Delivery is more popular than ever before, thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic keeping people all around the world cooped up indoors. While delivery services like DoorDash, Skip the Dishes and Uber Eats offer a convenient way for restaurants to have food delivered directly to their loyal patrons, using them means being unable to control the customer experience as well as losing out on a significant portion of the profit.
Upgrading your website and workforce to accommodate in-house food delivery might seem like a major investment, but the long-term benefits of doing so greatly outweigh the initial investment. Delivery will continue to dominate the food service landscape long after the pandemic has subsided, so getting in on the ground floor early will let you enjoy long term success by offering your customers a variety of options, from a traditional sit-down experience and curbside delivery or pickup options to fully controlled in-house delivery capabilities.
Your customers are rightly worried about the unknowns involved in their food delivery experience - will the driver respect social distancing or mask guidelines? Will the food arrive untouched? Will it be on time? Is this really the best way to support my favourite restaurants? By skipping delivery services and implementing in-house delivery, your business can immediately squash the majority of customer concerns by assuring them that they’re receiving premium service each and every time they order. Drivers are members of your staff who will be sure to wear a mask, leave your food at the specified location, and respect social distancing. Orders will be double-checked for accuracy, and drivers will be given a realistic workload that allows them to deliver hot and fresh food on time, every time.
Aside from the obvious quality control measures that you’ll finally have control over, in-house delivery means no more splitting the cost with food delivery services. Your drivers are part of your staff, and any tips and delivery fees received will go directly back to them and your business. In-house delivery allows you to finally cut out the middleman and enjoy the full margin on every order, letting you expand your business over time and perfect the delivery experience. As an added bonus, in-house delivery means being able to keep customer data to aid in maintaining and improving customer relationships, creating even more value for your business in the long run.
Once you’ve truly realized the benefits of offering in-house delivery over relying on delivery services, you can go about upgrading your website to accommodate food delivery. The best way to do this is to upgrade your website with a digital storefront service like Shopify, which makes food delivery easy, allowing you to create a custom online restaurant ordering platform that perfectly matches your business’s brand image.
With Shopify, you can offer local delivery, as well as curbside pickup options and even allow patrons to tip your staff during checkout. Using Shopify isn’t as difficult as it seems - you can create a fully customized online food delivery platform quickly, giving your customers the digital platform they desire while future-proofing your business in the process. If you don’t feel like you or a member of your staff can create a Shopify store yourselves, Shopify Partners can work with you and your team to create a personalized digital storefront that will make in-house delivery a breeze and leave you wondering why you relied on delivery services in the first place. Additionally, Shopify integrates with Instagram so your customers can order directly off of the 'Gram.
While the upfront time and monetary costs might seem high, creating the infrastructure to offer in-house food delivery means future-proofing your business, gaining full control over every aspect of the food delivery process, cutting out the middleman to enjoy the full fruits of your labour, and offering a service that your loyal customers will appreciate.
FoodSafetyMarket is a leading provider of online food handler training, infographics, food safety resources, and so much more. To find out more about the many benefits prevented by FoodSafetyMarket’s engaging and informative online food safety training, get in touch with a member of our team at service@foodsafetymarket.com.