Restaurant owners and managers need to develop the flexibility of an Olympic gymnast to remain in business during this COVID-19 pandemic, so every edge becomes essential.
Whether your restaurant is focusing on takeaways, a hybrid takeaway and seated model, online ordering or exclusively dine-in, an electronic menu has many advantages beyond the obvious. That is not only in the time of COVID-19 but beyond this current crisis too.
How Do Redro Digital Menus Work?
Your digital menu is accessed on your customers’ personal device – desktop, smartphone or tablet. There is no requirement for an app, just a click of a link or a scan of a QR code from your phone camera, and your customers have access to a custom-branded menu.
How Do You Cut Costs With Your Digital Menu?
Printed menus have had their place for decades. However, they come with some headaches in terms of costs.
Print Costs - Zero
There is the actual cost of print which can be expensive considering you want your menu to be the best quality it can be. However, once you commit to print, you can’t change things quickly and easily, even though:
- Prices may change.
- Products may become unavailable (out of stock or out of season).
- Grammar and spelling mistakes may have crept in.
- You want to change things up for special occasions such as Ramadan or Christmas.
Use a digital menu, and you can make all the changes you want at any time with zero additional costs. Now there is something to celebrate! The ability to tweak your menu on the fly, as things change on the floor or in the kitchen. Talk about being the gymnast of restaurant management!
Printed restaurant menus also have a specific shelf life. After a while, pages get torn or spilt on, edges start to fray, and they generally lose their shine. That costly leather binding doesn’t have the same effect when it’s peeling. It’s not a good look for your brand! Digital menus, on the other hand, don’t age at all. In fact, they improve with age as technology develops. They always look good, backlit images “pop”, it’s always up-to-date and can be customised to reflect your brand beautifully.
Printed menus are not friendly to trees either. One of the ways to become more environmentally friendly is to convert to a digital menu—a win-win for everyone.
Photography Costs - Zero
Images used for a printed restaurant menu can date quickly and need to be high resolution for print. That often means professional photography, that comes with a professional expense. A digital menu does not require high resolution, professional photography, and you can make use of digital cropping, filtering and adjustment tools yourself, to bring the mouth-watering images of your dishes to life, quickly, easily, and regularly. You can shoot these images from your phone or even use user-generated images (run competitions to have your customers shoot their dishes to include in your menu).
Images are so important when it comes to food; your customers love to see what their dish looks like to remove any doubt about their choice. It also helps customers to access portion size and order within their needs, reducing food wastage by not ordering dishes that are too large or avoiding disappointment by ordering dishes that might not be enough.
Sanitisation Costs - Zero
Printed menus are difficult and time-consuming to sanitise effectively every time they have been used. Your waiters are busy enough as it is, who needs to add yet another thing to their long to-do list? By using a digital menu, this hurdle no longer exists—zero sanitisation costs, in terms of actual sanitiser, and staff time.
Excellent, a cost-cutting exercise can provide relief to any restaurant!
Safe Contactless Service
Find out how Redro can help you safely serve your customers onsite (no menu sanitisation ✨required) and provide business continuity opportunities during a lock-down 🔒.
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But wait, there’s more…
How Do You Increase Revenue With a Digital Menu?
Digital Menu Accessibility & Exposure
With printed menus, customers need to come to your restaurant to experience it in all its glory.
A digital menu such as that provided by Redro is accessible from anywhere.
- From the customer’s phone
- From a restaurant tablet
- From your website
- From your social media channels
- From search engines
- From your email signature
- From links on websites e.g. TripAdvisor, Zomato etc.
- Digital menus are accessible whether you're open for business as normal or during a lockdown (for home delivery and self-collection.)
Good business is a numbers game, and the more people that can access your offering, the higher your sales will be. A digital menu increases your exposure exponentially.
By using a digital menu, you can email or WhatsApp your regulars with specials, and remind customers that you are there for them. You can easily communicate the safety measures you have put in place during COVID-19 so that customers feel informed and reassured in your product and service and can trust you have their best interests at heart.
Make use of the power of social media by having a link to your digital menu on every social media account and post you create, a very effective way of getting your menu out there. What is more, your happy customers can spread the word through their own social media channels with the tap of a button.
Data & Analytics
Traditional restaurant menus are static and detached. They cannot capture data or feedback on any information.
Using a Redro digital menu means you can capture customer information and build your email list. You can get valuable feedback via polls and feedback forms to see how you are doing, and you get useful analytics on user activity so that you can see what is working and what is not. The popularity of each dish can be statistically analysed, so you know which dishes need more work in terms of description and images to increase sales of a particular item.
Selling Tools
Your digital menu means your best salesperson is available to everyone 24/7. It can make suggestions of side dishes that go well with a particular dish, or a family portion, or the best dessert to go with the main course. It can provide upsell and cross-sell options to increase the value of each order, even if you’re not physically there!
Information & Availability of Space
Patrons today want to be able to make better choices based on their dietary needs, health issues, environmental concerns and other information. There is no space for this depth of information for each dish on a printed menu,
With a digital menu such as Redro, each item can have its page with tabs to show as much information as you want.
- Nutritional information
- Health information
- Environmental and sustainability information
- FAQ’s
With food choices being so important, your customers will naturally instead choose a restaurant that gives them the information they need to make wise choices. Common questions that your waiters face can be answered directly from the menu, thereby freeing up their time to focus on service and relationship building or giving you the ability to operate with less staff.
A digital menu can give your customers all the information they need without having to ask a waiter. Customers can enjoy the dishes you provide and feel safe and secure that they have the information they need.
In uncertain times, the ability to adapt is the ability to survive. No matter what model your restaurant or food business currently runs, chances are you will have to change, right now, and possibly again and again in the coming months and years. Having a digital menu coupled with a marketing/communication strategy will move with you and your needs, swiftly and seamlessly.
No matter the circumstances, there is always an opportunity, if you are open to looking for it. Why not supercharge your restaurant with an accessible, adaptable and intelligent digital menu designed to improve service, cut costs and increase revenue?
Feel free to request a free demo to see the features and designs that can boost your restaurant game, during COVID-19 and beyond.
