Uncategorized – Bitebell

Your Menu Can Make or Break Your Online Presence: Here’s how to Manage Your Digital Menu like a Pro

Posted on October 25, 2022October 25, 2022 by admin

Menu management is a crucial element of long-term success in the restaurant game, whether you’re a small local place or if you’re a regional franchise. Now that you need to manage your restaurant both online and offline, it’s important to optimize and manage your menu consistently to capitalize on new opportunities, ensure customer satisfaction, and drive your business forward.

You can only achieve this if you have a well-designed menu and an efficient system to maximize conversions and minimize financial waste. Your restaurant has a presence on online marketplaces, you have your website and maybe even your app – and that’s without counting numerous other online channels like social media.

Managing and syncing your menu on all these while keeping your direct ordering and marketplace delivery organized can be difficult. That’s why we’ve prepared some essential tips on how you can overcome the biggest challenges of online menu management.

Let’s dive in.

The Problem with Manual Menu Management

Firstly, what are some of the major problems of manual menu management that are costing restaurants hundreds and sometimes thousands in monthly revenue? The overarching problem is, of course, a complete lack of efficiency and automation.

Manually managing your restaurant in the online world is a time-consuming process that inevitably leads to human error, delays, and poor customer satisfaction. As if it’s not bad enough that you must punch orders into your POS manually, you also need to keep an eye on every online platform where you have a menu, constantly update your pricing offers, and manually create special deals, discounts, and more.

Now imagine what will happen if you forget to update your menu on Glovo or Wolt and someone tries to order a dish you cannot make. This is a recipe for poor customer experience, and it can make you lose customers for good.

With that in mind, here are some key benefits of using a centralized menu management system.

Keep Your Product List Updated Everywhere

A menu management system like our very own Bitebell encompasses many wonderful features, one of which is the ability to retain complete control of your menu across the web. Whether you’re running a physical restaurant or managing a virtual food brand, you need to have a menu on every platform, including your website, online marketplaces, and sometimes even on social media.

Now, there are many reasons why you would want to update your menu. Perhaps you’re changing your prices, adding new dishes to the selection, or maybe you want to bundle products to create special offers to delight your customers.

When you start updating your menu, the last thing you want is to have to update every single menu and item on every platform. Instead, you want to do it with a few clicks and form a centralized hub. Type in your changes in your in-house system that’s connected to all the online platforms you use, and watch as your menus get updated everywhere automatically.

The best part is that you can do this on the go. You can easily connect Bitebell to your phone and manage your digital menus at any time, any place.

Quickly Create Special Offers

In the online restaurant game, timing is everything. You want to capture the attention of your audience and the customers on all online marketplaces by regularly creating special offers, deals, bundles, and discounts. Why? Because doing so will keep your restaurant relevant and it will get you into those special categories on every platform that people are always checking for good deals.

When you want to capitalize on new opportunities or meals that are currently in high demand, you can quickly update and enrich your menu with new offers and exciting deals so that people can easily order something refreshing and unique. This helps keep your restaurant interesting to new and existing customers on every competitive delivery platform.

Needless to say, a centralized menu management system like Bitebell allows you to do this quickly and seamlessly in just a few clicks.

Capitalize on OmniChannel Menu Management

We talked previously about how omnichannel is the foundation of restaurant success. That said, trying to manually manage an omnichannel business model is insurmountable in a world filled with online marketplaces, social media, and other platforms.

To build and retain a successful omnichannel structure, you need to centralize your menu management and use the system to keep all your channels synced. Automated menu management allows you to quickly become an omnichannel restaurant and maintain efficiency as these channels continue to bring more customers your way.

Seamlessly Manage a Comprehensive Menu and Optimize for Quick Commerce

We live in a world where customers want quick service and a seamless online experience. Restaurants are tasked with managing ever-expanding menus with an ever-increasing offering to satisfy the evolving needs of their patrons. And so, you face the challenge of managing tens if not hundreds of menu items without letting anything slip through the cracks.

This problem is even more pronounced in the retail sector, where the average product listings can reach thousands of items from a single seller. So, to manage so many products effectively, sellers need the right product management system.

On the other hand, seamless menu management is also critical for the success of quick commerce upon which the restaurant industry relies nowadays. Keeping an updated menu and ensuring short delivery times is also crucial when you’re marketing your own restaurant delivery online, but also when you want to keep customers at your side.

In case some of your products are currently unavailable, you want to give your customers a chance to place an order for the next 24 or 48 hours, ensuring a more positive experience than having to call them and tell them you can’t fulfill their order after all.

A centralized menu management system will allow you to do this quickly and maintain a positive brand image on every delivery platform.

Boost Your Revenue with Automated Menu Management

Using the right menu management tools can transform your business in this extremely competitive industry. By automating this process and making it easier to manage your online menu across all your customer touchpoints, you can eliminate financial waste and capitalize on every opportunity.

This can be very beneficial when looking to stay competitive on every food delivery app. When you’re updating your menu, you can do it from a centralized location, and the changes will take place on all your online platforms.

The possibilities here are numerous, and unifying your menu management will go a long way in staying at the top of the restaurant industry in 2022 and beyond.

