How to Solve Food Delivery Problems: Tips and Tricks for a Profitable Restaurant

Allowing clients to place online orders at your restaurant will surely increase your profit and the number of new and returning customers. But providing a delivery service comes with countless challenges you must overcome if you want a successful business that stands the test of time.

How to solve food delivery problems at a restaurant? In this article, you will find the most common problems encountered by restaurants that take online orders. Plus, easy and fast-to-implement solutions for each of them.

Problem 1: Employees sometimes get the orders wrong

If you still take your orders by phone, you must be prepared for a variety of errors that lead to unhappy customers. For example:

• When the phone rings, your employees might not be available to answer it so you will lose orders;
• The staff may hear the desired menu items wrong and deliver dishes the customer has not ordered;
• Your team may misunderstand the address and the client will be very unhappy when their order doesn’t arrive;
• With no system to organize orders, you may forget about some of them.

How to solve food delivery problems related to order errors:

How can I make my food delivery better? To ensure you offer the best restaurant customer service possible and make your work easier, you need an online ordering system to streamline the ordering process.

The online ordering system from GloriaFood is the best solution for your online food delivery business because it will make ordering and processing orders a breeze.

Clients will be able to order online directly on your website, from your dedicated app, or through social media in just a few clicks. Afterward, all you need to see and manage your orders is the intuitive order-taking app.

Immediately after a customer places an order, you will be notified in the app. You will then be able to accept it and offer an estimated time of arrival.

This eliminates errors because the orders reach the team responsible for preparing them immediately. There are no other intermediaries that could make mistakes. You will also be able to see all orders at a glance, so you don’t miss out on big-value orders.

Problem 2: The staff struggles with managing multiple devices for online orders

When you decide to extend your restaurant business online, you are faced with a hard choice: should you take care of the delivery part or rely on third-party food delivery apps?

If you choose the second option, you risk blending in with your competition and not attracting enough new clients. You may also be tempted to be on multiple food delivery platforms. Each may require a separate device to handle the orders.

The employees that are responsible for managing the online orders may get overwhelmed trying to pay attention to each device and then handing the orders to the right delivery people. Not to mention, the commissions and fees you will have to pay for their service will eat into your profit.

How to solve food delivery problems related to order management:

When you search for how to solve food delivery problems, money is surely a big factor.

Why spend your money on a service that makes the work harder for your employees when you could use the free ordering system from GloriaFood? You can accept an unlimited number of orders with no commissions or fees.

All you need to manage your online orders is a smart device on which you can download the order-taking app for either iOS or Android. You can see all the orders and accept them as soon as they arrive.

You can also automatically print the accepted orders directly from the app. That way, the kitchen can get onto preparing it in no time.

Problem 3: Clients find the ordering process complicated

When you are searching for how to solve food delivery problems, the customers’ experience should be your priority. Your restaurant’s success is directly proportional to your client’s satisfaction.

Lately, we observe a trend where people prefer less social interaction when they have to order something, be it food, clothes, or other items. Why should they have to make the effort to place a call when they can have what they want with just a few clicks?

We all have busy lives, and we enjoy convenience. Are customers having a hard time placing an order from your restaurant because they must do it by phone or they can’t find the order button online? That may lead to them choosing to order from the competition.

How to solve food delivery problems related to the ordering process:

Forget about phone ordering and let your clients place orders online, with no unnecessary human interaction. Furthermore, try to place the menu & order button in a visible place on your website, where clients will immediately see it.

If you don’t already have a website, you can generate a sales and SEO-optimized one from our online ordering system. Just go to admin -> Setup -> Publishing -> Sales optimized website and create your restaurant’s online location in under 10 minutes.

Check out this demo website to see how well the “See Menu & Order button” is placed. It is slightly bigger than other elements, in another color, and placed above the fold. That way, potential clients can’t miss it.

You can go a step further to offer clients an easy ordering experience by getting your own branded app. This will work just like any native app that customers have to download and can order with just a few taps on the screen. To get it, go to admin -> Setup -> Publishing -> Branded mobile app.

Problem 4: Customers are deterred by an incorrect online menu

Imagine this situation: a hungry client takes time out of their busy day to browse your menu, choose what they want to eat, and place an order. They are eagerly waiting for their order. However, they receive a call from the restaurant to let them know the main dish from their order is out of stock.

Or, even worse, they receive an incomplete order without the menu items that were out of stock at the restaurant. How do you think they will react?

Not only will they be disappointed, but they may also never return to your restaurant. They will probably also tell other people about how dissatisfied they were with their experience, leading to negative reviews.

How to solve food delivery problems related to menu inconsistencies:

To prevent these kinds of situations, you need to use an online menu creator that allows you to customize the menu with a variety of options.

You’re in luck because our online ordering system is equipped with an intuitive menu maker that makes it easy to create a mouth-watering menu full of attractive pictures and enticing descriptions.

Furthermore, it enables you to mark menu items as “Out of stock” when you run out of ingredients, so clients aren’t disappointed they don’t receive what they ordered.

But that’s not all, you can also add food allergen information and nutritional values, you can allow clients to personalize their orders with Choices and Add-ons, you can create a different menu for each day, and much more.

Problem 5: Clients are unhappy with the food packaging

When you order food, you expect it to arrive to you in the same state you would enjoy it in the restaurant. But that’s not always the case. Many people complain about receiving spilled soups, pizza with no more toppings, or decomposed burgers.

Even though the menu items are ruined during transport, your restaurant is the one that will get bad reviews.

How to solve food delivery problems related to packaging:

The solution is to invest in hermetic packaging that will keep your food safe until it reaches the customers. It is better to spend more money on this than risk getting many negative reviews that will deter other people from ordering from your restaurant.

Train your staff to use specific packaging (coolers for drinks and hot bags for hot food) so the food is ready to eat when it is delivered, without the need to reheat or cool it.

If you want to make the ordering experience more special, you can add some stickers with your branding on the packages. What’s more, you can add a restaurant discount coupon to encourage customers to order again.

Problem 6: Customers complain about late deliveries

People usually order food when they are already hungry, so they expect to receive their dishes as fast as possible. The longer they wait, the hangrier they become, and the bigger the risk they will leave you a bad review.

How to solve food delivery problems related to late deliveries:

When you give clients an estimated time of arrival, it is better to give them a later one and arrive faster than the other way around. It will be a nice surprise if your drivers get there faster than you approximated.

If you get constant complaints about late deliveries, you may need to hire more delivery people because it is obvious they have too much work and are not able to deliver the orders on time.

Problem 7: You can’t monitor your progress

How to solve food delivery problems if you don’t know you have them? Alternatively, how do you know if your business is successful if you don’t monitor your results?

Furthermore, if you are not aware of your restaurant statistics, you won’t be able to identify challenges as they arise and solve them. You risk ignoring the problems until they affect your profit, and you may not be able to come back.

How to solve food delivery problems related to restaurant statistics:

Our online ordering system has an integrated Reports module that allows you to monitor valuable restaurant statistics such as the number and value of orders, the number of new vs returning customers, the restaurant customer journey since they reach your website, and much more.

You will also get valuable advice on how to increase website visits, convince more people to order, and increase the number of loyal clients.

How to solve food delivery problems relying on efficient technology

When you are looking for the answer to how to solve food delivery problems, look no further than our online ordering system. It is an all-in-one solution for streamlining your ordering process, offering clients an unforgettable ordering experience, and monitoring your progress.

If you rely on GloriaFood, you can eliminate most food delivery problems and overcome all challenges in the industry.