How To Draw New Clients To Your Restaurant Business With A Food Delivery App

• By Suzanne Dieze
• 07-02-2023
• Mobile App Development

Apps that deliver food have come to represent convenience. Food delivery apps let you acquire the tastiest cuisines right at your doorstep, whether you need to order food for yourself or want to treat your visitors. These apps have also become a lifesaver during the difficult moments of the Covid-19 outbreak, when social isolation rules bind individuals together.

Mobile apps for food delivery are becoming more and more common, but not all of them are successful. Numerous programmes' poor user experiences have prevented them from performing properly. To guarantee that your app performs successfully, appropriate care must be taken with the UI/UX design.

User experience is crucial for a successful food delivery software

We all enjoy eating. Therefore, placing an order for food must be simple, enjoyable, and speedy. You need a decent UX for your app to ensure all of this, too.

No matter if you're creating an aggregator app or a franchise-based app, a flawless UX design is essential for attracting users and keeping them on the site.

Here, we'll examine some of the factors that make developing a strong user experience for a delivery app crucial:

• Users are attracted to appealing and simple-to-use apps, so it helps to draw them in.
• Offering a fantastic user experience is the best way to guarantee customer loyalty, according to research.
• To leave a lasting effect: A strong user experience can leave a lasting impact on users. Users are difficult to please, and the app stores are overrun with millions of programmes.

Now that we are aware of how crucial user experience is to creating a successful product, let's look at some aspects that your food delivery app must have. These characteristics will guarantee that your software meets user expectations and delivers on them.

Features that provide for a great user experience

• Quick and simple onboarding

A great user experience requires a quick, simple, and intuitive onboarding procedure. Everything should go swiftly, from creating a user profile to becoming familiar with the software. Users will just close the app or go to another one if a food delivery app takes too long to serve their orders.

As a result, there must be choices that let a new user join in as a guest or build a profile using already-existing social network accounts. He should be able to see the restaurants well, go through their menus, and place orders swiftly. He has to have reliable payment alternatives on the checkout page.

• Simpleness of search

It's essential for a food delivery software to make finding restaurants and menus as simple as possible. And while the majority of the apps are really good at doing this, two outstanding platforms, namely Zomato and Swiggy, guarantee a flawless user experience. The two make ordering food incredibly simple by providing clear photographs of their menus and dishes from other eateries.

A good food delivery software needs to have a search function that enables users to look up specific restaurants or food items. Additionally, offering many categories, such as "best-selling," "often ordered," and "last ordered," improves the search process.

• Social networking

Users can post images and reviews of the meals they've ordered on social media thanks to this function. This is a fantastic technique to boost your app's organic reach.

Users can upload images of their cuisine to social media accounts like Instagram, Facebook, etc. and share them with their friends using simple social sharing options. Utilize this user-generated material to draw in more clients and boost sales.

• Live monitoring

A necessary component of a positive user experience is the ability for clients to follow the whereabouts of the delivery person. The app should have a live GPS map that shows the agent's current location.

With the use of this function, consumers may get complete details about the status of their orders at various stages, including order acceptance, order preparation, order delivery, and the driver's current location. The ability to readily track the whereabouts of the delivery agent will keep users interested.

• Plan out food orders

Customers can choose this option to add food to their basket and schedule future orders. Customers might, for instance, order food as they leave the office, and when they arrive home, their food will be ready when they are. As a result, people can plan their order and location according to their free time.

This is a fantastic feature that improves consumer satisfaction and increases brand loyalty.

• Mentioned delivery time

A food delivery app must have quick menu browsing options as well as information about delivery charges and times. According to how long it would take the restaurant to fulfil the order, the delivery timings, for instance, must be posted next to the restaurants and should change. With the help of this fantastic function, consumers may choose a restaurant that fits their schedule.

Apps like DoorDash, Zomato, UberEats, and Swiggy excel in making the cost of the food and the time of delivery crystal obvious.

• Purchases for friends

Customers can send food to friends, family, or coworkers with this creative tool, sharing information to make it simpler to follow the orders.

In order to provide users with a better experience, Uber Eats introduced this function during the pandemic. The app also enables smartphone delivery tracking for the individual receiving the order.

• Reorder based on previous orders

Customers can view their past orders using the tool known as order history. For individuals who regularly submit comparable orders, this is very advantageous. With the help of this option, they can place the same order once more without having to fuss with looking through the menu and selecting the same food once more.

