Eat.chat

Social postings: the missing ingredient in your kitchen

clientor@gmail.com — Wed, 30 Jun 2021 15:47:21 +0000

You’ve been on social media before right?

Social media is now the number one place for people to find new businesses, services and products. It has been one of the most effective tools to date for small businesses, and it’s no different with your cloud kitchen.

Here are some ways you can use social media to promote your new business.

Use the right social channels

Looking at your social media goals, make sure you’re using the right channels according to your niche. For example, if you are a cloud kitchen, Instagram is one of the most effective ways to reach your target audience.

Instagram offers a lot of benefits to restaurant owners. It’s the perfect marketing tool for targeting new customers and spreading awareness in your area or region.

Use other social media channels like Facebook, Twitter or Snapchat but remember to tailor them to what each channel is best for – for instance, using Twitter more as a directory where only snippets of content are posted rather than full posts with lots of text or personal pictures on Facebook which typically come across better through visual posts rather than written ones.

What you should post

Here are some types of content that you can post effectively:

Post pictures of your food or the variety of dishes you have that show the drool-worthy quality of the dishes.
What’s on the menu each day if you have varying menus or weekly specials
Share your food, recipes and tips with a community that will appreciate them. They can help create authenticity that will attract new customers.
Host contests and giveaways to not only increase brand awareness but also to give away free food! Make sure to cross post these events across all of your social media accounts so people who follow one aren’t missing out on an opportunity.
Share posts from other cloud kitchens that you love (and think your customers might too!)

Post regularly!

If you want to attract people to your cloud kitchen social media channels then make sure that you post on a regular basis.

It is recommended by the experts in this field that you should post about 4-5 times per week. The idea is to keep your followers coming back for more so they are not forgetting about you. If you have a lot to share, then break it up into smaller chunks. Posting multiple images at once will get your content seen effectively too so social media isn’t just text heavy stuff all the time!

Use professional photos and videos

If they look delicious, chances are they’ll be delicious! If posts are truly going to generate business for your cloud kitchen, then they need to be on point – from great photos of food or dishes through to quality video clips showing customers how delicious your menu is.

Make sure you have the right equipment to take professional photos or videos for your cloud kitchen.

Link out to other cloud kitchens that inspire you and make people hungry with beautiful images of food – such as cloud kitchens that are run by fellow friends of yours.

Conclusion

Social media is an extremely valuable marketing tool for small businesses. It offers an opportunity to grow your social following and attract new customers, as long as you use the right channels in the appropriate way. What are some ways that you have used social media?

If all of this sounds overwhelming, we would be happy to help with any challenges! Let us know how our team can assist with a digital marketing plan from content creation or anything else related to building customer relationships online.

The post Social postings: the missing ingredient in your kitchen appeared first on Eat.chat.

The secrets of getting more direct orders for your restaurant

clientor@gmail.com — Fri, 25 Jun 2021 20:31:39 +0000

The secret to getting more direct orders is creating a direct relationship with your customers. Connecting directly with customers means that they don’t have to go through a third party when placing an order, and this way you can provide them with better customer service. The good news is most customers want to have a direct relationship with your kitchen instead of having to place orders through a third party.

Why don’t people want to use third parties when placing orders?

Customers want to have a direct relationship with your kitchen

They often want to be able to call and order, receive updates on what’s going on in their favorite dish of yours, or just chat about their family dining habits. Customers also want to feel like their input and opinions matter, which is why they will be loyal if the restaurant meets these expectations.

Third parties are too expensive for some customers, and they may not be as clear about the ordering process

For example, a customer might have to pay $5-$10 just on delivery costs and service fees if they order from third-party platforms such as Doordash, Ubereats, etc.

Third party delivery orders could take a long time to arrive, and customers would need the food faster

Though the service is ideal for customers who don’t want to leave their home, third party deliveries could be a hassle. It might take up to an hour or more before they arrive at your door. Third-party delivery services work well if you’re not in a rush – but they can also cause major delays with food arriving later than expected.

