In the restaurant world, an omnichannel experience refers to providing a cohesive experience when it comes to branding, ordering, and payment. A customer ordering online and picking up in store shouldn’t experience any hiccups caused by miscommunication between an ordering app and a restaurant, for example. It’s your job to make the entire experience seamless. Providing a seamless customer experience pays off, increasing overall sales and customer retention over the years.
Customer expectations for restaurants to create omnichannel experiences have also risen in the past 2 years, with 90% of them expecting consistent interaction across channels, according to RWS. And if there’s one thing the service industry has taught us, it’s that the customer is always right.
So when diners are jumping from mobile device to brick-and-mortar restaurant to laptop screen and back again, how are restaurants able to create consistent omni-channel experiences? Customer management tools, like Como, can help to connect disparate mediums into a single centralized platform, making customer management across channels a cinch.
Ready to implement an omnichannel strategy for your restaurant? Here are three ways to ensure a consistent experience across channels, enabling you to meet customer expectations and your business goals:
Creating an Omnichannel Experience for Diners
1. Get Personal
A seamless experience should be a given when it comes to omnichannel engagement, but that experience becomes all the more powerful when it’s personalized. A loyalty program that is well integrated across all your channels — allowing customers to earn and use points and rewards in store and via your app and website — gives you a chance to collect valuable personal data about customers and to engage with them in a relevant way.
This data can be used to target marketing campaigns to deliver the right message at the right time and to similarly personalize face-to-face encounters for increased customer satisfaction and retainment.
2. Offer Convenience
Today’s diners have hectic lives, and they expect a quick and convenient way to order and pay, seeking out options to order ahead, skip the line, and make payments via mobile wallet to save a few precious moments.
One of the top reasons consumers are using new technologies like mobile apps for online ordering is to order, pay, and have their food waiting for them when they arrive. According to eMarketer, US click-and-collect sales more than doubled in 2020 due to the pandemic and will sustain double-digit growth rates over the next four years. The concept of ordering and paying online and collecting in-store has gained momentum amid the pandemic.
3. Go Mobile
Speaking of mobile, it is unwise to underestimate the power of mobile payments today. It is wise to update your app to include brick and mortar location info and menus, and allow your diners to pay through the app and to access their loyalty rewards.
It’s clear that addressing your customers across all channels is a valuable tool for getting their attention, but unless you can manage these channels in a centralized platform, you’re simply working with a multi-channel approach. A true omnichannel experience provides a seamless experience through integrated communication, and you can optimize this approach by pulling restaurant data analytics to personalize customer engagement and foster convenience through mobile accessibility.
Ready to build a seamless omnichannel experience for your customers? Contact us today!
