Restaurant App Best Practices

When your business has an app, it makes it far easier for a consumer to order your products and services or check out your offerings on their phone. Not that using a search engine is an arduous task, but how often have you gone to search for something and gotten sidetracked by something else? Anything within reason that you can do to save time for your consumer can benefit your business.

With an app, you also have a mini advertisement on your customer’s smartphone. Think about it. Even if a consumer has 500 apps that they’re scrolling through, yours is one of them. They’re going to see your app even when they aren’t looking for it. And chances are good that when they are looking for the types of services or products you offer, they’re going to more easily remember you. Plus, once they download the app, you as a business owner may be able to capture information about them and can remarket to them via push notifications to inspire future purchasing decisions.

So, assuming we’re all in agreement — apps are a smart approach to maintaining customer loyalty — I thought I’d offer up a few thoughts on some strategies your business might want to employ to help generate a lot of downloads fast.

Because that’s the other thing about apps — they aren’t very effective if customers aren’t downloading and then using them. So, here we go: four strategies to get from zero to 100,000 (or at least more) downloads.

Make the app easy to navigate

This one is a no-brainer. But, of course, finding a company to develop the easy-to-use app is another story. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of companies that develop apps, but fortunately, there are numerous lists of top app developers just a few keystrokes away in any search engine. Do some research, and look to see what other clients the companies have worked with.

Reward customers for downloading your app

You generally want a lot of downloads because the more customers have your app, the better your odds of creating loyal customers. Fortunately, people love free stuff, and most people probably don’t mind downloading an app. So, offer a reward for downloading the app.

Offer an ongoing rewards program

Assuming your app works well and people start downloading it, you still need to give your app’s users a reason to use it. “Isn’t my amazing product or service enough?” you might ask. Well, maybe, but, look: If you went to the Google Play store right now, you’d find about 2.46 million apps available to download, and almost 2 million in the Apple App store. People, in general, have a lot of apps. That’s a lot of competition for your time and mindshare. You need to get people in the habit of using your app.

Have a social component to your app

This is important, too. For instance, you could reward your consumers when their friends and family members download the app. You might also want to have a component where your users can use your app to mention that they’ve visited your place of business on social media channels — which can help with word of mouth, which is arguably the most formidable type of advertising that exists. And, obviously, mention your app on your social media channels.

Read the full article by Bill Chemero, Executive Vice President of Wayback Burgers, one of the world’s fastest growing fast casual burger franchises.

For more information on the App services offered by App4 for restaurants and takeaways in th UK, call us now on 01332 742514 or click here for a call back.