Introducing New No-Touch Digital Menus

August 7, 2020

Shanelle Harris, MunchEm Operation

While Covid-19 still poses a threat to the global economy, many states have pushed forward with regulations and mandates to allow various businesses to reopen their doors. Chief among them, restaurants. Due to measures of social distancing and general caution in public places, consumers have been dining out less and less. According to statista.com , the year-over-year decline of seated diners in restaurants in the U.S. was a staggering 56.19 percent on August 2, 2020. But while closing them down initially came with its own set of problems, navigating how to do business safely now in the wake of Coronavirus has definitely brought its own as well. In an article for the New York Times, media star and restaurateur David Chang highlighted one of the main concerns most Americans and restaurant owners have: how to keep everyone safe while dining. “The most pragmatic thing we need to figure out right now is safety protocol,” Chang says. “We are all asking for that, and no one really knows.” And while the CDC suggests certain guidelines for restaurants and bars to adhere to, dining in both indoor and outdoor still poses a moderate to high risk.

Re-Opening Phase 

About two months after Georgia became the first state to reopen and allow indoor dining--their cases saw a significant increase. And after Texas bulldozed through their reopening phases and allowed restaurants to open back up to 75 percent capacity, by mid-June--their cases were close to a staggering 120,000 cases. This has led to restaurants and bars across that state and many others shutting back down much to the dismay and dissent of all parties involved. And that’s because the fact of the matter is, without a vaccine and an overall general consensus and adherence to basic health and safety rules--the risk of eating out will remain high. There are too many variables: restaurant safety protocols, area infection rates, personal preference and defiance that make this entire situation a delicate and oftentimes discouraging dance.

That’s why we at OrderEm have come up with a new way to help restaurants follow federal guidelines all while promoting safe and socially responsible practices. Introducing our new, no-touch digital menus--a safe and smart way for customers to view your menu at low-risk to them.

Since the CDC strongly discourages using or sharing items that are reusable, such as menus, condiments, and any other food containers and instead encourages digital menus: this option is arguably the best way to minimize exposure for both your employees and customers. And the best part about it, the setup is fairly easy.

All restaurant owners have to do is place the scannable QR codes on their table indoors or post them online and customers will have a virtually touch-free way to view your offerings. As another added bonus, for every customer that scans your unique code--you build customer data that will help you configure your digital menus to prime optimization. Check out our simple setup below and if you need more info on how to set up your digital menu, OR add online ordering to your restaurant: visit us at www.orderem.com or give us a call at 855-210-APPS.

Here’s how it works:

1. First you upload your digital menu and photos. Make sure to include enough info so that customers can make the best decision from your offerings.

2. Next, you use our QR code generator to come up with your unique code, available both for print on your tables indoors or digital use to add to your website or social media.

3. After that, customers will be able to scan the codes wherever they’re set and view your menu and continue enjoying their favorite meals.

Creating & Maintaining Loyal Customers

How do we create & maintain Loyal Customers? After all, that is what keeps orders & cash flow going. Most importantly, that is what establishes & nourishes a restaurant’s reputation! With our new foundational knowledge of Digital Menu Management, we can now take advantage of this tool and create an online presence where users are going to convert into clients continuously. One way we can go about this is optimizing & advertising our menu items on Google’s Search Engine. While this doesn’t mean investing in PPC or also known as Adwords, what I mean is establish an organic advantage over your competitors who currently might not even have a clue about this trick. What this trick involves is merely highlighting your menu items unique attributes like pricing, availability, and also SKU’s (don’t worry if your items don’t have this). We wrote an article talking about organic techniques this in-more depth which I suggest you take a look since SEO can be cost-savings compared to PPC or Online Advertising. However, I will discuss blogging tips briefly you can use to maintain & create loyal customers that can also see you as one of the savviest-marketing restaurants out there! 

Blogging

One Technique is creating beautifully written & curated Blogs which is what our Empowered Marketing Team can do for you! However, if you would like to do these on your own take a look at this guide to creating a beautifully optimized article. Be sure to add 800-1000 words for you to have a quality blog. Additionally, add images that are related to your subject, and also communicate your message more effectively! Lastly be sure to add Headers like this article where we added Header 1’s, Header 2’s, and Header 3’s which help keep an article organized also crawlable by Google’s Spiders. Use all these tips to build your restaurant's digital menu and advertise it successfully to your target audience.