If you run a business operating in the hospitality sector, you might feel that you are very much in survival mode right now, and that you lack the time or energy to look into new avenues for your business, such as a direct-to-customer (D2C) solution.
But could such a stance be a false economy? We really believe that it’s at times like this that you should be looking to take every possible step to optimise your competitiveness.
One way to accomplish this could be the launch of a D2C ordering system. Not convinced? Let’s look at some of the reasons why this is a step you should be taking sooner rather than later – and why investment now in a D2C solution will quickly pay back.
Here are just a few of the benefits that a D2C ordering system could present to restaurants, takeaways, bakeries, and franchised businesses in the hospitality sector:
Sure, for as long as your restaurant or takeaway actually has a telephone number, orders taken by phone probably won’t go away entirely. However, a dependence on telephone orders can be very labour-intensive and inefficient for a hospitality business. It means that you need employees available to keep picking up the phone, or you miss out on potential custom. And even if the employee does pick up the phone in time, they can only take one order at a time – and for as long as the call continues, any other customers will be prevented from getting through. Investing in a D2C ordering system would greatly improve your business’s ability to process multiple orders simultaneously, with no need for your team members to spend time on the phone.
Recent years have seen great numbers of quick-service restaurants and takeaways, in particular, become heavily reliant on marketplaces as a means of easily accepting online orders. But in the present squeezed economic climate, this is becoming an increasingly unsustainable business model for many such businesses. Why continue tolerating having to pay as much as 30% in commission to someone else, when you could accept customer orders directly with the help of Slerp, from just 6%?
Our order management tool is available exclusively to Slerp Online Ordering Partners. If you are a bakery or similar business that handles or is looking to handle pre-orders, Composer is a game-changer. This tool automates much of the administrative work of creating production summaries and packing slips. It aggregates all orders – whether from your brick-and-mortar location, online, or marketplaces – into a single place, thereby making the management of orders so much easier, and reducing the need for complex spreadsheets. Composer can save users up to 40 hours a week. If your hospitality business presently employs someone to carry out the above tasks, you could free up a serious amount of time, amounting to the equivalent of one full-time job.
The complete D2C ordering system won’t only be of relevance to the processing of online orders for delivery to people’s homes. You might run a quick-service restaurant where it is expected that the customer goes to the till to order and pay; here at Slerp, however, we can provide a table ordering system that helps to speed up service and reduce queues at the till. The introduction of table ordering systems is also associated with an increase in the average spend per head.
It’s become common practice in the industry to charge different prices on a menu depending on how a customer is ordering. You might have noticed yourself that a burger is often cheaper if you were ordering it on premise compared to for delivery.
At Slerp we made this feature available to our partners. It’s a really effective way of distributing the cost of delivery and in turn protecting your margins.
As we have stated previously, the online marketplaces have their place for many hospitality operators.
But if your restaurant, takeaway or bakery jumped onto such a platform out of necessity a few years ago, and you haven’t done much to change that arrangement since, the pressures of 2022 could be the perfect moment to take the next step with your own complete D2C ordering system. And Slerp is excellently placed to help make that happen for your brand.
With research indicating that 62% of people prefer to order direct where possible, it is clear that customers are increasingly expecting their favourite eateries to present this option. Don’t continue to struggle along with a dependence on phone orders, or paying heavy commission for a marketplace presence; find out how you can modernise your D2C approach.