• Recommendation for food

Your food delivery app can provide consumers with personalised recommendations based on their past orders thanks to the food recommendation function. This is a fantastic approach to involve app users and increase app revenues.

• Enticing referral scheme

The easiest method to engage your audience and keep customers for a long time is to have some loyalty programme. You may expand your audience and attract new clients by running a compelling referral programme.

If they recommend the app to new users, you can provide your current clients exclusive offers or discount coupons. This is a tried-and-true method for growing your clientele and boosting sales. The client experience will also be enhanced as a result of the alluring discounts offered.

• Support for in-app chat

Customers and delivery staff may communicate more easily thanks to in-app chat support. It offers a single interface that makes speedy order delivery possible.

Additionally, users can use the features to start a discussion with the restaurant if they have any issues with food delivery, food customization, etc. A flawless user experience is thus guaranteed.

• App-based calling

An in-app calling function can be useful in addition to in-app chat. Customers can phone the restaurant or the delivery person for free from within the app.

• Phone number concealment

This is a fantastic feature that promotes client trust. Without disclosing phone numbers, phone masking ensures contact between the delivery agent and the clients. As a result, it enhances security and aids in protecting critical client data.

• Instructing the delivery boy visually

With the help of this tool, the customer may easily direct the delivery person to the correct address by sending them visual instructions. The client might send a picture or a video of a well-known place nearby, for instance. They can also leave voicemails for the delivery person, which will make it easier for them to reach the right place.

• A smart watch app

Smartwatches are the second most popular device behind smartphones. You must therefore adapt your app for the smartwatch in order to differentiate yourself from the competition and offer a genuinely first-rate consumer experience.

One of the first food companies to make its Android smartwatch app available in Dominos. It is a condensed version of its mobile and online apps. Customers can quickly order their preferred pizza from their wrists using the "Easy Order" feature.

• A simple refund policy

A decent food delivery app also allows you to cancel an order and receive a refund. The majority of food delivery apps don't offer this feature, yet it is necessary because it directly corresponds to how users behave on the site.

Customers are given confidence and persuaded to use the app to place their orders thanks to the app's simple cancellation and refund policies.

• Effective customer service

Any app, not only platforms for food delivery, needs a capable customer care team. Every company needs to pay attention to its clients, identify their concerns, and respond to them as soon as possible.

A live chat option may be available in a food delivery app. Custom bots may also be employed in the marketplace to interact with customers and uphold consistency.

• Membership strategies (Free Delivery, Offers, Discounts, etc.)

This function is critical for your food delivery app and may be extremely effective in boosting client loyalty and brand recognition. Customers are happy to place orders when they receive enticing offers and discounts on their cuisine. One app that frequently provides discounts and promo codes is Deliveroo, especially for new customers.

Additionally, your app needs to provide customers a variety of membership options. Users who choose a membership plan can frequently take advantage of free delivery on all orders as well as tempting promotions and offers. This will significantly enhance the consumer experience.

• Reviews & comments

A food delivery app must contain an area for reviews and feedback.

This makes it simple for guests to evaluate and rank the various restaurants' food quality. It is a tried-and-true method for letting other users know how well-reviewed each restaurant is and whether or not they ought to place an order there.

• Food packaging guidelines

Packaging fulfils a crucial role in the food delivery sector. It promotes brand values and messaging to customers while preserving food quality and preventing leaks or spills. So, it is impossible to overstate the significance of good, high-quality food packing.

• Food safety requirements

Your food delivery app's entire quality must be exceptional, just like food packing. If your business offers all of the premium app features but your cuisine isn't good, you could not get repeat business. Therefore, put food quality above all else. To ensure a seamless user experience, all restaurants that are listed on your food delivery app must offer high quality.

• Ordering in groups

A fantastic option that significantly enhances the consumer experience is group ordering. Users can place orders from several restaurants at once without having to place separate orders from each one. Customers can conveniently add food from many locations to their cart and place an order all at once. Orders for multiple locations don't need to be placed more than once.

• Splitting the cost

As the name implies, this function aids in dividing the cost of the food among numerous clients. With this functionality, various users can each pay their portion of the food bill using a different method of payment.

Winding Up

You must pay attention to the aspects mentioned above whether you are a restaurant owner wanting to increase sales and client loyalty or an entrepreneur planning to invest in a premium food delivery service. You can incorporate these elements to offer a fantastic user experience based on your app development requirements and budget.

To guarantee you get your hands on an app that satisfies the needs of your consumers and is completely functioning and feature-packed, work with a top-notch Food Delivery App Development Company.