Menu management is a crucial element of long-term success in the restaurant game, whether you’re a small local place or if you’re a regional franchise. Now that you need to manage your restaurant both online and offline, it’s important to optimize and manage your menu consistently to capitalize on new opportunities, ensure customer satisfaction, and drive your business forward.
You can only achieve this if you have a well-designed menu and an efficient system to maximize conversions and minimize financial waste. Your restaurant has a presence on online marketplaces, you have your website and maybe even your app – and that’s without counting numerous other online channels like social media.
Managing and syncing your menu on all these while keeping your direct ordering and marketplace delivery organized can be difficult. That’s why we’ve prepared some essential tips on how you can overcome the biggest challenges of online menu management.
Let’s dive in.
The Problem with Manual Menu Management
Firstly, what are some of the major problems of manual menu management that are costing restaurants hundreds and sometimes thousands in monthly revenue? The overarching problem is, of course, a complete lack of efficiency and automation.
Manually managing your restaurant in the online world is a time-consuming process that inevitably leads to human error, delays, and poor customer satisfaction. As if it’s not bad enough that you must punch orders into your POS manually, you also need to keep an eye on every online platform where you have a menu, constantly update your pricing offers, and manually create special deals, discounts, and more.
Now imagine what will happen if you forget to update your menu on Glovo or Wolt and someone tries to order a dish you cannot make. This is a recipe for poor customer experience, and it can make you lose customers for good.
With that in mind, here are some key benefits of using a centralized menu management system.
Keep Your Product List Updated Everywhere
A menu management system like our very own Bitebell encompasses many wonderful features, one of which is the ability to retain complete control of your menu across the web. Whether you’re running a physical restaurant or managing a virtual food brand, you need to have a menu on every platform, including your website, online marketplaces, and sometimes even on social media.
Now, there are many reasons why you would want to update your menu. Perhaps you’re changing your prices, adding new dishes to the selection, or maybe you want to bundle products to create special offers to delight your customers.
When you start updating your menu, the last thing you want is to have to update every single menu and item on every platform. Instead, you want to do it with a few clicks and form a centralized hub. Type in your changes in your in-house system that’s connected to all the online platforms you use, and watch as your menus get updated everywhere automatically.
The best part is that you can do this on the go. You can easily connect Bitebell to your phone and manage your digital menus at any time, any place.
Quickly Create Special Offers
In the online restaurant game, timing is everything. You want to capture the attention of your audience and the customers on all online marketplaces by regularly creating special offers, deals, bundles, and discounts. Why? Because doing so will keep your restaurant relevant and it will get you into those special categories on every platform that people are always checking for good deals.
When you want to capitalize on new opportunities or meals that are currently in high demand, you can quickly update and enrich your menu with new offers and exciting deals so that people can easily order something refreshing and unique. This helps keep your restaurant interesting to new and existing customers on every competitive delivery platform.
Needless to say, a centralized menu management system like Bitebell allows you to do this quickly and seamlessly in just a few clicks.
Capitalize on OmniChannel Menu Management
We talked previously about how omnichannel is the foundation of restaurant success. That said, trying to manually manage an omnichannel business model is insurmountable in a world filled with online marketplaces, social media, and other platforms.
To build and retain a successful omnichannel structure, you need to centralize your menu management and use the system to keep all your channels synced. Automated menu management allows you to quickly become an omnichannel restaurant and maintain efficiency as these channels continue to bring more customers your way.
Seamlessly Manage a Comprehensive Menu and Optimize for Quick Commerce
We live in a world where customers want quick service and a seamless online experience. Restaurants are tasked with managing ever-expanding menus with an ever-increasing offering to satisfy the evolving needs of their patrons. And so, you face the challenge of managing tens if not hundreds of menu items without letting anything slip through the cracks.
This problem is even more pronounced in the retail sector, where the average product listings can reach thousands of items from a single seller. So, to manage so many products effectively, sellers need the right product management system.
On the other hand, seamless menu management is also critical for the success of quick commerce upon which the restaurant industry relies nowadays. Keeping an updated menu and ensuring short delivery times is also crucial when you’re marketing your own restaurant delivery online, but also when you want to keep customers at your side.
In case some of your products are currently unavailable, you want to give your customers a chance to place an order for the next 24 or 48 hours, ensuring a more positive experience than having to call them and tell them you can’t fulfill their order after all.
A centralized menu management system will allow you to do this quickly and maintain a positive brand image on every delivery platform.
Boost Your Revenue with Automated Menu Management
Using the right menu management tools can transform your business in this extremely competitive industry. By automating this process and making it easier to manage your online menu across all your customer touchpoints, you can eliminate financial waste and capitalize on every opportunity.
This can be very beneficial when looking to stay competitive on every food delivery app. When you’re updating your menu, you can do it from a centralized location, and the changes will take place on all your online platforms.
The possibilities here are numerous, and unifying your menu management will go a long way in staying at the top of the restaurant industry in 2022 and beyond.