You’re Not Ranking High Enough? Top Ways for Your Restaurant to Dominate on Online Marketplaces

Posted on February 23, 2022March 7, 2022 by admin

If you’ve been in the restaurant industry for any amount of time, you know that this sector is heavily dominated by online marketplaces, commonly known as food delivery platforms. From Wolt to Glovo and beyond, food delivery platforms are the places customers go to find their new favorite restaurants and get quality food and drinks delivered to their doorstep.

Naturally, if you want to maximize conversions and build a popular brand on these platforms, you need to rank as high as possible. Keep in mind that many people discover new restaurants on these marketplaces, so it’s not just about making a sale – ranking high will help you build up your business in the competitive restaurant industry.

Whether you’re new to these platforms or if you’ve been there for a while, you could always rank higher. Here are the five tips you need to maximize your ranking in 2022 on every food delivery platform.

Leverage Promotions, Discounts, and Marketplace-Specific Programs

Want to stay relevant on a competitive online marketplace? Then you have to run special offers, deals, and discounts, and you have to leverage the perks that the delivery platform provides. This is crucial for new restaurants because online marketplaces favor newcomers – so if you’re new, make sure to leverage all your channels and utilize this period to its full potential.

Let’s break it down some more.

Food delivery platforms typically have a special category where they list all the popular restaurants that are currently running some sort of deal or promotion. They will even send push notifications if you’re someone’s favorite restaurant, which is also a great way to market your restaurant delivery online and build brand awareness.

Fortunately, there are numerous types of promotions and offers you can run, including:

Money off a customer’s first order.
Holiday discounts.
Free delivery for orders over a certain price value.
Free dessert or drinks for certain price value orders.
Buy one, get one for free.

You can also hop on board whatever promotion or special offer the delivery platform is running. For example, Wolt is popular for its national-cuisine weeks, such as Mexican week, American week, etc.

Use that to your advantage and run special offers if your restaurant falls into a specific category in order to rank high. After all, deals and discounts are always in high demand.

Stay on Top of All Reviews and Act Quickly

Reviews and ratings can make or break a restaurant’s reputation on a delivery platform. The better your ratings and reviews, the higher will you rank because the platform will consider you a reliable and reputable restaurant.

It should go without saying that you need to focus on delivering top-notch service and quality if you are to get positive reviews, but you also need to act quickly when you get negative feedback. That’s why it’s so important to use a tool like Bitebell to monitor and manage your online reputation from a centralized hub, to quickly transform negative reviews into success stories.

Needless to say, this will not only help you rank high, but it will also help you manage a successful omnichannel strategy.

Certain platforms will allow a negative review to be changed into a positive one (or to be deleted), provided that the restaurant tends to the dissatisfied customer quickly. With Bitebell, you have the opportunity to right all the wrongs and thus rank higher on every online marketplace.

Speaking of users and their experience, understand that user ratings are the main ranking factor here, so what can you do to improve your ratings? You can get more five-star reviews and rank in the top-rated category by:

Getting the order right every time.
Meeting expectations in terms of quality, food presentation, temperature, portion sizes, and more.
Prepping and delivering the food quickly.
Eliminating the risk of error and automating the ordering process.
Asking for a favorable review with a heartfelt message printed on a handout and delivered with the food.

Do this consistently, and you will consistently get a thumbs up or a five-star rating on every food delivery platform.

Prep the Orders Quickly but Retain Quality

Delivery speed is one of the most important ranking factors on food delivery platforms. If the platform is handling the delivery through its couriers, then there’s not much you can do to make them deliver the food faster – but you can help by quickly preparing the meals for pickup.

Maintain operational efficiency by processing all incoming orders quickly. You can use Bitebell to your advantage here as well, as the tool will automatically punch in all incoming orders from all online marketplaces directly into your POS. This will eliminate the risk of error and will allow your team to work faster without sacrificing quality.

Another important feature to have at your fingertips is to be able to keep your menu updated in real-time across all the delivery platforms you’re using. You can do this with Bitebell as well, but the functionality goes beyond simply keeping an up-to-date product offering.

Real-time menu management from a centralized system allows you to quickly create bundle offers and seize opportunities to attract more hungry customers at the right time. For example, prior to or during an important sporting event, you can quickly create a bundle offer that’s perfect for a group of fans when they’re watching the game together at home.

Instead of searching for individual meals and drinks, bundle offers and small discounts will get people interested immediately and will keep your restaurant relevant on the platform. In the long run, all of this will keep your menu interesting for new and seasoned customers.

Get on the Featured List on Every Online Marketplace

One of the best ways to rank high and stay relevant is to consistently appear in the “top picks” section. Also known as the “featured” or “recommended for you” section, this is where the platform will automatically puts a restaurant based on a number of ranking factors.

These include:

Your conversion metrics.
Your user rating and reviews.
The distance between you and the customer.
Your operational efficiency and performance.
The customers’ preference data.

There’s not much you can do to affect some of these, but you will rank higher if you keep your menu updated, focus on speed and quality, and if you provide a good value for money.

