restaurant app

As more and more customers plug into the grid, your restaurant’s internet presence becomes that much more crucial. OpenTable an app with a 4.5 star rating and over 50,000+ reviews that lets users make reservations at local restaurants – conducted a survey to help restaurants understand how diners would like their mobile apps to function. Over 6,000 adults were surveyed in different metropolitan areas around the United States and approximately 76% of those surveyed agreed that incorporating technology into their dining experience would be a tremendous improvement. To debunk what restaurants think diners might expect out of the restaurant’s app, a surprising 86% of respondents could not see themselves pre-ordering a meal and an even higher 88% said they probably wouldn’t make a purchase beforehand. So what are some of the things diners seek in mobile apps? The results were surprisingly unanimous: Diners seem to have nothing but great things to say about technology, so why not plug into the grid with an app of your own? If you aren’t already aware, the large majority of restaurants are adapting touch-screen technology into their services to help both improve and expedite the ordering process. On-table touchscreens have been trending the United States in recent times: I recall using one myself at several Applebees across New York State. When respondents were asked about these touchscreens, 55 percent said that they too had used them before, and four out of five seemed to enjoy or at the very least felt neutral about them. A similar study was made two years prior by Telmetrics and xAd; it was found that 89% of users who searched for a restaurant with their smartphone made a purchase within 24 hours and 64% made a transaction within the hour. This 2012 study had already fortified the notion that smartphone users are more likely to make a purchase than desktop users. So why not make their search easier with an app? In fact, 53% of respondents said they had searched for an app for restaurants within their local directory. Research from Telmetrics and xAd’s more recent 2014 campaign on mobile purchasing had substantiated the above demands of diners: Price and location are two big driving points for potential diners. The majority of users just want to know where your restaurant is, and how much their meal is going to cost. Times are changing, and users expect to find what they want by simply reaching for their phone and pulling up information. If your restaurant can be easily found by a quick search on any old smartphone, then your business will be significantly impacted. Out of every other category, restaurant shoppers have the highest rate of conversion from potential consumers into paying customers. An app that’s personalized to your restaurant’s audience will ensure that users will enjoy their browsing experience and share it with friends and family, giving your restaurant that much more publicity. Ads seem to have a big impact on compelling potential diners into choosing a particular restaurant. 3 out of 5 respondents in the 2012 Telmetrics and xAd survey claimed that they seldom know what they wanted to eat before making a search on their mobile device, and 75% reported to have noticed mobile ads, particularly for restaurants. Funneling resources into developing and more importantly marketing and advertising a great, user-friendly app for your restaurant could be a big game-changer for your business. As more and more customers plug into the grid with their smartphones, it’s important that your restaurant’s presence on the web doesn’t get left behind. For more on how developing an app can help the discoverability of your restaurant, check out our article on how to index an app with Google Search.

Restaurant apps are notorious for frozen payment transactions and horrific user accessibility. It’s a shame because a recent survey shows that 46% of users report that apps/websites with easier navigation would make them feel more comfortable with finishing a payment transaction. In 2015, total app revenue amounted to a total of 89.17 billion dollars. How can your business tap into that wealth? Better yet, if your business has an app, is user accessibility the sole determinant for its poor performance? The truth is, not many restaurant apps are successful, but the most recent statistics pulled from the Jumio 2015 Survey is helping us understand why. Two years prior in 2013, the same study was made, which posited that 66% of respondents had failed to complete a transaction due to issues during the checkout process.  Evidence from the more recent follow-up study in 2015 foreshadows a rising potential for commercial apps, as the number of failed transactions has decreased from 66% to 56% in just two years. Behind general retail, transactions regarding food and travel have been among the most frequently abandoned, but the problem is not necessarily grounded in the nature of food and travel apps. The issue can be broken down into three main causes, ordered below from the most prevalent to the least among users in the survey. Slow loading times “The loading bar’s frozen…What now? Does that mean my order never went through?” 36% of users cited slow loading speeds as the cause for abandoning mobile transactions. Based on the feedback gathered from respondents in the Jumio 2013 Survey, nearly two-thirds (66%) of consumers attempting to make a transaction on their smartphone or tablet were forced to abandon their purchase: The heightened competition across the app store leaves users with more reasons to leave your app than to remain loyal to it. Why should anyone struggle with a slow app when a faster one that promises to match the same function more consistency is available to them at the same price? The same notion applies to use an app over using a desktop: why should someone use an app for a service that’s faster on the web via their desktop? The point of your restaurant’s app should be to provide a faster and more convenient method than calling-in or using your website, which is a good introduction to the next point – user experience. User experience “How do I even place an order on this thing?” Overall, 46% of users agree that apps that are accessible and easier to navigate would make them more likely to complete a payment transaction. The more difficult it is to make a transaction, the less likely users are to convert into paying customers. Your intention should be to mitigate the number of hurdles facing users before they can complete transactions, and the gathered data above affirms this notion. Security concerns “Their app doesn’t seem too official, I mean it’s very unresponsive and navigation isn’t user-friendly whatsoever…Maybe I downloaded the wrong app?” Although security and comfort contributed least to users’ decisions, you can see how both an app’s responsiveness and its ease-of-use contribute to a user’s expectations and their overall sense of trust with the app. During the Jumio 2013 survey, 51% of users that abandoned an online transaction did so because they felt “uncomfortable entering their credit card information.” The ideal app should cater to and be easy-to-use for a sizable margin of users with a wide age group in mind.