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Modern society places a lot of emphasis on convenience, leading to the recent influx of delivery services being offered in the market and restaurant worry that their business might soon get overthrown. It is only natural for most restaurant owners to want a share in the market as well to ensure that they are not losing out. However, as tempting as it may sound, many restauranteurs suffer by trying to diversify more than they can manage, and run a risk of hurting their reputation at the end of the day.
1. Losing Focus on Your Main Customers
Always prioritize your dine-in customers. Trying to service both your dine-in and delivery customers can prove to be quite a feat, especially during peak hours. You now have to handle two separate sets of operations, and your kitchen will have to put in double the effort to meet all orders, resulting with an overburdened team of staff that may cause a drop of quality in term of both food and service. In the end, you will be left with unhappy dine-in customers due to poor service and delivery customers who will not be very impressed with the food quality, pleasing neither of your customers.
2. Less Control Against Quality
Delivering food leaves little room to make mistakes. Unlike customers in your dining room, you are able to monitor their satisfaction and rectify mistakes on the spot should they arise. However, once the food leaves the premises for delivery, any mistakes will cost you time and money. Moreover, during transportation, there are many unforeseen circumstances that may occur and there is no guarantee that the food will arrive to customers in its desired condition. Food may turn cold and soggy in the process, not to mention your drivers may arrive late due to road conditions, and if your customer’s first experience with your restaurant is through a bad delivery service, it may deter them from ever returning to your restaurant in the future.
3. Losing Customer Relationship
This especially applies to restaurants who engage a 3rd party delivery service. While it may seem like a good idea to let others handle the delivery operations while you focus on your restaurant, what many do not realize is that when customers order from these companies, they are essentially customers of the delivery company, not yours. Customers deal with the delivery company, and any impression they have will be about the delivery company. Also, as you do not deal with the customers directly, you will not have access to any of their information and you will have no means in trying to connect with them to build your relationship, giving them little reason to return to your restaurant.
4. Additional Resources
When adding an extra service to your restaurant, investing more on resources is inevitable. You will need more kitchen manpower and a delivery crew. On top of that, you have to ensure that all your staff receive proper training in terms of operations especially your delivery crew as they will be the forefront of your restaurant when they go out, not to mention you will also have to provide them with proper insurance to cover any liability that may occur during delivery.
Besides, investing in proper food packaging is essential to maintain quality. Standard food packaging will not do the trick as you now have to make sure that food is able to maintain its temperature and texture when it arrives to your customers. All these will be a huge investment that restauranteurs has to be willing to take if they do plan on venturing into delivery.
Trying to satisfy both sides will be a daunting task for most restauranteurs especially with the lack of resources and capabilities. While it may seem threatening at this age of technology that delivery will eventually take over, it is important to know that customers who dine-in and customers who order delivery are actually different markets looking for an entirely different kind of service for their needs. People who dine in are seeking out the charms and services from a restaurant, they are out to experience, to socialize and embrace their surroundings. Whereas people who order delivery emphasizes on speed and convenience. There is no need to worry of losing out as the market that chooses a restaurant over delivery is not going anywhere anytime soon. Trying to win both sides over may just result in a halfhearted attempt that will get you nowhere. Focus on what is readily at hand and ensure that you are able to provide them the best service and quality that you can possibly give.
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