Start Ranking Higher in 2022

Online marketplaces are becoming increasingly competitive. Retaining that top spot on delivery platforms will guarantee more customers, conversions while building a popular brand.

Take advantage of the special promotions on each platform, reply to all reviews quickly to get a five-star rating, and emphasize operational efficiency. Use the right POS and other software to stay in control and eliminate the risk of human error in order to improve customer experience and propel your brand to the top of every online marketplace in 2022.

Are You Using Marketplaces and Direct Ordering to Grow Your Restaurant? Here’s Why You Should

Posted on December 7, 2021 by admin

Customers nowadays are spoiled for choice when it comes to all the ways they can get food to their doors without ever having to make a phone call. This is good, because, for the millennial and Gen-Z generations, there’s nothing worse than having to use the phone for its intended purpose.

Third-party ordering services are growing in numbers every year, and they are here to stay and make the lives of your customers much easier. The sheer number of choices and user-friendly features that online marketplaces like Glovo, Wolt, and others provide to customers should be enough to prompt you to use these services to grow your restaurant or your virtual food brand.

But does that mean that you should forgo your internal efforts and ditch having a direct ordering system? Definitely not, and in fact, you should use both third-party platforms and an in-house solution to take your restaurant forward in a highly competitive industry.

Today, we are going to talk about how to do it right and outline some key advantages and challenges that each approach brings to the table.

Advantages and Challenges of Online Marketplaces

Pros:

There are many reasons why online marketplaces are so popular nowadays, and why more and more of these platforms are popping up at every corner. For the customer, the reasons for using a third-party delivery service are quite clear:

User-friendly designs and easy navigation.
High-quality images and descriptions.
High level of trust and data security.
Additional filters, browsing history, and repeat orders.
A decent level of personalization depends on the platform.
And more.

All of this creates a positive user experience, which is essential for the growth and long-term success of any restaurant. But why should you have a presence on these platforms as a part of your omnichannel strategy?

While user experience should be a key driver for you, keep in mind that a third-party delivery service comes with a few important perks:

You have instant access to an optimized marketplace infrastructure.
You can set up your online storefront, menu, and your entire brand quickly.
You get a robust third-party delivery system that’s ready to go as soon as you sign up.
Your customers are already using the most popular platforms and are waiting for you to join up.
Often, people will discover your restaurant on these platforms through recommendations, reviews, promotions, and more.

Challenges to Overcome:

Both a direct ordering system and an online marketplace come with their inherent advantages, but also some challenges you need to overcome in order to optimize performance. For the most part, though, it’s more about dealing with these challenges and learning to grow despite them, because it’s important that you use online marketplaces in today’s saturated restaurant industry.

The key challenges you need to keep in mind include:

Lack of user data. What happens on an online marketplace stays there, and restaurants have very limited insight into the user data that the platform collects.
Third-party delivery platforms tend to take a decent cut of the sales for themselves, meaning that you’re earning less per order than you would through a direct order.
The more marketplaces you use, the more complex your entire operation becomes.

While there’s not much you can do about the first two challenges, you can actually simplify your operation using Bitebell. This is our all-in-one system that allows you to automatically sync up orders from third-party platforms with your POS, manage your menu in one place, and gather invaluable insights about your restaurant’s performance on popular marketplaces.

With Bitebell, you can capitalize on automation and eliminate manual order typing, and thus saving time for you and your staff. This allows you to run a more efficient and effective operation no matter how many platforms you’re using.

Advantages and Challenges of Direct Ordering

Pros:

Having your own, direct ordering system will always be an important feature regardless of how many marketplaces are out there. Even though customers are increasingly using these platforms because of how convenient they are, they also want the ability to place an order directly with your restaurant via phone, direct messaging, or even your branded app.

While direct ordering and marketing your restaurant delivery online is very much about ensuring customer satisfaction, for you it also brings certain perks that you can’t get with online marketplaces, such as:

The possibility to earn a bit more per order. While it is important to have a presence on popular marketplaces, they do take a percentage of every sale, meaning that you may be able to earn more through direct ordering.
You gain better control over your pricing and promotions, allowing you greater flexibility to serve the needs of your target demographic.
You have the ability to collect all the customer data for yourself and use those insights to improve your marketing and many other processes.
Speaking of marketing, you have the option to allocate all your marketing resources towards growing your own brand and its online channels.

Consider a Hybrid Approach

An important point to emphasize here is that you can also use a hybrid model. A hybrid model means that you are listed on an online marketplace, but you don’t have to do in-house ordering at all. You could, for example, list your restaurant on a marketplace and then outsource deliveries to an external courier service.

Because you would be lowering your marketplace fees this way, you would be able to offset some of the delivery costs and even share some of the costs with your customers in certain cases.

Challenges to Overcome:

Much like online marketplaces, direct ordering comes with its own set of obstacles, but the good thing is that you have the ability to overcome them, because you are in the driver’s seat.