Customers always want their food faster in order to enjoy their meal while it’s still hot.

Third party websites do not provide personalized customer service

Ever ordered from a restaurant and the food was so good, but you were disappointed because they didn’t know who you are? You could’ve just ordered through a third-party delivery service!

Third party platforms are a risk to restaurants because they provide impersonal, automated customer service and do not have any personal investment in your restaurant brand.

Make it easier to do business with you

The bad news is that customers are not always willing to take the time and effort. You need to make it as easy as possible for them by clearly explaining how you work with customers, what a customer order process looks like, and why this will be better than ordering from an outside party.

Examine your current customer order process
Make it easier for customers to find contact information. Put up a sign or print out your business card and include them in orders
Allow direct ordering on website, by phone, by text
Personalize customer experiences through customized promotions and services

Give customers incentives

Offer them an incentive for placing orders directly through your website (e.g., promo codes, free samples, loyalty points)
Helpful customer service: answer questions about the ordering process, give recipes ideas

Summary

Customers will love to order directly from you instead of going through third parties. It’s a win-win situation for you and your customers. You get more business, less customer service complaints, and happy clients.

Get your customers back from third party sites that charge more than you do.

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Virtual Brands are a modern and effective way to market your restaurant online

clientor@gmail.com — Sat, 19 Jun 2021 21:03:31 +0000

Have you ever thought about adding a virtual brand to your restaurant? A lot of restaurants are trying this new marketing strategy and finding success. If you want to grow your restaurant, it’s time to take the leap into the modern era. To learn more about this new marketing strategy, read on.

What is a virtual brand?

A virtual brand is a marketing strategy that advertises your restaurant without the use of physical signage or other traditional advertising methods.

Essentially you create a new name and menu that could be exactly the same, or a part of your existing menu.

What do I do with it?

Promote your new name and menu online and on the third-party delivery platforms.

The more exposure you get, the better off you’ll be in building new customer loyalty and creating an effective marketing strategy. With so many delivery platforms available to customers nowadays (Grubhub, Postmates, DoorDash) it’s important that they have all of the information they need about your restaurant before ordering. If there are changes being made to things like menus or hours of operation make sure those details are updated on these websites as well!

Give your restaurant an edge

So what are you waiting for? Give your business an edge by adding at least one virtual brand today! Our team can help make everything happen seamlessly so that it integrates perfectly into your existing website.

Contact us now if you want beautiful graphics and professional navigation menus that work well on all devices: desktops, laptops, tablets and smart phones.

Download free guide

Turbo-charge your new cloud kitchen with direct orders

The post Virtual Brands are a modern and effective way to market your restaurant online appeared first on Eat.chat.

Stay connected with customers from behind your cloud kitchen

clientor@gmail.com — Mon, 17 May 2021 04:42:01 +0000

There is no substitute for connecting directly with customers if you want more direct orders.

The good news is most customers want to have a direct relationship with your kitchen instead of having to place orders through a third party.

There are 6 ways to stay connected with customers and create a unique experience for them:

Easy online ordering

Give customers an easy, friendly way to order or re-order from any devices. Your site should be extremely mobile friendly and fast.

Don’t ask them to download an app prior to ordering. Make sure your site is compatible with all mobile browsers. Accept online payments from reputable credit card processing services such as Square.

Order status updates

Give customers a heads up if the line is long. Use a virtual line indicator and let customers know their place in line prior to ordering. During the wait, they can see their place moving up, allowing them to estimate how long it would be before they get ready to come to you.

Send them text (or email) notifications for order receipts, when their order starts being prepared, and when it’s ready to be picked up.

Easy pickups

Drive up is the new delivery. Customers are opting to pick up their food more and more. This trend is prompted by the longer wait and the increased costs of food deliveries.

Give customers an easy pick-up experience and they will come back to you again and again. Offer curbside ordering and curbside pickup without leaving their car.

