Importance of Restaurant Mobile App and BLE Integration

Digital transformation is a necessity in the current business scenario. Even if you are a small-sized restaurant owner, you can increase your revenue and profits by using a mobile application for your establishment. It will aid you in connecting with your customers and competing with the growing players.

Developing a live app could be an excellent boost for your company. Read more about why a mobile restaurant app is the need of the hour and how BLE-based integrations for restaurants make your food business smarter.

Food and beverages, restaurants, online food ordering are the businesses which used to boom before the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the latter most (Online food ordering) is not affected that much due to privileges of its nature of operations that fosters touchless deliveries ensuring complete safety. But what about the dine in restaurants? The picture looks glum post COVID-19.

Current Scenario: Restaurant Businesses are in Peril

However, restaurant business is the one segment that has been affected terribly and still facing the same issues of pulling customers, even right now in September 2020. Even though COVID-19 had a huge part to play in the downfall of restaurant business, there are a few more problems resulting in fewer footfalls to dine in.

The existing problems:

• Emergence of online food ordering system
• No restaurant mobile app existence
• Less effective promotional/ marketing
• Retaining customers due to higher competition
• No quality data for analytics for decision making
• Delayed customer service
• No digital presence to get ratings/feedback

Why is a Restaurant mobile app the need of the hour?

The world is going mobile and so are you. Then why doesn’t your restaurant business follow the bandwagon? Okay, let’s keep it short! Let us have a look at some facts and stats instead of explaining the advantages of having mobile apps. We mean business, not just talks.

• Olo reports that Restaurant apps with an online ordering and delivery system have helped restaurants increase sales by 25-30%.
• 62% of people do not go to dine if they do not find a menu in their mobiles. They are likely to opt for another restaurant.
• 98% of 18 to 34 year old people who did mobile payment would like to do so again. This actually offers easy and swift customer service.
• As per Nilson’s report, 95% smartphone users use their devices to conduct restaurant search. 90% of those searches convert within 24 hours while 60% convert within 1 hour. Having online presence definitely boosts your search engine visibility.

We understood in brief the importance of having a mobile app developed for restaurant business. Now let us go beyond that and consider the current situation. Restaurant businesses are suffering because of the safety concerns regarding social distancing, getting quality, and hygiene assurances. Every service industry is doing the same – to convince their customers about the service standards.

Does this mean that restaurants must go an extra mile to pull their customers? Of course, right now and even when this unfortunate global situation ends. Yes, the restaurants, despite having a custom restaurant mobile app, must invest to transform their dine-in and overall customer experience, online and offline.

BLE based Solutions for Restaurant to Go Smart

According to the Restaurant Industry report of Hubspot, 95% of restaurateurs agree that restaurant technology improves their business efficiency. Even 73% of diners agree that restaurant technology improves their guest experience.

BLE/iBeacon technology could be a game changer for your restaurant business if you already have an existing restaurant app. Following are a few BLE based solutions for the restaurant industry.

Location based Proximity Marketing

You all know by now how beacons could help in proximity marketing. All you need to have a mobile app and smartly enable BLE Solutions. Imagine sending push notifications to your potential customers who pass by your restaurant. It could be broadcasting of the content to promote your newest offerings or rewarding your customers. Everything in the message could be customized using any media content. BLE technology integrations guarantees improved marketing efforts and conversions to boost ROI.

Personalized Customer Experiences

Not only this, iBeacons could also deliver personalized experiences. If a repeated customer walks in, the staff could greet the customer by the name and quickly ring up the regular order after confirming. The iBeacon is relaying this information to the POS. Who would not love having a personalized dining experience like this? This shows operational efficiency and boosts customer loyalty.

Contactless, Fast, and Secure Payments

Beacons could help in making easy and secure payments too. iBeacon can be implemented to each table and given an ID based on the table numbers given. No sooner the diners sit on the table, the menu pops up in their smartphones. If they are new customers, they will be requested to download the restaurant app to avail the full spectrum of benefits. It even allows customers to view dishes liked by their friends, as it links the app to social networking sites that the customer frequently visits. Once done, the restaurant has a cashless checkout facility by paying through the app.

Other Benefits of iBeacon/ BLE Integration with Restaurant Apps

• Real-time data : To store for analytics and strategic approach.
• Close engagement with customers : Feedback and ratings.
• Operational efficiency : Orders, wait time, table management.
• Add-ons : Give extra information to customers like nutritional values.

Why choose IndiaNIC for Restaurant Mobility Solutions?

We are not a product company, we are an IT services providing company putting our sweat and blood since 1997. Delivering software products is not our only goal, we are equally concerned about the success of an IT solution.

IndiaNIC guarantees 100% delivery and implementation of your restaurant app development project, with and without BLE/iBeacon integration.

Integration of iBeacon SDK

Team of IoT engineers and mobile app developers at IndiaNIC will help you integrate iBeacon SDK into the existing or new restaurant mobile application. Our team will also help in implementing the iBeacons at the location and provide technical support for a fully functional solution.

Our experts will help you build a web based admin from where you can create, edit, or manage the content you wish to broadcast through iBeacons. It will also help you in managing and sending push notifications as well as various analytics (behavioral, operational, etc.) for making future strategies in marketing and inventory management.

Having developed multiple restaurant applications and IoT solutions using technologies like BLE, geofencing, etc. for global startups and restaurant chains, IndiaNIC is just the perfect platform you can have.

Get in touch with our team of industry experts specialized in innovations for online food ordering and restaurant businesses.

Stay tuned for upcoming blog posts on innovative solutions led by technologies like AI, IoT, Voice Technology, etc. – focused on the restaurant industry and online food ordering businesses!!

Key Takeaways

In the years previous to the COVID-19 pandemic, the restaurant and food industry was booming. They then faced suffering due to safety worries about maintaining social distance and obtaining hygienic assurances in the COVID crisis.

The use of BLE/iBeacon technologies could completely alter the restaurant sector. Restaurant owners use this technology to run their businesses more effectively.

Your search engine exposure is boosted by the technical support facilitated by BLE/iBeacon technologies. Ibeacon technology make it simpler and safeguard enablement of digital payments.

The upsurge in conversions and efforts that BLE integration ensures brings an increase in return of investments. With or without BLE/iBeacon integration, IndiaNIC promises comprehensive delivery and deployment of the restaurant application development projects.

FAQs on Mobile Restaurant Apps and BLE Technology