The key challenges here are:

You have to build your own ordering channel and online presence with the resources you have, whereas an online marketplace makes it easy with its internal resources.
A complete lack of infrastructure. It’s up to you to build your restaurant’s delivery infrastructure on your own and organize all the user data into a manageable system.
The biggest challenge, however, is customer acquisition. An online marketplace like Glovo or Wolt not only has a big enough customer base, but they are constantly bringing in new customers through advertising, referrals and reviews, word-of-mouth, and other tactics. This means that marketplaces will always bring more customers to your restaurant, but it also means that you need to invest in acquiring customers yourself through an in-house delivery system, in order to capitalize on both.

This is another great way to leverage Bitebell to build a sustainable infrastructure and a direct ordering system that thrives on automation, valuable customer data, and many other important features. Bitebell also allows you to manage your online reputation through its easy-to-use ticketing system and a centralized hub where you can monitor and respond to all customer reviews, regardless of where they’re posted.

However, the key advantage that Bitebell provides here is the ability for your restaurant to have its own online storefront for direct orders. When your direct orders come through, the tool automatically assigns them to the nearest available couriers, meaning that you don’t even need to have in-house couriers. This simplifies your delivery process and in the long run, minimizes your payroll expenses.

Make Sure to Capitalize on Both

In the competitive restaurant industry, you can only grow your brand and achieve long-term success if you take all that’s given to you. That means making good use of both the direct ordering system and the various marketplaces because they complete each other and allow you to build a stable and profitable business model.

The key is to quickly build a presence on all relevant channels and adopt an omnichannel approach to running your restaurant, so don’t hesitate to invest time and effort into these growth strategies.

Omnichannel as a Foundation of Restaurant Success: 5 Tips to Build Omnichannel Experiences

Posted on June 2, 2021December 9, 2021 by admin

Now that everyone and their dogs seem to be online, it’s no surprise that the success of your restaurant very much depends on your ability to build a thriving online presence. But what makes an amazing online presence in the restaurant industry? A beautiful and functional website? A social media presence? Food ordering across a variety of first-party and third-party channels? The answer is a firm yes to all, and more.

Building a thriving restaurant business in a digital world means capitalizing on all customer touchpoints and creating an omnichannel experience for your customers. Having a physical location or a virtual food brand is not enough to succeed in such a competitive market anymore, rather, you need to make sure that your brand is engaging your audience and customers across the online realm.

This elevates your visibility and allows you to rise above your competitors, it builds authority and trust, but most importantly, it caters to the needs of your customers. And as all know, the customer’s needs come first.

What they need is for you to provide them with a seamless omnichannel experience, so let’s take a look at how you can build one for your restaurant and thrive together.

Omnichannel vs multichannel experiences

First things first, let’s draw a clear line between omnichannel and multichannel and consider why one is ultimately better than the other. Almost every restaurant starts its online journey by:

Building a single channel, such as a website.
Embraces a multichannel approach by adding channels to its strategy.
Eventually gets stuck using only a couple of channels without ever building a true omnichannel presence.

If you want to break that status quo and transition to the next level online, you need to know the difference between omnichannel and multichannel. Here’s what that looks like:

	Multichannel	Omnichannel
Brand Focus	Focusing on targeting as many customers as possible across a maximum number of communication channels.	Focusing on delivering a stellar customer experience on every channel and every platform.
What the customer sees	Your brand has a presence on every channel, but the messaging can be inconsistent and confusing.	The brand messaging is consistent and strong on every channel.
Benefits	Multichannel is a fine approach for targeting as many people as possible.	Omnichannel is the best approach for customer retention and high conversion.
Challenges	Not maximizing the true potential of every channel to engage and convert.	You need to monitor the KPIs and collect the right data to optimize the customers’ experience.
The results	A highly fragmented and inconsistent customer experience.	An optimal and high-converting customer experience.

As you can see, a multichannel approach does have its perks, as it allows you to generate results quicker. However, you’d be sacrificing quality for quantity with multichannel, and ultimately you’d fail to achieve your goals.

That’s why focusing on building an omnichannel presence from the start is a great investment in the future of your brand. Omnichannel delivers the kind of results that will propel your restaurant forward, so now let’s focus on the crucial steps to set up an omnichannel structure.

Getting everyone in your restaurant to work together

To deliver a seamless omnichannel experience to your customers, it’s important to inspire and empower everyone in your restaurant to work together. In a typical corporate setting, different teams will work in silos, which means that the team is working on its own and pursuing its own goals without really collaborating with the other sectors.

Sure, different teams are looking to achieve certain goals, but it’s also important to work with everyone else in order to create a seamless customer experience across all channels. This is a typical problem that you can transform into a big advantage for your restaurant.

Imagine what you can achieve in the digital realm if only everyone in your restaurant worked together. Eliminating any type of isolated work will allow you to create a true omnichannel structure.

Keep in mind that your level of service needs to be the same whether you’re communicating with customers online or offline. It should be the same whether you have an in-house delivery system or if you’re partnered with third-party delivery platforms like Wolt, Donesi, and others.

If the communication in your restaurant is efficient and seamless, and if the level of services is high as well, then that will help build brand consistency, and boost customer trust and loyalty across all channels.

Focusing on the customer, not the channel

The point of omnichannel is not to maximize your revenue, even though that is probably your ultimate goal. Rather, the key focus is on the customer and their journey. By focusing only on how you can use the channel to maximize conversions, you’ll fail to deliver the experience the customer wants, and you’ll inevitably alienate people from your brand.

