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This article was contributed by Grace Dean from Business Insider.
Editor’s note: Two-thirds of consumers would rather order directly from a restaurant than go through a third-party app, according to our Future of Restaurants report. For restaurant owners, this opens up an opportunity to save on commission fees by enabling customers to order food and drinks through your own website, using On-Demand Delivery and QR-code ordering. Learn why digital orders are leading to larger ticket sizes in the article below, and keep reading about how to increase food orders through your online channels.
Restaurants are rolling out ways for customers to order digitally, which could lead to diners placing bigger orders because they can hide their embarrassment from servers, one expert has said.
When customers order digitally, rather than through a server, they’re more likely to choose the food they really want, Deepthi Prakash, global director of product and marketing at advertising agency TBWA Worldwide, told The Wall Street Journal.
This is because they don’t have to worry about servers judging them, she said.
“People order more and the tables turn over faster, because they can get their orders and they can get their bills sooner,” Prakash, who previously worked as a restaurant experience design consultant, told the publication.
This could therefore create bigger profits for restaurants.
During the pandemic, restaurants have been pushing dine-in customers to order using apps or QR codes printed on menus or glued on tables. Starbucks is encouraging customers to order in advance on their phones for drinks to go, while Taco Bell is pushing digital kiosks and is even rolling out a new restaurant format based on mobile ordering.
As mobile and drive-thru sales soared during the pandemic, Starbucks’ customers placed fewer orders, but they were more expensive, Mary Meisenzahl reported. This is down to a mix of customers placing bigger orders and getting more modifications.
“I feel like there’s an aspect of shame when you’re standing in front of a register. You have to look at a person and tell them all the things you want in your drink,” a former Los Angeles Starbucks barista told Insider.
Starbucks’ baristas said that customers often ask for weirder and more complicated drinks when they order via its app. This includes bizarre TikTok-inspired drinks or beverages with excessive modifications, such as an iced latte with 12 shots of coffee and five shots of hazelnut syrup.
Digital ordering could help keep revenues up during the labor shortage
Starbucks was one of the first restaurants to widely roll out mobile ordering.
“There’s nothing else like it,” David Bagley, managing director at Carls Marks Advisors, told Insider. “They’re doing something that really every other restaurant should have done years ago.”
Many chains are lagging behind Starbucks on mobile ordering, but are finding other ways to drive digital orders.
Even before the pandemic, rising wages in the restaurant industry meant that chains like McDonald’s had been turning to kiosk ordering to keep down staff costs, Andrew Lapin, a lawyer specializing in retail at Robbins, Salomon, and Patt, told Insider.
And restaurants are currently scrambling to find workers amid a huge labor shortage across the U.S., which could make digital ways of ordering, like through apps, kiosks, and QR codes, even more attractive.
This article was written by Grace Dean from Business Insider and was legally licensed through the Industry Dive publisher network. Please direct all licensing questions to [email protected].
