With the effects of the pandemic worsening on a daily basis, it is quite important that as restaurateurs, you know the best way to handle the adverse effects of the virus and how to sustain your eatery at the same time. In the restaurant perspective, there exists two main problems. Firstly, people have been greatly warned and discouraged to not interact with other people and to keep social gatherings to a bare minimum unless absolutely necessary. Secondly is the lockdowns and closures to contain the spread and transmission of the virus. Both these aspects make it almost impossible to normally function a restaurant mainly because of the absence in customers. A lack of customers can prove to be very detrimental to your restaurant for the following reasons. You are at a loss or shortage in income as well as you still have to pay your staff and face other operating expenditure as well. We at Applova have just the solution for this problem you are facing. To find the solution to offset the increased cost and lowered revenue caused by the virus, we believe that the root of the problem must be addressed. So again, what exactly is the problem? The problem is that customers do not like to go to places with large crowds, do not like to spend time in places with large crowds and have certain hours of the day with curfew imposed so they cannot step outside their homes.

So what can you do to solve these problems? We suggest the following techniques which can be used to both increase revenue as well as bring down costs during this period of crisis which let’s face it, is an essential thing to be able to do right now.

You can:

1. Consider a mobile order ahead app

2. Consider online ordering

3. Consider curb side ordering

To help you understand further, we will briefly describe how easily you can integrate each of the following with your restaurant operations.

1. Consider a mobile order ahead app

So what exactly is a mobile order ahead app? In the simplest of terms, a mobile order head app is a convenient and remote ordering method you can provide your customers to order their favorite dishes from wherever they are. Be it the comfort of their own home, office, car or even outside your restaurant itself, all your customer needs to do is to place an order via their mobile phone and opt to pay either on pickup or immediately online when placing their order. This helps you in three ways, firstly, it will be quite appealing to customers as they do not have to visit your restaurant, wait in line, come across many people and worry about getting sick. Additionally, you are naturally able to bring down restaurant operating expenses as well due to the lack of customers physically inside your restaurant. That is, costs like aircon, POS running costs and so on. Your customers will only have to walk inside your restaurant to pick up their order which is much more likely to interest them than having to stay in line and order. Lastly, this can also work as a dynamic marketing tool for your restaurant as you are now able to reach a larger customer base with this remote ordering option.

2. Consider online ordering

Another convenient and nifty tool you can provide your customers is the option to order their food online via your webpage. Again, similar to the mobile order ahead app, this provides your customers a convenient way to order their food remotely without having to physically walk in, stand in line and order their food. Similar to the order ahead app, this method will help you interest your customers with the convenience it provides them amidst this pandemic, it will also help you bring down restaurant operating expenses as well as works as a great marketing tool for your restaurant. To make things even more appealing to customers, you can provide special offers to customers when they order online. Couple this with its convenience, Couple this with its convenience, this could be a great tool for you to increase customer loyalty.

3. Consider curb side ordering

Curb side ordering is a novel concept but is gaining increasing popularity due to its convenient nature to its users. Curb side ordering is yet another very convenient method of ordering which you can provide your customers. How it works is, you simply give your customers the option of curb side pick up in your mobile order ahead app or in your online ordering process and all customers have to do is pay online and park outside your restaurant in a designated parking spot to which one of your staff members will hand deliver the food. This way, the customer has absolutely no interaction with anyone other than your staff member and they can simply drive off without any hassle at all. This also takes away the needs to function all equipment at your restaurant at 100% capacity as this does not require customers to physically step inside your restaurant, thereby bringing down operating expenditure.

We believe that during such adverse periods of time, it is essential that you as a restaurateur take the best measures to keep your restaurant running with the lowest costs.

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