Prior to 2020, the restaurant industry was slowly realizing the importance of digital ordering in creating an omnichannel brand ordering experience. But, as we all know, last year changed everything – and almost overnight.
As in-person dining became an impossibility, brands quickly had to adopt new best practices to reach customers. What quickly became key was online.
With technology, restaurant brands became empowered to build delivery programs for the first time and add curbside services. Similarly, they developed better online ordering capabilities, learned about the power of push notifications in native mobile apps, and went online with DoorDash and Uber Eats.
These tech-enabled initiatives helped restaurants adapt to the business model we know today: limited and distanced in-person dining where allowed, with an emphasis on low-touch curbside pickup or contactless delivery, online ordering, third-party delivery, standalone mobile application ordering and a concerted effort to connect and communicate within local communities via social media.
2021 still poses many questions for restaurant brands. As we continue to predict when in-person dining may return, it remains clear that technology, and all its benefits, are here long-term.
As Tillster CMO Hope Neiman said in her recent QSR Magazine article: “The patrons who are slow to return to a dining room shoulder with a stranger will still have access to the ordering platforms that sustained them during the pandemic. The people who came to love delivery from DoorDash will still have the app on their phone. Curbside ordering may give way to in-person dining in time, but the technology that powered it through the darkest hours in restaurant history will certainly not.”
The technology and tools restaurants adopt today will continue to power successful omnichannel restaurant experiences.
Learn more about the restaurant industry’s total embrace of technology in Neiman’s full article at QSR Magazine, and for more information about Tillster’s solutions, contact our team.
