At one time, eating at your favourite restaurant was an all-night affair. To eat at this restaurant, you had to plan your perfect dress, get in your car, and finally make the trek to the actual place.
That era, however, is over. Now, all it takes to have your go-to meal is to pull up an app, make a few taps, and place an order. From that point on, the delivery of hot, freshly baked goods from a ghost kitchen appears to occur as effortlessly as if by magic.
While this is fantastic news for diners, it has created several difficulties for restaurant owners and others in the food service business, particularly concerning the logistics of delivering food and keeping up with client demand. For this reason, many restaurants consult the experts. We as Commercial Kitchen Consultants, strive to solve the many problems restaurants face and help them optimize their workflow to gain better results.
Modern challenges in restaurant delivery
As a restaurant owner, food delivery logistics comprises customer service, meal preparation, and controlling delivery time windows. That’s what makes it such a complicated endeavour. Nonetheless, being aware of the underlying difficulties in your business can:
Help you prevent costly mistakes
Anticipate trouble areas
Be streamlined and optimised.
- Timeliness of Supply
When it comes to the logistics of delivering food, one of the largest obstacles for restaurants is satisfying customers’ high expectations. Customers at a restaurant often accept the fact that they will have to wait a little while for various services, such as being seated, having their food made, or receiving the bill. This is inherent to the procedure and the overall adventure.
The convenience and promptness of delivery, however, are major selling points. Customer patience with lengthy meal delivery times is low. They also want an accurate time estimate for when their food will come. The modern consumer has come to expect the following
Timely deliveries that are both specific and reliable
Fast shipping
order tracking in real-time.
The onus is on the eatery to keep up with demand and adhere to the designated waiting periods.
- Concerns with Quality Control
Customers are looking for fast service, but they also expect their food to be served hot and well.
It’s not easy to guarantee that every dish will arrive at the customer’s door still looking and tasting as though it were prepared in a fine dining establishment. The devil is in the details, with things like Order and time management, Packaging, Accuracy
- Setting Your Course
A crucial part of food delivery logistics is determining the most time- and gas-efficient routes for delivering meals. Without a thorough route planning system, your hopes of satisfying consumers with hot meals would be dashed before they even begin. On-time deliveries directly correlate to happy customers.
As for what makes for a good route planner, here are some things to look for: Using the best routes (Preferably using Google maps), and optimizing delivery through good coordination.
- Customer service
The fact that you won’t be seeing your clients as often doesn’t mean you shouldn’t still go above and beyond in terms of service, even if they’re ordering food for delivery. Customers are more likely to return if they feel like they were treated like they were dining in when they ordered food for delivery.
When it comes to food delivery, putting the client first includes: Offering a customer-centric approach and maintaining a good communication system with the customers.
- Competition
With local and chain eateries competing, the stakes are higher than ever.
Competing is hard with so many cooks. Restaurants struggle with:
Picky customers Every restaurant has regulars—foodies who visit numerous times a month for the service and atmosphere. For deliveries, customers are more attracted to bargains, promotions, and rewards programmes, which can make them shop around rather than become loyal customers.
Smaller companies struggle to compete with national names. Smaller eateries lack the consumer trust and resources to invest in ambitious advertising or cutting-edge technology.
Overcoming current food delivery software difficulties
Food delivery software systems help modern restaurants overcome logistics issues and compete in the market.
Restaurants profit from food delivery software:
Order management, delivery routing, and order tracking help restaurants handle more deliveries. These technologies also allow you to outsource delivery chores to third-party food delivery providers, which can save money, enhance restaurant sales, and boost profits.
Food delivery software improves customer experience by tracking orders in real-time and saving personal information for simpler ordering.
Delivery route optimization — Real-time route planning lets you prepare for road closures and slowdowns. These systems find the most efficient routes to optimise every second of your delivery timeframes.