Phone and text support

Customers love to call even with all the latest online ordering technologies. They want human interactions. They need information that is not on the menu.

Most kitchen staff are busy to answer the phones promptly and consistently. Use a phone and texting response system that’s tied to your ordering system to offer the best of both worlds: ordering food efficiently while getting the personal touch.

Following up

Customers love to share how good your food is, or how it can be improved.

Offer an automated survey after each order is completed. Hear from them first before they tell everyone else if there’s a problem with an order. You can also ask them to post a positive review on Yelp or Google, which will certainly help attract new customers.

If possible, use a Loyalty system to reward repeat customers with points, which can be redeemed for future purchases.

Social

Be as active as possible on Instagram and Facebook. This is the go-to place for many users when they look for the next meal idea.

Many restaurant owners are too busy, or don’t know how to post on these popular social platforms. Use a service with restaurant experience to post for you if necessary.

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Marketing your new online brands

clientor@gmail.com — Mon, 17 May 2021 03:13:06 +0000

Creating a new concept or virtual restaurant or online brand, regardless of what you call it, goes beyond just posting the menu on the giant platforms.

That is if you want to boost the direct orders to boost profits and ensure the long-term growth of your new cloud kitchen.

Create a separate online presence for each concept

At a minimum, a virtual restaurant starts with its own website and menu that customers can order from. For online directory, you will also need to add a separate listing on Google and Yelp. For social, add a listing on Instagram and Facebook with some food photos to start.

Get a separate phone number

Customers still love to call and that’s a fact. They want to feel connected to the place they get foods from. You don’t need to get multiple land lines in your already crowded cloud kitchen. Use the right phone service and obtain multiple numbers that are routed to the main number. List each phone number on each website and the online directories above.

Prepare flyers and to-go menus

Each flyer and to-go menu will have the ordering website and phone number for each concept. Put them in the delivery bags that go to customers who order through the third-party platforms.

Use custom labels on each packaged dish

A custom label would have the following:

Customer name
What they order, with customizations
Name of the business (concept)
Direct ordering website
Phone number

Follow-up emails

Your ordering services should provide automated emails for each order such as:

Order receipt
Status notifications
Survey
Promotions

With the right technologies and tools, all of the above tasks can be achieved with little manual work from your staff.

The post Marketing your new online brands appeared first on Eat.chat.

Optimizing third-party orders

clientor@gmail.com — Sat, 15 May 2021 22:31:21 +0000

All restaurants, especially cloud kitchens, can benefit from third-party and marketplace orders. These orders come from the giant online restaurants such as Doordask, Grubhub, Ubereats.

They charge huge commission fees and advertising costs to place your restaurant on top of customer searches. This investment can be worthwhile if you know how to optimize the arrangements.

Sign up with the big 4

Contrary to traditional wisdom, the first order of the day is to sign up with the big 4: Doordash, Grubhub, Postmates and Ubereats. Don’t be too concerned with the high commissions. Consider them the costs of marketing and customer acquisition (more on this later).

Create more concepts

In cloud kitchen language, a concept equals a name and a menu. Creating more concepts means doing business under different names and menus. Your existing menu can be split into smaller menus by category or food types, for example.

In the online food service business, everything is different from the brick-and-mortar restaurant common knowledge. Online customers have no interest in your dine-in setup, printed menu layouts, or even your hospitality (you can change this later).

The more concepts you have, the more your foods will be exposed to customers when they search for their favorite dishes on the third-party platforms.

Consolidate all concepts in the kitchen to maximize efficiency

Obviously in a cloud kitchen space is a premium. You can’t have multiple tablets or printers going for the multiple concepts. Some cloud kitchens have over 20 concepts. It is crucial to have all orders come into one tablet or kitchen display system (KDS) and manage everything from it.

Once you have created multiple concepts, or online brands, the next step is to build each brand in the customer’s mind and give them a reason to order directly from you.

