Restaurant App Development: Benefits for Business Growth

Have you ever struggled to promote your restaurant business, grow its presence in the market, or win more loyal customers? Are you having this problem now?

Many business owners have tried to solve this problem. They found that by adapting to the mobile market tendencies and growing their online presence, they could significantly change the way their businesses operated. One of those growing mobile market tendencies is in app development, or for our purposes, restaurant app development. 

Before diving into the topic, it’s important to answer the usual question like, Why or why not give way to third-party apps like OpenTable or Zomato instead of building a restaurant application on your own?

Platforms like OpenTable indeed offer numerous benefits, especially for restaurants that are newly opened, limited in finance, or need a fast solution. These third-parties also come up with drawbacks —a high monthly fee is one of them. On the flip side, having your own branded application offers benefits.

Why Invest in Developing a Restaurant App?

What are the main reasons why restaurant business representatives choose to invest in app development? What benefits do they seek? Let’s briefly discuss them.

Brand Boost & Customer Engagement

When you have a restaurant application, it’s easier to appeal to mobile app users. This communication channel enhances your visibility. An application makes a restaurant more approachable, so to say. Also, it helps a restaurant gain the most from the existing client base while reaching new clients.

Easy Payments

Quick access to mobile transactions means convenience — the feature that restaurant operators and guests value. When a restaurant offers to process payments directly via their branded app, customers save time. Integrated with other automated restaurant technology, managers can concentrate on other tasks and boost staff productivity.

Instant Feedback

It’s instant, and it’s real. Feedbacks on food, drinks, atmosphere, and service that customers leave directly via a restaurant app are beneficial for one reason: they help businesses improve, identify areas of weakness, and grow.

Retained Loyalty

There are several vital components of true customer loyalty: tasty food, excellent service, and rewards. If a restaurant enables clients to earn some rewards and exchange them for dishes, drinks, and discounts, this restaurant has created a loyalty program that helps ensure future business.

Before All of the Benefits

But getting benefits is the stage that follows the launch of the application. And what precedes the launch is the development process. This process incorporates tough work on the design and feature stack of the application.

Another factor that is of interest to those planning to craft a restaurant app is how much this will cost. Prices are dictated by factors like the complexity of the application and a few more:

•   feature-set
•   functionality
•   design
•   how many developers are engaged in the process
•   developer hourly rate

The infographic below will fill you in on the details:

Now you see the difference between simple and complex applications. Eventually, the total app cost depends on what choices you make.

A few paragraphs above, we told you there’s a possibility of using ready-made apps for restaurants instead of building a branded application. Remember? But to sum it all up, in the case when business owners give way to ready-made digital platforms, the number of benefits will be reduced by half. 

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About the Author

Yana Petlovana is a marketing manager at Steelkiwi.Inc, an outsourcing development company that helps startups, small companies, and enterprises around the world with developing business ideas and technical solutions. Yana is passionate about delivering engaging digital content on the latest technologies.