But if you focus on designing your omnichannel customer experience around the customer and their needs, you will have no problem building deeper and more meaningful relationships. Here’s what this journey looks like from their point of view, step by step:

Promise me something I need and want.
Accommodate my basic needs and satisfy my base expectations.
Engage me online and get to know me.
Make it easier to satisfy my needs over time.
Be in tune with my needs and guide me on my journey.
Be aware of my evolving needs, provide a solution preemptively.

Managing crucial data in a centralized system

To run an efficient and effective omnichannel structure, you need to have the right data at your disposal, automate certain processes to avoid human error, and run your operation from a centralized platform. After all, managing an omnichannel restaurant manually is next to impossible nowadays, both from a logistical and financial standpoint.

To make omnichannel management sustainable and stay on top of the right data at the right time, you can use a handy tool like Bitebell. This multifunctional platform allows you to automate order management and processing, sync up with all third-party couriers like Wolt, Glovo, and Donesi.com, and streamline your entire operation seamlessly.

Additionally, consider your own online delivery system as an integral part of your omnichannel strategy. Combine all of this with a thriving offline presence, including offline communication and marketing channels, and you have yourself a true omnichannel structure that covers all customer touchpoints.

To achieve all of this and make it sustainable, though, it’s crucial to have a centralized reporting platform, monitor reviews and feedback, and monitor market insights. Bitebell enables all of these features in a centralized location and gives you a unified ticketing system to easily manage your reputation online on every channel.

With such a comprehensive and efficient backend operation, you’ll have no problem delivering a consistent omnichannel experience every time.

Enabling flexibility to deliver true omnichannel experiences

Your omnichannel strategy needs to evolve with the industry shifts and the latest consumer trends. This is not a set-it-and-forget-it type of deal, rather, an omnichannel approach requires continuous management to deliver the desired results. Don’t worry, the rewards far outweigh the investment, you just have to remain dedicated and consistent.

With that in mind, it’s important to ensure that your omnichannel strategy is flexible. Digital channels come and go, some stick around, some fade with time, and new channels reach unprecedented heights in a matter of months. We’re looking at you, TikTok.

It’s a fast-paced digital world out there, that’s for sure. So, you need to be able to add and remove channels quickly in order to:

Capitalize on new opportunities.
Minimize financial waste.
Secure your brand’s position in the competitive market.
Maintain a high level of customer engagement.
Deliver an amazing experience on the right online channels.

Defining the goals and monitoring the KPIs

Every decision you make and every plan you set into motion needs to have a set of goals and a clear set of parameters you can monitor. Firstly, goal-setting allows you to give structure to your ideas, put things into perspective, and work your way back through the tactics and steps you should take.

Secondly, only by monitoring the right KPIs can you hope to stay flexible and on the right track. That’s why an omnichannel approach demands that you standardize your processes, determine clear goals, and list KPIs everyone can track with ease. Again, this is where cross-department collaboration can make all the difference.

Here’s a quick checklist:

Define goals for each channel in your strategy.
Define the customer’s journey.
Know what satisfaction means for your target demographic.
Define the KPIs for every channel.
Enable all teams to work together on a centralized platform.
Make sure that people are working towards the same goals and monitoring all KPIs.

Omnichannel is your ticket to success

Well, that’s a lot of ground we covered today. Congrats, if you’ve made it this far, it means that you’re eager to make your restaurant business successful in this competitive market.

Now that you know how omnichannel can help you thrive, the only thing left to do is to act on what you learned today and build your own omnichannel structure to provide unforgettable experiences across the digital realm.

7 Important Steps to Take to Set Up Your Virtual Food Brand

Posted on May 6, 2021December 9, 2021 by admin

As digital technologies continue to revolutionize the restaurant industry, it’s important to stay on top of the latest trends and recognize new opportunities in the market. The digital revolution has made it possible for entrepreneurs in various industries to set up their companies without overinvesting in space, staff, or equipment. The same is now happening in the restaurant business.

Virtual food brands are the latest trend that has been raging around the world in the last couple of years, and in the times of the COVID-19 pandemic, it has become a sensible financial solution for many entrepreneurs.

Simply put, a virtual food brand, such as LOHA and El Camion Loco brands, is a delivery-only food concept that exists exclusively in the digital realm. There is no other way for the customer to interact with the brand. A single restaurant can have numerous brands running out of their kitchen(s), facilitating financial savings and operational efficiency. Let’s take a closer look at this amazing new concept and what you need to do to set up your own virtual food brand for success in 2021.

Start with meticulous market research.

Every sound business decision is rooted in actionable and relevant data, or at least it should be. The modern restaurant and food delivery business are oversaturated, so if you want to make it big, you must define your unique angle, selling point, and value proposition. Otherwise, you’d end up with a generic food brand that might never even get off the ground.

So, your first order of business is to conduct meticulous market research. For example, the well-known LOHA virtual food brand in Belgrade rose to popularity because the market needed a) more healthy food options, b) food diversification, and c) new and exciting taste notes.