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Why direct orders are important

clientor@gmail.com — Fri, 14 May 2021 20:46:00 +0000

Direct orders come straight from customers. The rest come through a third-party platform or delivery companies. Let’s examine why direct orders are critical to the survival and growth of a new cloud kitchen.

The cloud kitchen dilemma

Cloud kitchens are online-based restaurants and 100% dependent on technology. Consequently, they can save on operating expenses while focusing on kitchen efficiencies and making great foods.

The big problems, however, are as follows:

The growing dependence on the third-party platforms
Reduced margins
Having zero control of customer relationships and data

Let’s elaborate a bit on each point.

Growing dependence on third-party platforms

Doordash, Grubhub, etc. are not just delivery services as they want you to believe. They have become the giant online restaurants that spend hundreds of millions dollars to take your customers away. Once customers land on their sites, they control which customers to send to which restaurants. Their fee structure and advanced technologies are designed to maximize their profits, not yours.

If you are simply waiting for orders from these giants, you are giving your business – and customers – away each day. At the same time, you continue to pay for rent, staff, utilities, and all the other operating expenses.

Reduced margins

Despite the initial resistance from participating restaurants, the 30% commission cut off the top has become widely accepted. That is because every restaurant has overhead expenses that need to be paid for with or without any orders.

As a result, most restaurants impose higher prices on the delivery menu. It’s hard to know if this business model is sustainable. Everyone loses: restaurants, customers, drivers, and even the platforms who continue to lose money as they push for market share and expansions.

Zero control of customer relationships and data

The single greatest asset of traditional restaurants is customers and their relationships. Customers choose where to go based on familiarity with foods, services, staff and locations.

All of that disappear with cloud kitchens who perhaps unknowingly depend on third party platforms and orders.

The solution: Direct Orders

In order to guarantee survival and growth, cloud kitchens need to focus on building their own customer base. In addition, they need to work on shifting more orders to direct orders.

Almost all cloud kitchens start out with 100% of their orders coming from third parties. A typical 30% commission cut off the top doesn’t leave much profits for cloud kitchens, who do not have a dine-in business to make up for the loss margins. By reducing third-party orders from 100% to 90% of total sales for example, you can put thousands of dollars back in your pocket at the end of each month.

Over the course of 3 to 6 months, cloud kitchens can aim to reduce the 100% third-party dependence to half. They will not only enjoy significantly higher profits but also much happier customers.

The key to boosting direct orders

You will need to be able to:

Optimize third-party orders
Market to customers who order through third-parties
Boost customer experience who order directly
Reward direct customers

It really doesn’t have to require a lot of time. With the right tools and technologies, all the steps can be automated with little manual work.

The post Why direct orders are important appeared first on Eat.chat.

Drive-up is the New Delivery

clientor@gmail.com — Sun, 09 Aug 2020 20:21:24 +0000

Food delivery services while popular are showing serious shortcomings for both customers and restaurants.

Customers want the convenience of ordering their next meals, and personally getting them instead of through a third party. The pandemic has accelerated the new habits of not entering public places.

Who says?

Chipotle projects 40% of their orders will be digital after the pandemic, while Starbucks is experiencing 90% are mobile orders and drive-through. Both are investing heavily in the new on-the-go experience for customers.

Welcome to the new Drive-up experience

Customers are willing to make a quick stop to pick up their next meal to avoid delays, additional costs and risks of the foods being handled by a third person – provided they get an outstanding experience from beginning to end.

An increase in drive-thru usage may not come as a surprise. When the pandemic began proliferating across the country in March and April, the drive-thru was one of the few options available to access restaurant food.

Still, this added volume at the drive-thru can add to wait times, and the Bluedot report shows that a majority (81%) of consumers believe that waiting more than 10 minutes at the drive-thru is too long. Some chains have tried to alleviate this pressure by adding curbside pickup service, or drive-up.

Fortunately restaurants can quickly and inexpensively step up to provide an exciting new drive-up service that can potentially help them survive and even grow in the new normal.

They will first need to prioritize the preparation of drive-up orders in the kitchen, and use the proper technology to deliver an Amazon-like experience to customers.

