Does your restaurant have an iPhone App?

I'm asking this because I think it could have real potential to increase business...
It doesn't take much to get in the App Store and then you've got something of value you can offer your customers...
I've developed a few apps for local restaurants and I think they serve as a great marketing reminder that you are open for business... they see your name on their phone perhaps a zillion times a day! Add to that the ability to retrieve a mysterious daily special like a discount or 'catch of the day' and you might have people consider ordering from you every day...

Am I the only one interested in this?

Tags: advertising, app, iphone

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Permalink Reply by Ryan Gold on September 29, 2010 at 10:28am

Andrew is correct. I simply meant that the person who has the app on their phone will very often see the icon as a reminder, which might prompt them to consider your restaurant more often.

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Permalink Reply by Tony Giuliani on September 29, 2010 at 10:41am

Whether it's annoying or not will depend on the size of the icon and frequency that it is displayed. If had to see that every day, multiple times a day, I personaly would be annoyed, If I'm annoyed by that, it will transfer that emotion to the establishment through a process called anchoring.

We keep our rest. clients in front of their patrons with SMS, only once weekly. This is a safer method and it's usually a financially compelling offer or anouncement of a new special or even just to say TY for your business, we appreciate it!

Tony
http://21stcenturymarketingonline.com

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Permalink Reply by Ryan Gold on September 29, 2010 at 11:00am

Good point. Since I am only talking about a standard iPhone icon, I suppose the only ill feeling one might get is that it is taking up space on your screen. In which case you can shuffle it off to another screen, and since the release of iOS 4 you can create 'folders' to group your app icons. I found that I created one for 'food' and put all my food related apps in there. So now when I need the Yelp app, I go into that folder and see the apps for some of the restaurants I like to order from as well.

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Permalink Reply by Steve Tamer on May 21, 2012 at 5:31pm

Yes, our online ordering provide an app that make it easier for costumers, make it easier for us offer online ordering, Safe time, increase sales, increase revenue.

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OperatorPermalink Reply by Duessa Holscher on July 20, 2012 at 9:29am

We've worked with hundreds of restaurant owners to offer a mobile ordering app (written in html5 so it is compatible with iphone, android, blackberry etc.) which is fully integrated with their online ordering (same user experience) and their POS systems. A self-serve in-store kiosk is also an option. Finding a solutions provider who can offer all the technology pieces under one roof (POS, online, mobile, etc.) greatly simplifies the integration questions and gives you a consistent customer experience across your brand. Integration with POS is critical as it ensures that orders get processed correctly and efficiently, and that reporting is consistent. www.granburyrs.com

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Permalink Reply by Ola Ayeni on September 3, 2012 at 10:56am

Restaurant websites does not need an app. Have people heart of html 5. How many apps would you like to add to your phone ? Every restaurant you attend ?

Does not make sense.

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Permalink Reply by john haden on September 12, 2012 at 1:00pm

Hi there... like everyone else on here :) we're an app developer. Seems like all of the POS companies are getting in on the gig. I think for the normal owner, taking the path of least resistance is by going thru their exsiting vendor and getting an app solution there.

It's a bummer too, because we can build an app with a lot more customizations than the POS companies offer, but at the end of the day the app just needs to be functional.

It's funny because we talk to a lot of owners... and I haven't heard a ton of positive feedback regarding ANY POS system. In fact we hear most complaints about FireFly from Granburys (sorry Granburys) but alas.. the restaurant owners are too busy to search for alternatives and just think its a big headache to change.

What we're trying to do is resell an all inclusive package to Food Trucks, because, the don't have existing POS systems. Set them up with Square and a custom mobile app. We've gotta work our on pricing model, but it's coming along!

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Non-OperatorPermalink Reply by Eric Oliver on October 30, 2012 at 11:29am

Just to chime in, I agree with Jon and Ola that an HTML5 option might be a good solution for a lot of restaurants. Restaurants should have a mobile-friendly version of their website anyway (we just did a survey that found that nearly 40% of restaurant website visitors check restaurant websites "frequently" or "always" from their mobile phone, and an even larger percentage expect restaurant sites to work on mobile). Particularly if the restaurant website is already running on a CMS like WordPress, it's really easy to create a mobile-optimized version of the site that looks and feels very much like a native iPhone app. So to me, doing the app in HTML5 kills two birds with one stone - it addresses the issue of making sure your actual website is mobile-optimized, and can also function in an app environment.

A lot of the "build it online, pay a monthly fee" app services actually use HTML5 as the foundation for their apps anyway (which are compiled for the iPhone using PhoneGap or something similar).

(Full disclosure: we are a web development agency, so I may be biased toward web solutions, but in this scenario it really does seem like a good way to handle it :D )