By researching the market and customer trends, you should aim to:

Discover the less competitive niches.
Find out what the customers want and need.
Recognize the fluctuating demands in the market.
Define your ideal customers.
Define your food concept and ideal menu.
Create a data-driven branding plan.

Find a reliable partner to prep the food

Virtual food brands operate from a single or multiple kitchens, and it’s imperative that you find the best partner for your needs and menu. You need a partner who can not only cook the food you’re offering but cook it in a way that delivers on your brand promise and the standards you set. To that end, you can partner up with cloud kitchens, catering companies, and even restaurant kitchens.

Of course, it’s not just about the quality of the kitchen and its staff, it’s also about the location. Because you’re only prepping delivery-only foods, you have to make sure that the kitchen is located in a convenient area. Keep in mind that many couriers only go as far as four to five kilometers from the kitchen, so the location and accessibility of the kitchen are paramount.

Create a distinct brand and visual identity

For a virtual food brand, brand-building is everything. Your brand can make or break your online business, which is why branding should be one of your top priorities. A strong brand and its visual identity will allow you to stand out in a competitive market, inspire customer loyalty, and drive repeat business.

To that end, make sure to:

Create a detailed brand wheel.
Define your audience to optimize communication and tone of voice.
Create a distinct visual identity that follows the aesthetic trends but has a unique angle.
Set you interviews with members of your target demographic to collect more valuable data.
Set up tasting groups with family and friends and some unbiased individuals to get some much-needed feedback before rolling out your new brand.

Adopt an omnichannel approach

In the modern online world, omnichannel has become the norm, especially in the restaurant business. To attract as many customers as you can and drive repeat business, you must provide a seamless ordering experience.

This means partnering up with all 3^rd party delivery platforms, developing your own direct-to-consumer delivery service, and allocating resources towards numerous marketing channels to grow your online presence. These marketing channels should include SM influencers, paid advertising, and traditional media like radio and city lights advertising.

Optimize the form and function of packaging

Your brand identity and visuals should encompass your entire digital presence, but you also need to weave these elements into your packaging. Remember, people want the whole, branded experience, not just the food.

With that in mind, it’s important that you create a branded food packaging design – but don’t forget about its functionality, either. You see, it’s not just about the form, it’s also about the function, and the most important functionality is conservation.

Your packaging needs to conserve the taste, smell, and temperature of the dish until it reaches the consumer if you want to ensure a stellar customer experience. Make sure to use durable, insulated containers to conserve heat, and use ice packs or insulated liners in the packaging to preserve the cold.

Monitor performance and relevant KPIs

For your virtual food brand to succeed, you have to collect, collate, and act on relevant data. Monitoring the right KPIs and staying on top of the latest customer and industry data is paramount for brand stability and growth, which is why we have created Bitebell Connect.

Bitebell Connect is a single comprehensive solution for your virtual brand management. It allows you to automate order processing and connect with all popular POS systems to create an efficient operation. Most importantly, for the growth of your brand, Bitebell Connect allows you to seamlessly track customer reviews on all platforms and monitor all other crucial data in a centralized location. You can even compare your performance with competitors and industry averages to get an accurate view of your brand in your market.

Plan for your next virtual brand

Needless to say, being an entrepreneur in this niche allows you to brainstorm new and exciting ideas. You are not limited to a single restaurant because you don’t have one – you have a virtual food brand, and you can have many more if your goal is to diversify and expand into other areas to grab a bigger slice of the market for yourself.

That said, this requires strategizing and careful consideration. Before you set out to launch another virtual food brand, make sure to:

Analyze your financial standing and investment capabilities.
Research the market for new opportunities.
Analyze your internal capabilities and resources for branding, marketing, and building a new operation.
Analyze the capacity and capabilities of your partners, especially the kitchen.

Keep in mind that launching a new brand means repeating the entire process above, so make sure to solidify the position of your first brand before launching any new virtual business ventures. Most importantly, make sure that your partners can support and keep up with your growth and expansion.

Over to you

Building a virtual food brand in the current market is one of the best ways to enter the restaurant and foodie industries with minimal risk and overheads. That said, this doesn’t mean that success is a guarantee, so make sure to follow these steps and use the right digital tools to streamline your operation and ensure continued success in 2021 and beyond.

Importance of Automation in the Restaurant Business: 5 Key Tips to Make it Work

Posted on March 26, 2021December 9, 2021 by admin

For years now, the restaurant industry has been championing the adoption of new technologies. Yet, the industry has seen drastic changes throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. Leveraging digital transformation to boost business success has become one of the key ways to stay ahead of the game and keep up with the latest consumer trends. Restaurant technology comes in numerous forms and serves a variety of goals.

At its core, it aims to automate as many processes as possible to elevate the customer’s experience, boost internal efficiency, and minimize the risk of error. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Investing in the right restaurant tech allows you to automate everything from order processing to inventory management and analytics, but also improve the in-house experience with automated ordering, payment, and more.

Making your employees’ lives easier is a major perk for every restaurant owner, as employee happiness boosts retention. Not only that, but the automation also allows you to elevate the customer experience and satisfaction.

