online ordering.

People here are used to fast service talking to a human, the big companies also have one 4 digit phone number thats easy to remember and takes away all the hassle as its one call center nation wide, the order is then fed to the local store. So they have economized the phone ordering and made it very easy to use. Its more difficult for a small independent, so a discount is the best way to swing things. Just some additional info for qfanatic as he designs his system.

Forgot to mention, we give added loyalty points with online orders.
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Rod

[Capt Jack]

Interesting about the central call center. A nice compromise for the big guys. It spreads out the cost and other issues with answering the phones locally.

I will eventually give in to to some kind of ploy to entice usage of online ordering. We did it in my previous job, and had soft results. We are leaning towards "Bonus Reward Points" and/or Free Beverage. When I do launch a focus on freebies, it will be strong for a month, and then dial it back.

Rod, curious if you have Gloriafood integrated in a POS and are you using the payment add on?
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Making folks happy by the food we serve! "Where Southern Meets Swiss"

[RodinBangkok]

Yes, we integrate their online ordering into our Restaurant management system which is much more than a POS, however we do not use their payment system, due to our direct integration with local banking here, nothing against their system, we simply had all this setup and working before we started using Gloriafood.

There are standard protocols that can be used to integrate a POS with their system, its requires some heavy coding within the POS, but I believe there are system integrators out there that are integrating their system, the problem is most want monthly fee structures rather than providing a direct sale system.
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Rod

[qfanatic01]

Good start! Thanks guys
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The lessons are in the customer's criticism. They aren't always right. The rewards are their satisfaction.