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Pros and cons of third-party delivery companies

clientor@gmail.com — Tue, 28 Jul 2020 19:36:28 +0000

As you reevaluate your use of third-party marketplaces, consider these pros and cons:

Pros

OUTSOURCED OPERATIONAL RESOURCES: Free up time and resources by outsourcing logistics, fulfillment, shipping and delivery to businesses with deep expertise and extensive assets.
GREATER POTENTIAL REACH: Find new customers you may not be able to reach on your own, be discovered more easily and build your brand recognition.
OPTIMIZED SEARCH & CONVERSIONS: Large marketplaces often dominate the world of search, products are easy to find, and the purchase process is simple and easy, leading to more sales.

Cons

INDIRECT CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIPS: Putting a middleman between you and your customers means less communication and data to inform your menu development and other business decisions.
LOWER QUALITY MANAGEMENT: When you lose control of pricing, fulfillment and quality control, you run the risk of a lower overall experience.
LACK OF BUSINESS CONTROLS: The rules and policies of marketplaces can change without warning, leading to logistical issues such as delayed deliveries.
LOWER SALES MARGINS: Profit margins tend to shrink due to additional fees and fulfillment costs.
MARKETPLACE COMPETITION: Some marketplaces use your sales and customer data to their own benefit by creating white-labeled products to compete with your most popular items.
BRAND RECOGNITION BARRIERS: It can be hard to get your brand to stand out, not only is there a lot of competition from other brands, you’re also having to compete against the marketplace’s own white-labeled products.

What’s next?

Attend a live workshop and hear our restaurant experts discuss how best to take advantage of the third-party platforms while minimizing the risks list above. There are live Q&A workshops on many topics related to growing your online restaurants. Check them out here.

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Add a new kiosk for your restaurant

clientor@gmail.com — Tue, 21 Jul 2020 13:45:01 +0000

Whether you have one location or 100, you will want to open a kiosk on the world’s first online foodcourt – for free.

What is Eat.chat?

It is a virtual foodcourt experience aimed to connect local restaurants with their customers and communities.

Why?

Eating out should be a local and fun experience. Whether it’s dine-in or take-out, deciding on your next meal can be stressful, and need not be reduced to filling out an order form with a national middleman.

Foodcourt?

Sure. Browse around, walk up to the counter, read the restaurant profile, see simple menus and attractive food displays, meet the local staff or owner, get recommendations, and order your food first-hand from the restaurant.

ⓒⓞⓞⓛ!

Try the world’s friendliest automated chats to order food. Get personalized services. Of course, eating is always more fun with friends. Invite them and browse together.

What about my restaurants?

Join us and open an Eat.chat kiosk. Meet and build relationships with local customers. Take orders instantly and much more using the world’s friendliest automated chats.

How?

It’s super easy. Simply add your location and your top sellers. Your attractive restaurant kiosk will be ready to take orders in 15 minutes.

Already have a website?

Nice. Customers will have more ways to order from you. Don’t have your own online ordering? Add your branded kiosk right inside your website. Let customers do business directly there – without sending them away to third-party ordering or anywhere else.

Don’t have a website?

No problem. The Eat.chat kiosk also gives you a complete branded website and mobile app ordering to offer to your customers. More ways for them to find you online.

Just online ordering?

Well, we think your customers want more than that. How about e-coupons, curbside pickups, delivery software, loyalty rewards, AI-based recommendations, automated personalized emails, group orders, VIP recognition, private feedback, place-in-line notifications? Most importantly it is your own. You keep the customer data, 100% of it.

Ok, how much?

Ok, since it’s so easy to do it yourself – after all it is your own store – there are no setup fees, no monthly subscriptions, no commissions. We want to help small restaurants connect with their customers directly.

ⓦⓗⓞⓐⓐⓐ!!

Ready? Customers are waiting inside. Let’s see how easy it is to do business online. Don’t worry we’ll be around to help 24×7.

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