Let’s take a closer look at how you can automate these and other processes to achieve higher efficiency, minimize financial waste, and improve your restaurant’s reputation.

Synching orders directly with your POS system

One of the biggest problems that restaurants face nowadays, especially in this volatile landscape driven by the pandemic, is managing orders seamlessly and without mistakes. In reality, manual order processing and management from third-party platforms is a big challenge, and errors are almost impossible to avoid.

When this happens, your restaurant’s reputation can take a big hit, because errors in order processing and delivery will almost always lead to negative feedback and customer turnover. To avoid this, you need to automate your order processing from third-party platforms and synch it with your POS system.

Our very own flagship product, Bitebell Connect, is a comprehensive system that allows you to seamlessly sync all orders with your POS system without any manual input. Instead of having to retype every order into your system, and use several devices in the process, Bitebell Connect will automatically forward all incoming orders to your POS from all local delivery platforms. By saving time and energy, you end up retaining customers.

This feature is invaluable to restaurant owners and managers during peak ordering hours. When the peak ordering time overlaps with the busiest in-house hours of the day, chaos can ensue without an automated and centralized system. Our software ensures this high level of efficiency and takes the stress off you and your staff during the busiest hours of the day.

Whether you’re working with Glovo, Donesi, Wolt, or anyone else, Bitebell Connect will make sure orders are punched in quickly and accurately every time. This saves you time and money, but it also ensures that your customers get prompt service.

Seamless front-of-house ordering

Technology is not only changing the online landscape, it’s also transforming the in-house experience for customers. While many restaurants have been forced to shift to online ordering and curbside delivery, there are still many restaurants that allow in-house dining during the day. Provided that they adhere to COVID-19 prevention measures on-site, of course.

To boost safety and improve the customers’ overall experience, server tablets and ordering kiosks have become increasingly popular. In fact, even back in 2017, way before the pandemic, more than 68% of surveyed customers agreed that the use of server tablets improved their in-house dining experience.

Nowadays, this tech serves another important purpose, aside from decreasing customer effort. Many restaurants are using these tools to automate in-house ordering to deliver faster and safer service to their guests while lowering operational and payroll expenses on their end.

Monitoring feedback to improve your reputation

In the online world, people will judge your restaurant by the number of five-star ratings it has, and by the testimonials left by your customers on your site, social media, and third-party platforms. You can have the best menu, the most alluring brand visuals, and the tastiest food in town, but there is no denying that one negative review can set you back significantly.

In fact, the most important factor for modern customers when choosing a restaurant is the review. People need to validate their decision to order from your restaurant and to do that, they will analyze the reviews on Google and third-party platforms.

Keep in mind that people won’t just leave feedback praising your food, they will also scrutinize your delivery process, your order processing times, and the overall online experience with your restaurant. You need to have all this information at your disposal if you are to elevate their experience.

Bitebell allows you to do this as well by automatically sorting and synching all feedback for every order to give you a comprehensive overview along with a unified ticketing system so that you can manage your reputation with ease. You can go through every rating and every review to spot weaknesses and opportunities in your processes and improve in a smart and calculated way.

Efficient reporting and analytics

Your decision-making process should be based on relevant and actionable data. Having the right information at the right time allows you to stay flexible and respond to any problem quickly, but it also allows you to strategize. Your goal should be to use the right data to identify customer pain points and invest in the right areas of your business.

After all, your current menu might be perfect, but your delivery system might be ruining the customer’s experience. This is why you need to analyze the performance of your restaurant in real-time, across all delivery platforms and locations.

Use the Bitebell platform to seamlessly analyze your performance from a centralized location, and compare your performance to your competitors and industry averages. This will ensure that you back up every strategic decision with relevant insights.

Automated inventory management

Last but not the least, it doesn’t matter if you’re managing a single location or a chain of restaurants – you can’t hope to manage your inventory manually without making a single mistake. It’s not just about ensuring product and stock availability, it’s also about enabling an omni-channel sales approach.

Selling your products on multiple channels requires that your process orders from multiple locations in the online and offline worlds. When orders start to come in from all these locations, it can be easy to miscalculate the availability of certain resources in your inventory, which inevitably leads to customer dissatisfaction.

Automating your inventory management is about the only way to avoid these pitfalls without breaking the bank, especially knowing that as much as 82% of people will check online availability before ordering or visiting one of your locations. You can use a cloud-based resource management system to automate inventory management and get notified when stocks are running low, what products are available for customers, and what’s in high demand so that you can put an order in for the right resources.

Wrapping up

It’s not a question of whether or not automation is possible, it’s a question of implementing automation in the most effective way for your restaurant. Using these tools and platforms will allow you to enhance the customers’ experience, safeguard their health, and make your internal processes more efficient than ever before.

5 Smart Tips to Market Your Restaurant Delivery Online

Posted on March 26, 2021January 26, 2022 by admin

The restaurant industry continues to evolve year after year, driven by technological advancement and consumer trends. Even without the pandemic on your hands, you know that the only way to stay afloat and thrive in a competitive environment is to adapt quickly. In 2020, meal delivery has skyrocketed around the world, as the pandemic has forced people to stay home and resort to online ordering.

