Surviving the Fall Pandemic in Your Restaurant: Start With Some Research

 As a result of consumer changes around the coronavirus, the restaurant industry has been hit hard with restaurant and foodservice sales losses surpassing $185 billion between March and August. Without the expansion of off-premises business in restaurants across all segments, the impact would have been much worse.

To boost off-premises business, some restaurant operators added curbside takeout, added by about 67% of operators since the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak in March. That’s according to a survey of 3,500 restaurant operators conducted by the National Restaurant Association from August 26 – September 1.

Third Party Restaurant Delivery Is Up, How To Keep It Profitable

Twenty-seven percent of operators say they added third-party delivery, while 17% added in-house delivery. Among the restaurant operators that added any of these off-premises options, a majority say they plan to continue offering it after COVID-19 passes. This points to changes in both consumer behavior and how restaurants work.

The $26.8 billion online ordering market is turning out to be the fastest-growing source of restaurant sales in the United States, according to The NPD group. Digital orders, while still accounting for just 5% of all restaurant orders, are growing some 20% each year. Restaurant visits, meanwhile, are remaining mostly flat or declining. Expect the numbers for online and call-in orders to continue to grow.

Develop A Menu Matrix To See How Your Guests Are Changing Their Purchasing Behavior

Take a look at what’s selling and compare that, month-by-month over the past 6 or 7 months to see if there have been any shifts in what people are buying from you. Run a Product Mix (PMIX) from your point of sale for each month in order of popularity and look for any changes that have occurred (if you do this correctly you will have 7 reports to compare). This will tell you what your customers are interested in from you and what you might offer in the future. Keep in mind, some of the changes in what people order will be seasonal, but other changes will be about how they are dining with you and what products you are offering travel best and which items best represent your brand currently.

Talk To Your Guests

This can be through social media, or over the phone, or in person but ask questions about the food, service and how they feel about you and your products. It never ceases to amaze me how few restaurant operators simply ask their customers what they think. Especially since most people want to offer their opinions. What’s more, the better you know someone the more honest they become. Except most people stop asking. So, here’s what you do, when you see someone who visits your restaurant on a regular basis, ask them a short list of questions to help you better understand how you might improve to help you grow. 

 Pay close attention to comments and reviews, and answer each comment good or bad in a nice way (do not make things worse by arguing with anyone, ever). What you are looking for are any changes that have happened in the past few months. You are also looking to build a stronger relationship with your potential customers.

 And finally, test your products. As an established restaurant operator, you probably know how your plated products look and taste in the restaurant. But have you taken your products home with you? Do you have any idea how well your products taste once they have sat in a car for half an hour? Test everything you sell and make sure what you’re making will taste great after it sits for a while. If it doesn’t, take it off the carryout menu. And if someone insists on ordering the item, tell them what to expect. Honesty in this situation is your best policy. Simply tell the customer that you don’t recommend that item for carryout or delivery because it doesn’t meet your quality standards if it is not eaten fresh.

About HotOperator

HotOperator is a foodservice marketing agency. We love restaurants. We want them to survive. But we can’t do that unless we work together. Hire us to help you romance your restaurant brand.

Mark and Kelly are a marketing team and managing partners of HotOperator. They have been working in the restaurant business since 1989. Contact them through the HotOperator website, or by calling 800-316-3198. or contact Laux here.

The post Surviving the Fall Pandemic in Your Restaurant: Start With Some Research appeared first on HotOperator.

Restaurant Social Media Carryout And Delivery Traffic Program

With the COVID-19 insanity, the most important thing you can do is stay focused on cash flow. To do that, you need a Restaurant Social Media Carryout And Delivery Traffic Program. Cash is king in any business, but with the recent outbreak and restaurant closings, you’re going to need to be creative to keep a trickle of cash flowing into your restaurant. You need a plan, plain and simple. You need an actual program that you follow on a daily basis. That’s why HotOperator came up with the Restaurant Social Media Carryout And Delivery Traffic Program.

