Benefits of a Mobile App for Your Restaurant

Mobile apps aren’t just for banking and Instagram anymore. More and more we’re seeing apps pop up for everything from ab exercises to pet sitting to home security, which makes it less than surprising that restaurants are hitting the mobile arena now. Places like Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts offer loyalty rewards through their app, allow customers to place their orders via mobile, and even house credit card information to make payment a snap. But beyond the convenience that offering a mobile app presents, there are several additional benefits you may not realize. Read on to learn all about them…

Edge Out the Competition

While restaurant apps are gaining popularity, they haven’t saturated the market—especially if you’re a small business. Building an app allows you to eke out an advantage over your competitors that can help you stand apart to customers.

Location Loyalty

Have you heard of iBeacon? It’s essentially a technology that allows you to target customers who come within a particular radius of your restaurant’s location. Once you know they’re in the area, you can send targeted push notifications through your mobile app to entice them to come in. Whether it be though coupons or meal specials, location targeting is a key way to grab customers’ attention via your app.

Reservations in a Snap

If your restaurant accepts reservations, enabling customers to make one directly through a mobile app takes the hassle out of paying someone to answer the phone—and customers love it, too. While you should still offer the old-fashioned option, guests are more likely to opt for an app reservation if given the choice. We’re a society of people too busy to call a cab anymore let alone the hostess station at our favorite restaurant.

Increase Reviews—and Your Service

We’ve talked a lot about the importance of customer feedback. There’s no more convenient way to allow customers to post feedback about your restaurant, food, or service than through building a reviews section into your app. Any way you can ease the journey a guest will take to tell you how they’re really feeling, do it. This feedback is invaluable and allows you to improve upon areas of your business that you may not have known needed work.

Stay Top-of-Mind

The United States boasts over 250 million smartphones. And what do smartphones typically have? Apps. Apps that may not be used every day, but that are highly visible to the smartphone user who is interacting with her phone on a near-constant basis. Your brand awareness hits its peak when someone is looking at your logo regularly. You’re sure to stay top-of-mind, but you need to remember there is a science behind creating your app logo. Check out this yeeply article, “10 tips on app design: creating the perfect logo,” for some great tips.

To finance the development of a mobile app, you would be smart to look into some type of small business loan. A Flex Pay Loan from ARF Financial offers a number of benefits. With the option to defer up to 50 percent of your loan’s principal into the future, Flex Pay affords you the ability to make more affordable payments now—and pay your loan back when the time is right. You can also make low, fixed weekly payments that aren’t tied to your credit card receipts. Apply today for an offer and see how much you qualify for. We can’t wait to help you develop your very first mobile app!