Needless to say, this has created a highly competitive online market where restaurants are constantly struggling to acquire and retain customers. Having a delivery service, however, is not enough to inspire people to keep ordering from your restaurant – you have to market your delivery online and implement the right tech and tactics to reduce customer effort.

Today, we’re putting all of this into perspective and giving you five smart tips you can use right now to market your restaurant delivery online. Here’s what you can do to ensure stability, growth, and customer retention.

Build an omni-channel experience

Integration, connectivity, POS systems, cloud-based resource planning – these and many other technologies make omni-channel marketing, sales, and management a reality. Manually managing an omni-channel structure can seem like an impossible task nowadays, but nevertheless the modern customer demands that your restaurant has an omni-channel presence.

Simply put, you need to be present at every customer touchpoint to capitalize on all sales and marketing channels. This includes a restaurant, and a digital presence on third-party delivery services like Glovo, Donesi, or Wolt, as well as having a direct-to-consumer delivery system.

The problem still remains, though, as you need a centralized system that allows you to manage omni-channel efficiently and effectively. This is a problem that Bitebell solves for your restaurant.

Bitebell automatically forwards incoming orders directly to your POS system, eliminating the risk of error and boosting efficiency. Our innovative platform allows you to optimize delivery times by routing orders to your in-house delivery or your delivery partners.

In fact, Bitebell provides your restaurant with a robust infrastructure where you can easily and automatically team up with any partner and all delivery services. These include the popular ones like Glovo, but it extends to any partners in the market, allowing you to create an efficient long-term approach.

With Bitebell, you’re also able to seamlessly sync your menus across numerous delivery platforms to keep your offers up to date, and gain meaningful insights through built-in analytics features. Our unified ticketing system also allows you to centralize and manage all feedback from every platform so that you can manage your online reputation with ease.

Last, but not least, we should not all forget that people are cooking more at home, therefore we see a lot of new companies offering subscription models and ingredients in order to help people cook from home.

Keep your menu and offers fresh

Speaking of updating your menus, keep in mind that the modern customer loves consistency but craves innovation. In other words, it’s important to keep your menus and offers fresh, but to give your customers more of what they already know and love. And you need to do it by launching special deals and promotions regularly to spark interest, increase visibility, and motivate people to come back.

To that end, keep your most popular dishes on the menu, but add a dash of innovation to the mix. Use your analytics tools, feedback, and customer reviews to identify opportunities and weaknesses in your menu.

Perhaps you have a great main course list, but you could add more dessert options to reel in more customers. Maybe people love your staple dishes but are underwhelmed by your selection of drinks – adding products to your menus will incentivize them to place an order.

Focus on marketing consistency

To make better marketing decisions and make an impact on your customers, you have to be consistent across all channels. After all, how are you supposed to know which Instagram posts work best if there is no consistency in scheduling and posting? Merely tracking likes and comments won’t do, since one of your posts might be performing better because you posted it at a time when more of your followers were online.

This is why you need to ensure marketing consistency and continuity across the online realm. Here are a couple of key steps you should follow:

Create a consistent marketing budget for monthly posting and advertising.
Create a weekly posting schedule based on industry and consumer data and insights.
Identify the marketing channels that are most relevant for your restaurant.
Strive to be consistent with every post in order to see how it’s performing and the kind of impact it has on your audience.
Optimize your posts according to your target demographic and customer preferences.

One of your top goals with marketing consistency is to generate actionable insights so that you can make better decisions month after month. You can only make better marketing decisions if you’re consistent and if you know which posts have the highest reach, engagement, and impact.

Create and disseminate engaging content

How many times a year do you post new, original content online? One of the key mistakes restaurant owners make is that they typically organize one photoshoot and keep reusing old content throughout the year. This not only makes your content stale, but it also lowers your customers’ engagement online.

People want to see that your restaurant is keeping things fresh and innovative, they want to see new content posted frequently. To improve your influence online and keep users engaged, you should organize a photoshoot every three to four months, even if you don’t have any new products on offer.

This keeps your menu fresh and shows your users that your brand is always doing something interesting.

While you’re at it, be sure to capitalize on video content. Along with new images, you want to produce short 20-30-second videos and simple video sequences that showcase your dishes, how you prep the food, and how you package and deliver it to the customers.

Leverage influencers and user reviews

On a final note, keep in mind that people trust other users and influencers more than they trust your brand. To build social proof and earn the customers’ trust, you need to leverage user-generated content and brand advocates across the web.

To that end, make sure to:

Find influencers that share your brand values and love your food.
Tell your story about the product through three to four posts on their FB and IG Stories showcasing your food, their experience, and promoting your brand.
Provide a promo code or special deals for influencers to give to their followers.
Analyze all your user reviews and extract relevant insights.
Look for patterns that point to problems and opportunities.

Most importantly, use your reviews to give the customers what they want. Listen to the users and act on the data, and you will have no problem making an impact in this competitive market.

Wrapping up

Your restaurant has the potential to grow and expand in 2021, but only if you implement the right tools and know how to market your online delivery. You have the quality, you have the brand, now be sure to integrate these tips into your strategy to take your restaurant to new heights of success.