If you are a fast food restaurant, this won’t be as difficult because most of your business is probably carryout, drive thru and delivery anyway. But for any full service or limited service restaurant, the transition will be much tougher.

The Restaurants We Represent Are Doing Best

HotOperator has added a number of new clients who are relying on us to develop their social media for them. This is by far the best way to keep your business working for you. As a restaurant operator, you have a lot to think about at the moment. But, and there is always a but, right? But, the most aggressive restaurant operators who are investing in social media support are doing better than the restaurant operators doing social media on their own. Reach out to HotOperator and get help. This is not the time to be timid. Instead, this is a time for you to invest in staying busy. HotOperator can help.

One more thought about using an outside resource for social media: we stay on it. It’s how we get paid, so we don’t let it slip. Many restaurant operators who try to do this all on their own will often start out strong, but then they let it slide. After a week or two they start missing days, then weeks and suddenly they wonder why they haven’t posted in a while, and why their sales are off. If you hire HotOperator, they will stay on it.

Why you need an ongoing program.

Social media is an ongoing communication resource for you and your potential guests. An actual program will help guide you, and keep you communicating on a daily basis. It will also help you with the creative, which can be a struggle. Once you sign up, you get the first 19 posts with photos right away. Then, as long as the virus is disrupting business, you will also receive updates and posts to use to continue to drive traffic to your business. So check your inbox from time-to-time as new information, promotions and ideas are sent out to help keep your restaurant healthy. And keep you communicating. HotOperator is in this with you. That’s why we’re offering this Restaurant Social Media Carryout And Delivery Traffic Program. We want you to be successful! The Restaurant Social Media Carryout and Delivery Traffic Program will help keep you successful.

We Recommend the restaurant social media carryout and delivery traffic program.

COVID-19 is causing all sorts of problems for the restaurant business. But as an essential part of the food supply chain, restaurants need to be talking to their potential customers every day.  If you stop communicating, your followers will forget about you very quickly. And a consumer who is home, thinking about where to get carryout or delivery food will order from whom ever is top of mind.

The HotOperator program offers you a post every day with ways to get your guests to keep you top-of-mind. And it makes them aware that they don’t actually have an illness, so it’s perfectly okay to run out for carryout or curbside from their favorite local restaurant.

That’s why we think you should sign up now. For the cost of two meals at a fast food restaurant, you will have ideas to help you ride out this virus, and keep traffic coming to your business.

Sign Up Now.

How To Post In 4 Steps:

1. Download the Restaurant Social Media Carryout And Delivery Traffic Program – This is the first step. Without ideas on what to post every day, you will let it slide. We’ve seen it time and again, where restaurant operators have great intentions to post every day, and then the ideas don’t come and they focus on other things. This system is easy, but you have to sign up to make it work.
2. Download the ZIP file – It’s easy. After you sign up you will be taken to a link with 19 posts with photos and post copy. Each post is labeled to correspond to the copy for the post. This is a ZIP file. To open a ZIP file, simply download it and click on it to expand the folder so you can get at the photos and post copy.
3. Start posting – Then, simply choose the post you want to use, open you Facebook, Twitter or Instagram page, copy the post copy, upload the photo and click post.
4. Boost – Social media resources are really smart. So just because you have thousands of followers, that doesn’t mean your posts will reach them in a timely manner. So look for the ‘Boost’ button at the bottom of your post. Click that, set up an advertising account and boost each post for $5.00 in 24 hours. Make sure you select “People who like your page and their friends”

M+K Laux dba HotOperator is a farm to table marketing consulting firm. Mark and Kelly are a marketing team and managing partners of HotOperator. They have been working in the food business since 1989. Either can be contacted through the HotOperator website, or by calling 800-316-3198. or contact Laux here.

The post Restaurant Social Media Carryout And Delivery Traffic Program appeared first on HotOperator.